Looks like a Wi-Fi-enable version of Apple’s iPhone is indeed headed to China–and sooner rather than later. According to a notice published by the country’s Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center, Chinese regulators have issued a network access license for an iPhone that supports “HSDPA and WAPI security mode with wireless LAN capabilities.” WAPI is China’s homegrown wireless standard.

Interestingly, photos of the approved device published by the TECC suggest it’s an iPhone 3G or 3GS, not the iPhone 4.

Evidently, Apple (AAPL) was willing to customize the device for a single market, something it’s been unwilling to do in the past. But it had very good reasons: Sales of the iPhone in China are widely believed to have been undermined by the device’s initial lack of Wi-Fi support.

With that issue remedied, sales through China Unicom could ramp up–a boon for Apple, which has targeted China as its next major geographic growth opportunity. Recall Apple COO Tim Cook’s words during a recent company earnings call.

China has been interesting. If you look at greater China which we define as mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, the iPhone units were up year-over-year over nine times. We added another 800 points of distribution in China. The revenue, we have never released this number before but I will do this in this particular case, through the first half of the fiscal year that we just completed for the six month period our revenue from greater China was almost $1.3 billion and this is up over 200 percent year-over-year. So we are well pleased with how the company is positioned to take advantage of the growth in greater China.

Most institutions or individuals who establish wireless Internet connections know how to set them up so that a log-in and password are required for access. If they decide not to do this, then the connection is open for anyone in range to use. While I suppose that an argument could be made that you should never use what you don’t pay for, I don’t think this would apply here–and I’m not even sure that I agree with the broad sentiment. Unless it is made clear to users tapping into wireless connections that they must agree to certain conditions before proceeding, they have not breached any ethical mandate by logging on in any way that they legally can.”

–The Right Thing, New York Times, Feb. 26, 2006

Wi-Fi piggybackers take note: An open wireless connection is not an open invitation. Certainly not in Michigan, anyway, where unauthorized access to a computer network, even an unrestricted one, is a crime. A Michigan man was arrested this week for using an unsecured Wi-Fi connection without its owner’s permission. Spotted checking his email from a car parked outside a local coffeehouse, Sparta resident Sam Peterson was arrested for unwittingly violating Michigan’s “Fraudulent access to computers, computer systems and computer networks” law, a felony punishable by five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

A five-year felony. Something to think about next time your neighbor’s LAN pops up on your “available networks” list. That said, as a first-time offender without a prior record, Peterson wasn’t charged with a felony, though he was fined $400 and asked to do 40 hours of community service. It seems even local prosecutors haven’t yet come to terms with the law. “This is the first time that we’ve actually charged it,” Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Lynn Hopkins told Wood TV. “Oh, we’d been hoping to dodge this bullet for a while. We had not been looking for this. We knew it would come up eventually, and we’d have to make a decision as to how to deal with it.”

Most institutions or individuals who establish wireless Internet connections know how to set them up so that a log-in and password are required for access. If they decide not to do this, then the connection is open for anyone in range to use. While I suppose that an argument could be made that you should never use what you don’t pay for, I don’t think this would apply here–and I’m not even sure that I agree with the broad sentiment. Unless it is made clear to users tapping into wireless connections that they must agree to certain conditions before proceeding, they have not breached any ethical mandate by logging on in any way that they legally can.”

–The Right Thing, New York Times, Feb. 26, 2006

Wi-Fi piggybackers take note: An open wireless connection is not an open invitation. Certainly not in Michigan, anyway, where unauthorized access to a computer network, even an unrestricted one, is a crime. A Michigan man was arrested this week for using an unsecured Wi-Fi connection without its owner’s permission. Spotted checking his email from a car parked outside a local coffeehouse, Sparta resident Sam Peterson was arrested for unwittingly violating Michigan’s “Fraudulent access to computers, computer systems and computer networks” law, a felony punishable by five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

A five-year felony. Something to think about next time your neighbor’s LAN pops up on your “available networks” list. That said, as a first-time offender without a prior record, Peterson wasn’t charged with a felony, though he was fined $400 and asked to do 40 hours of community service. It seems even local prosecutors haven’t yet come to terms with the law. “This is the first time that we’ve actually charged it,” Kent County Assistant Prosecutor Lynn Hopkins told Wood TV. “Oh, we’d been hoping to dodge this bullet for a while. We had not been looking for this. We knew it would come up eventually, and we’d have to make a decision as to how to deal with it.”

