Rhapsody, the digital love-child of Real Networks and MTV, is best known for its DRM'd subscription music service. As such, the globe's population of sheep-white-earbudded, sidewalk zombies have been completely off limits to its charms. Until today. While its DRM'd subscription deals remain in place, Rhapsody is now offering unprotected MP3 downloads via its Rhapsody MP3 store and via partners including Verizon's VCAST over-the-air service and Yahoo. We're talking 5 million DRM-free tracks (generally priced at $0.99 per song, $9.99 per album) from Indies and the four majors. Uniquely, all tracks can be previewed in full before downloading. Rhapsody VP, Neil Smith said, "We're no longer competing with the iPod, we're embracing it." Perhaps, but Rhapsody's planned $50 million marketing assault on iTunes with the help of MTV's TV networks doesn't exactly make them best of friends. We're not DRM-free across the industry yet (in fact, far from it), but things are certainly moving in that direction.

Update: Signup now with the Rhapsody MP3 store and get a $10 credit which can be applied to your first album.

[Via Reuters]

In a Harris Interactive survey of 2,030 US adults of whom, 1,778 have actually flown in an airplane, a full three quarters say that cellphone usage on airplanes should be restricted to "non-talking features." In other words, email, texting, and surfing the Web. That's a pretty significant majority seeing as how the EC has cleared the way for calls within European airspace. 69% of consumers agreed that if voice calls are permitted, a special "talking zone" should be established so that other passengers are not interrupted. While the survey reflects our own opinions, take note that the results benefit sites like Yahoo! Mobile, the very company which commissioned the survey. It's also worth highlighting a comment made by a certain Miss Teen, South Carolina who said, "That some US Americans should be unable to do so, because, uh, some-a people out there in our nation don't have cellphones, and such as, maps." Good point.

We've heard a lot of talk from Hop-on, makers of all those cheap cellphones that never seem to go anywhere, but the company may have bitten off a little more than it can chew with its latest trademark registration filings for "YahooPhone" and "YPhone." Yep, that's right -- those names bring to mind any massive consumer-oriented companies that might not be happy? Oh, right. There's been some speculation that Hop-on is actually developing a phone for Yahoo!, since it has some deals in place with AT&T and Verizon, but it's pretty unlikely the company is also in charge of branding to the point where it's registering trademarks. No, our guess is that someone's hoping that the folks up in Sunnyvale are a little too distracted by the clumsy advances of one Mr. Ballmer to keep track of a little thing like potentially infringing trademark registrations -- yeah, we don't think that's going to work out so well for you, guys.

[Via Trademork]

Read - YahooPhone filing
Read - YPhone filing

Yahoo's been taking it's mobile strategy pretty seriously over the course of the past couple years, having zoomed through two revisions of its Go portal app on multiple platforms. They've officially unveiled yet another major version today -- 3.0, to be exact -- featuring a new icon view (in addition to the old-school carousel view) and support for widgets. Widgets, you say? Yep, that's the real meat of today's announcements: Yahoo has opened the floodgates to third party development with its Mobile Developer Platform, promising a future rich with widgets that'll plug into Go and make it even meatier than it already is. eBay, MTV, and MySpace have already crafted widgets for the platform, too, so it's a promising start. Yahoo! Go 3.0 is available now for a wide variety of S60 and BlackBerry devices, and we're guessing that Windows Mobile will be following on shortly.

Read - Yahoo! Go 3.0
Read - Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform

There's something not quite right about this ad for Nokia's N95 spotted on Yahoo! today. For what it's worth, clicking it takes you to Nokia USA's page for the North American N95 -- but first of all, the phone here doesn't look exactly like an N95. Yeah, it obviously is, but what's up with the weird edges? Secondly, there is no such thing as a North American N95 8GB (yet), calling into question the "8gb expandable memory" touted here. Third, if this is an N95 8GB, why isn't it black, and why is the memory called expandable when it's not? We figure Nokia's just trying to advertise the plain old N95-3 here, but golly, let's try to execute a slightly cleaner ad campaign next time, okay, guys?

Among a host of other improvements getting rolled out to Yahoo Mail this week comes this little gem: integrated support for SMS. Already having supported email and chat directly from the Mail client itself, text messaging seems like a logical jump, offering users the capability to fire up a text conversation with little more than a phone number and a few lines of text (remember, keep it brief!). Initially available to folks in the US, Canada, India, and the Philippines, the service should do a fine job of burning through hundreds of your closest friends' text messaging plans -- a solid reason to start upgrading to those unlimited packages that carriers are starting to push, we reckon.

Don't believe everything you see, while the "coming soon" logos are still plastered all over the device pics on the Yahoo GO 2.0 compatibility site, clicking through will get you to the goods. Yahoo's finally rolling out for all the Windows Mobile 5 -- and it does seem to work on Windows Mobile 6 pro, too -- for all you folks out there that are in need of Yahoo! search, push mail, Flickr, stocks, weather, and such. Install is a breeze, select your phone model, enter your number, and an SMS will arrive with a link to download the software. Follow the read link to get yourself started.

[Thanks, Tech Luver]

Samsung's Ultra Edition II lineup is about to receive a Yahoo-approved makeover, as the firm has reportedly decided to install Yahoo! Ready on the 10.9 (SGH-U600) slider to begin with, with the Ultra Edition 9.6 and Ultra Edition 5.9 to get internally branded soon after. Essentially, users can expect "enhanced web-searching along with quick access to Yahoo Mail, Messenger, Address Book and Calendar services while on the go." Of course, this isn't the first time we've seen Yahoo widgets on a cellphone, and it seems like Samsung's lagging a bit behind Motorola's decision to pull this same stunt months ago, but if you just can't wait to get your hands on a Yahoo-stamped handset, the 10.9 should hit France before too long, while the 9.6 and 5.9 will launch in May. [Warning: Read link requires subscription]

We've all been there -- you need to get in contact with your friends; they're not answering their phones. You know they're online, but you need to have an actual voice conversation. Well, rejoice, our frustrated friends -- for Nimbuzz plans to bridge the gap between instant messaging and cellphones. Its currently-in-beta (no surprise there), free-to-download app supports "more than 500 [Java-enabled] mobile devices" and allows you to call and initiate voice chats with your buddies on Google Talk and MSN / Windows Live Messenger. In addition to keeping you on top of your online friends, it lets you make international calls to other cellphones at local rates, so long as whomever you are calling also has Nimbuzz installed on their device. Besides that, you also get free text messaging and the ability to have Group Calls with up to five buddies on your contact list regardless of how they are connected, and Nimbuzz says it is currently working on getting your AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! and Skype friends into the mix. Now that you know, we hope you don't mind as we run and make a few overdue calls to our pals across the pond and in the far East.

A cornerstone of Ed Zander's keynote address this morning centered around Yahoo's exploits in the mobile space. Its first serious foray, Go for Mobile, wasn't really much of a game-changer in either of its major flavors (Windows Mobile and S60) for a simple reason: the app wasn't much more than a thin facade over a handful of Yahoo WAP sites. That's all good, though -- it's coming back strong with version 2.0, and this time, it looks like there's a little more special sauce mixed in. