ReadWriteWeb

It appears that Verizon is starting to block hotspot tethering for consumers using jailbroken devices without data plans. A ReadWriteWeb employee using a jailbroken tethered Verizon Motorola X without a data plan was sent to this page outlining Verizon's hotspot data plans today when trying to access a hotspot. This is a new development, since the employee used her jailbroken device as a hotspot two days ago.

The move from Verizon comes the day after AT&T started moving jailbroken hotspot users without data plans involuntarily to tiered data plans. Verizon hotspot plans start at $20 for 2 GB of data when added to a data plan of $29.99 or more. Every GB after the 2 GB threshold is an additional $20. The move corresponds with U.S. carriers closing loopholes in their pricing structures to maximize revenue from data as voice and text messaging revenue decreases.

It's the perfect Kickstarter success story: designer Scott Wilson posts a project to the crowdfunding website: designs for two iPod Nano watchbands - TikTok and LunaTik. The idea takes off, breaking almost every record on Kickstarter, including most funds raised ($941,718) and most backers (13,512). And now Apple announces its plans to begin carrying the designs in North American stores.

As Wilson points out in a recent interiew, his design for the watchbands really "gave the Nano a home." It also gave consumers a reason to wear a stylishly techy watch and a reason to buy an iPod Nano - an Apple device that seemed to be lost in the shuffle (no pun intended) of iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. In fact, according to a survey of the Kickstarter project's backers, over three-quarters of those who pledged actually had to purchase a Nano in order to use the watchband.

If yesterday's announcement of the Verizon iPhone and its promise to be able to generate a Wi-Fi hotspot for up to five mobile devices is the thing that has you contemplating a switch to the carrier, then you might want to wait. Boy Genius Report says that a source tells it that this feature will be coming to all iPhones in iOS 4.3.

Of course, this will likely require carrier support, so AT&T users still might not benefit.

Feel like hacking your phone today? If you've got about 10 minutes to spare, you can turn your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot using a combination of the latest "jailbreaking" software and an app called MyWi. The app takes your iPhone's 3G data connection and shares it out so other computers can connect to it as if it's just another Wi-Fi network. You can even share your 3G connection with your iPad, if you'd like.

Connectify.me is a new service we just found out about. They've sussed out how to make any Windows 7 computer into a WiFi hotspot. Since we just installed Windows 7 on a spare laptop, we figured it was about time to make Windows do something cool, so we installed the app.

We were quite literally up and running with other devices connected in five minutes. In fact, this post is being published right now on a Connectify.me-powered connection. Windows 7 users have got to try this app. You never know when you'll get to save the day by letting other users share your Internet connection.