This year, that tower of babble is higher than ever, as new terms have come into being, and old ones have come to the fore. So, here’s a quick glossary of some of the current techno terms you may encounter when shopping for a computer, television, digital camera or cellphone this holiday season.

Aero: This is the graphical user interface that’s a key part of Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system, due out around Jan. 30. If you want to get the full benefit of Vista, make sure any Windows PC you buy this season is capable of running Aero. Many are not.

Antiblur: Also known as antishake or image stabilization, this is a crucial feature of digital cameras today. Because few cameras have optical viewfinders, users tend to hold them at arm’s length to frame the shot on the LCD screen. This increases the likelihood of shaking the camera. An anti-blur feature can correct that. The best antiblur technology is optical. Digital versions are less effective.

Draft N: This is a new, faster, longer-range version of the popular Wi-Fi wireless networking system, and many new Wi-Fi products are built to comply with it. It succeeds the common “G” flavor of Wi-Fi. But, there’s a catch. As the name implies, this technology is based on a draft of the forthcoming new Wi-Fi standard, to be called “N.” And the final standard could be different enough to make Draft N gear outdated in 12 to 18 months.

Dual Boot: A computer that is configured to boot, or to start up, in two different operating systems, depending on which the user chooses at any one time. The most important example of this currently is on Apple’s Macintosh computers, which now can be set up to run either the Mac operating system or Microsoft Windows using Apple’s free dual-boot software, called Boot Camp.

Dual Core: A type of microprocessor — the brain that runs a computer — which packs the equivalent of two processors into a single chip. The best known dual-core processors in consumer computers are Intel’s Core 2 Duo and Core Duo, but rival AMD also makes them. They are a good bet for most people.

Flash Player: A small-capacity digital music player, like Apple’s iPod Nano and Shuffle. These players use flash memory, a type of memory chip that behaves like a small hard disk to store music, photos and videos. Larger players, such as the full-size iPod and the new Microsoft Zune, use actual hard disks, like the ones in computers. Flash memory is also what’s inside the small memory cards used in digital cameras.

HDMI: This acronym, for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, describes a new kind of cable for hooking high-definition TVs to things like cable boxes and DVD players. It provides a high-quality digital feed, and combines both audio and video signals via a single connection. When shopping for an HDTV, make sure it has HDMI connectors on the back.

HSDPA: An awkward name for a new high-speed cellphone network being deployed in the U.S. by Cingular Wireless. Its full name is High Speed Downlink Packet Access, and it’s intended to compete with successful high-speed networks from Verizon and Sprint called EVDO, or Evolution Data Only. All of these new networks allow Internet access at about the speed of a slow home DSL line, which is a big boost for cellphones. If you care about email and Internet access on a phone, and you are using Cingular, get a phone that can handle HSDPA.

Quad Band: A cellphone that handles all four bands, or frequencies, used in various countries by wireless phone companies adhering to a world-wide standard called GSM. Examples are Cingular and T-Mobile in the U.S., and Vodafone and Orange in Europe. A quad-band phone can be used on any GSM network anywhere, so if you travel overseas a lot, you may want one.

RAW: A file format for digital photographs that is uncompressed and largely unmodified by the camera’s chips, and therefore includes every detail of the color and image. It is prized by professional photographers and serious amateurs, who look for cameras and photo software that can handle the RAW format. But it produces enormous files, so most users should ignore it and stick with the very good, very common compressed photo format, called JPEG or JPG.

Shared Memory: A computer configuration in which the video circuitry lacks its own dedicated memory and must share, or drain off, a portion of the computer’s main memory. This is common in lower-price computers. It’s fine, but it reduces the amount of memory available to the nonvideo functions of the computer, so you may want to add extra memory to a PC of this type.

WAN: Any wide-area network, such as a cellphone network, that can be used to send and receive data. It is distinguished from a LAN, or local area network, such as the wired and wireless networks deployed inside a business or home. Some computer makers use the term for the built-in cellphone modems in their laptops.

Good luck with your gift shopping. Don’t get trapped in the tower of babble.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.