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Ah, the loss of innocence. From Nerf football to Nerf rocket launcher. From lego robot to military mecha. From humble revolutionary phone to... the next Skynet?

Well, the first tiny step at least, as architects of the impending Matrix enterprising developers Rodrigo Guiterrez and Jeff Craighead have gotten full Pakbot control via the iPhone over WiFi, including live streaming video.

Speaking of video, check theirs out after the break! (Before John Conner gets to them 'natch).

China might just be getting itself some iPhones! Oh, sure, there are already tons of iPhones in China -- almost a cottage industry of them -- but this time we're talking official from Apple, no unlock needed, spiffy new iPhone 3Gs. In China.

Not from China Mobile, who's off again, off again relationship with Apple is well documented, but from competitor China Unicom. Maybe even by August!

Hen Hao!

The original iPhone 8GB launched with a hefty $599 price tag, though it dropped to $399 a short time later. Though contract details were never disclosed, some pundits and analysts have estimated that AT&T paid Apple up to $15 per month, per customer, in revenue sharing. Over the life of a 24 month contract that would be an additional $360 for a grand total of $959 (later $759) per iPhone!

As both Casey and I have discussed before, the new iPhone 3G 8GB dropped at a super-reduced price of $199, and while again no contract details have been released, it's universally believed to be carrier subsidized up front.

First came the iPod, then came the iPod Nano. Well, okay, there was the intermediary Mini, but that's neither here nor there. Eventually -- and currently -- there was -- and is -- the Nano. So it should come as no surprise that ever since Steve Jobs dropped the iPhone bomb back at Macworld 2007, people (and analysts, who may still technically be people?) have been predicting an iPhone Nano.

And now some Apple patents have been revealed which may just bring it a few technical hurdles closer to being!

Is there an iPhone on Mars?  No, not exactly.  Nor have we found little green men on Mars, either.  Although if we did, would they be toting iPhone 3Gs?  If it were up to Jobs they would (how 'bout a game of Interstellar Risk, Rene?).  Unless you've been living in a cave (a la Bin Laden), you've likely heard of NASA's recent success landing the Phoenix Mars lander.  The lander is equipped with shovel and soil analysis equipment to seek out ice, water, life, etc.

Even though iPhones aren't on Mars (yet!), you can use your iPhone to get the latest news and mission status of the Phoenix Mars lander.  Toughturtle.com,  a developer of several other iPhone web apps, has given to us the Phoenix Mars Mission web app for the iPhone.  Keep reading to learn more about this week's Tip!

The status of the TomTom GPS app may still be up in the air, but we'll still have Google Maps for turn-by-turn directions (albeit not in 3D and without voice prompts). Looks like we may to have another option, too, an AT&T-Branded "gps enabled application." So says an AT&T insider who adds that in addition to the GPS app, AT&T is also developing a "yellowpages.com mobile" app as well.

This morning I mentioned the so-called "leaked" Rogers memo, which outlined almost find-and-replace identical data plans to those AT&T is offering for the iPhone was too good to be true, and now Kevin from our sister-site Crackberry.com brings us a Rogers presentation which puts another nail in the "we hope for fair data rates" coffin:

Non-flex plan: $15 for 2MB (hitting the YouTube button once?), $25 for 4MB, $30 for 300MB, $60 for 1GB, $80 for 3GB, and $100 for 6GB?!

Flex plan: $50 for 500MB, $65 for 1GB, $85 for 3GB, and $100 for 5GB?!

(Remembering the US in $30 for UNLIMITED!)

A 5GB cap, similar to caps some European countries have put in place for the iPhone 2G is annoying enough, but charging 3.33x more money along with the cap? Outrageous.

Kevin points out that Rogers currently charges $60 for 25MB, and this is better. But being slightly less @#$%-up is not really better. Sadly, unlike Vader or the Hulk, my hatred renders me no more powerful.

I hope these aren't the iPhone rates. I hope we get something better. But this stinks to high heaven of Rogers historical behavior, and there's no better indicator of future behavior than that.

UPDATE:

Engadget Mobile is saying there will be exclusive plans for the iPhone on Rogers.

X1Zero over on the iPhone in Canada forum has posted the following under "tasty" news, based on what he claims is new Rogers training material:

Here were the prices listed for [iPhone] plans [including voice and data]: "$60, $65, $70, $75, $80, $85". What I gather from this is as long as you have at least a $30 voiceplan, you then pick your poison of either $30 or $45 iphone data, and youre golden.

Gander at the original Rogers slide in question (after the break)...

Long and loud have been the voices berating, bemoaning... begging even for some little extra bit of camera love from the iPhone. We're not even talking video here (though conflicting rumors coming out of WWDC, via TWiM, suggested Apple either thinks no one wants video, or were working on it for a future release...). We're talking about plain old, plainly old, still photography.

Nokia N95 has a Karl Zeiss 5.0 megapixel auto-focusing lens, right? Sure, it's built like a Soviet tank, but Apple could at least bump the pixel count on the measly iPhone camera, right?

Wrong!

There's a memo being circulated everywhere from TiPb's comments to some of the biggest sites on the blogsphere, that purports to contain leaked information on Rogers -- the GSM monopoly with de-facto exclusive iPhone 3G rights in Canada -- rate plans, including data rates, which have historically been a HUGE issue for Canadians.