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(InfoWorld) - Efforts to unlock Apple's iPhone continued on Monday, with hackers claiming "very significant progress."

The locked iPhone only works with AT&T's EDGE network, and cannot be used with cellular service from other providers. Locked phones are generally used to help operators recoup the cost of subsidizing handsets for their customers, but AT&T is not subsidizing the iPhone, which is priced at either $499 or $599, depending on the model. Instead, the phone is locked because AT&T has a five-year agreement with Apple to be the sole iPhone provider in the U.S.

Unlocking the iPhone would be a boon for users locked into a contract with another U.S. carrier, or for users outside the U.S. who want an iPhone. While initial signs indicate an unlocked iPhone is possible, hackers must first overcome several challenges. One of those involves circumventing the authentication process in iTunes that both lets users register for an AT&T service plan and turn on the phone's features, including its camera and music player.

By Monday evening, U.S. time, hackers had made headway towards circumventing the activation process. But the phone remained locked at the time of writing.

"We have been fairly successful in spoofing iTunes activation processes. This should allow us to activate the phone," poster gj wrote on the iPhone Dev Wiki, one of several Web sites tracking efforts to unlock the phone. "It may in fact also prevent the SIM locking from occurring in the first place ... though we haven't verified this yet."

These advances allowed hackers to set and read data on the iPhone, including the ability to query whether a phone has been activated. "The rest of our work is legwork really, in understanding how certain functions operate with the rest of the phone," the site said, adding hackers are close to the ability to browse system files on the iPhone, a key step toward unlocking the handset.

Once the activation problem has been overcome, hackers will be faced with other questions. For instance, does iTunes have the ability to recognize a phone that was not activated for use with the AT&T network? If so, how will iTunes react?

After these questions are resolved, hackers can focus on unlocking the handset itself. That task is made easier by the iPhone's use of a removable SIM (Subscriber Identity Module), a smart card that contains a user's phone number as well as storage space for contacts and messages, instead of one that was hardwired into the phone. The use of a removable SIM card means the iPhone is locked using its firmware, which can likely be cracked.

While hackers race ahead to unlock the iPhone as quickly as possible, iPhone Dev Wiki poster gj criticized those hackers competing against each other to unlock the phone, saying the lack of cooperation had slowed progress.

"I can't emphasize enough how much this s*** stinks. Trust me, your ego is not as important as you think it is. If everyone worked together we would have been done by now, but instead we have a******* all over the world trying to 'beat us to the punch,'" the poster wrote.

(InfoWorld) - Microsoft has achieved a small victory in its effort to make Open XML an open technology standard. Massachusetts, the U.S. state that has mandated the use of open technology formats in its government agencies, has put the specification on its list of possible standards that can be used for documents, according to a document on its Web site.

The current 4.0 version of the state's Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM) -- a framework defining where standards will be used and which ones are permissible -- lists Ecma-376 Office Open XML Formats (Open XML) as an acceptable "open format." The state is adding Open XML to a short list that also includes OASIS Open Document Format For Office Applications (ODF) v. 1.1, the current version of the rival standard supported by IBM, Sun Microsystems, and others.

Bethann Pepoli, acting CIO for Massachusetts, said Monday that Open XML was added to the list because it now meets the commonwealth's criteria for an open standard, which requires that formats "are publicly available and are developed by an open community and affirmed by a standards body." Massachusetts has been releasing a revision to the ETRM every six months, and in December when the last version was released Open XML had only recently been approved by Ecma and did not have the required industry support, she said.

Massachusetts residents have until July 20 to comment on the current draft of the ETRM.

Microsoft submitted Open XML to Ecma International in November 2004, and the standards organization has approved a final version of the specification. The International Organization for Standards (ISO) is expected to vote on the Ecma version of Open XML later this year. ODF already has been approved by the ISO as an international technology standard.

In a statement through its public-relations firm Monday, Microsoft applauded the addition of Open XML to the Massachusetts list, saying it gives users "the ability to choose the open file format standard that best serves their needs." When Microsoft submitted Open XML to Ecma, the company said it was in part to make the document format Microsoft developed in house for its Office 2007 suite a more viable option for governments and other institutions that are beginning to standardize only on technology formats that are available for anyone to use.

But critics -- mainly those who support ODF as in favor of Open XML as the standard for documents -- have complained that Microsoft has been too controlling when it comes to the Ecma standards process, ensuring the technology it submitted as a "standard" looked the way Microsoft wanted it to at the end of the approval process. And since the company didn't allow third parties to create implementations of Open XML before it was submitted, critics say Microsoft has misused the standards process, which is meant to be more open.

One of those most outspoken critics, IBM's Vice President of Open Source and Standards Bob Sutor, Monday spoke out in favor of Massachusetts decision to let its residents review Open XML alongside other formats. However, he took a dig at Microsoft with a reminder that the ETRM is still only in draft form and that opposition remains to the state's decision to use Open XML as a standard.

(InfoWorld) - The ability to view and upload videos to YouTube is coming to some LG Electronics cellphones later this year.

The service will allow users to shoot video on their handsets and send it directly to the popular online video site, LG said in a statement. The first phones with the ability to do this will be available worldwide "at the end of the year."

LG already has links with YouTube parent company Google. In March this year the two companies agreed to put various Google services on some models of LG cellphones. The first handset with such features, the LG-KS10, was launched in Italy in April and comes with Google search, Gmail for mobile, and Google Maps for mobile preinstalled.

But the deal is far from exclusive. LG also inked a similar agreement with Google rival Yahoo to put that company's services on some handsets. Specifically, LG will install Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Messenger on some handsets.

In some cases where the cellular carrier buys phones from LG and co-brands them, the software and features installed on the handset are decided by the carrier. In these cases phones might carry none of the Google or Yahoo applications.

YouTube launched a version of its service formatted for cellphones and other mobile devices earlier this year.