Nothing like a pair of high-brow Europeans slapping each other in the streets, huh? In response to Nokia's forthcoming Comes with Music service, Sony Ericsson is confirming rumors by announcing a competing unlimited music download service dubbed Play Now Plus. The service, which will be available "solely through telecoms operators," will provide subscribers with access to millions of tunes, and customers can even keep up to 300 jams after their 6- to 18-month contract expires. According to SE's marketing head Lennard Hoornik, it'll be rockin' on Telenor within a few weeks, and it will spread from Sweden into more of Western Europe in Q1 2009 and into other world markets in Q2 2009. We're told that the service will run early adopters 99 Swedish crowns ($15) per month, and so far as we can tell, you don't have to have a specific SE phone to get in on the action.

Feel that heat, Touch Pro? That's right -- the Great QWERTY Smartphone War of 2008 is officially gearing up for kickoff now that Sony Ericsson has announced a firm date for the first handful of lucky countries to be scoop up the mighty XPERIA X1. Sweden, Germany, and the UK will be the inaugural launch sites come September 30, with no fewer than 32 more on tap in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America for the fourth quarter of the year. North America, China, Australia, and Russia are also listed as committed launch regions, though dates for those will be announced "in the coming months" -- scary verbiage considering that they weren't even willing to slap the Q4 label there. 2009's a long way off yet, and if there's a Touch Pro in front of us... well, let's just say that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, if you catch our drift.

There's been a lot of discussion lately about iPhone 3G reception issues. Whether they exist or not is largely irrelevant in a world dominated by sound-bite driven perceptions. Nevertheless, some industrious Swedes decided to apply a little scientific method to the argument and found something interesting: the iPhone 3G performed just as well (or just as poorly, depending upon your mood) as a Nokia N73 and Sony Ericsson P1 when compared head-to-head in a mobile communications test chamber. The test was conducted by real-life antenna engineers just like those camera-fumbling souls contracted by the FCC. Of course, who's going to let a few facts stand in the way of contrary opinion and litigation, eh?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Ok ok, we hear you tipsters, iPhone now official for Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia "later this year" thanks to a deal between Apple and TeliaSonera. At this point, only The Netherlands seems to be out of the loop in Europe.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

When we first read the headlines, we thought those crazy Swedes had gone and produced a huge phone with an e-ink display capable of rendering the local news. Then we started thinking about what such a phone would look like, what capabilities it would have, how you would use basic phone functions with such a slow-rendering display, and we came to the conclusion that it wasn't a very good idea. Well, good news: we were totally off base. What Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter has actually done is partner with Nokia to produce a special version of the 6120 candybar with a dedicated "DN" button for heading straight to the rag's mobile site. We don't think it's that compelling of a feature, but locals apparently disagree; the paper said that immediately after launch, it "received so many calls that our switchboard broke down." The days of the printed newspaper may still be numbered, but it looks like adapting to the mobile-wielding minions might save 'em after all.

In reality, it's probably best when two feuding companies decide to put their differences aside and move forward, but it's certainly a lot less fun. Nevertheless, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have reportedly inked a cross-licensing agreement on patents, which "allows the two companies to use each other's patents covering second-generation and third-generation wireless technology." Additionally, the deal requires that both firms withdraw all patent-related lawsuits filed against each other, and while "additional details" surrounding the exact terms were left undisclosed, we can now safely lay to rest all those outstanding 2G / 3G battles between the two outfits -- and wait for new quarrels to begin, of course.

Following through on a promise to launch ahead of the iPhone juggernaut, Britain's Omnifone has officially gone live with its MusicStation all-you-can-eat mobile music service. The first rollout is on Sweden's Telenor, offering up unlimited downloads for a "small weekly fee" -- and what's more, data fees are built into the fee which should help alleviate the paranoia of bankruptcy-causing overages from creeping onto subscribers' bills. The service smacks of existing subscription music services; subscribers can download and listen to tracks 'til they're blue in the face, and they simply stop working if service is canceled. The key difference, of course, is that this is the first such service to squarely target phones. Following the Telenor launch, Omnifone looks to go live with a number of other European and Asian operators, though they've got no plans to crack the tough US nut for the time being.

[Thanks, Clemens M.]

Although providers around the globe have been doing away with those pesky roaming charges for some time now, not everyone has the luxury of yapping anywhere without a care in the world, but at least those loyal 3 customers out there can now. The newly-unveiled "3 Like Home" plan allows 3 customers to travel abroad and not face roaming charges when dialing out or receiving a call in a nation that 3 covers, which includes Hong Kong, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, the UK, Austria, Denmark, and Italy. Furthermore, SMS, video calling, and data services will be filed under the same principle, meaning no roaming fees altogether when using your mobile in a coverage area. Notably, the company states that users will still "face higher charges if they roam onto a non-3 network," but hopes that "the European Commission will be successful in reducing these wholesale charges, which will allow price reductions for customers roaming between different operators within Europe." We wonder if they can take a hint?

[Via MobileBurn]

We've already seen an influx of hybrid vehicles take their places in the mammoth fleet of New York City taxis, and now that the Taxi 2.0 will reportedly sport GPS tracking an built-in televisions, what else is really left to implement? Stockholm-based Ericsson has apparently seized the opportunity in using the random, perpetual motion of NYC's yellow mainstays to better itself (read: make some coin), and has recently received permission from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission to install small devices "about the size of a computer modem" into cabs in order to "feed information about signal strength and clarity to engineers." The research, which has already been completed in other areas of the world, is being conducted in the Big Apple on behalf of a yet-to-be-named carrier, and it purportedly hopes to more accurately map out dead zones in mobile phone networks. Currently, "at least one fleet" has signed up to participate, and others could join in considering the royalties that will be paid out for tagging along on those zany routes through the city. Of course, this whole system should be relatively invisible to cab riders, but a continual voice recording of furious (and disconnected) passengers could probably work equally well in pinpointing those dead spots.

[Via Textually]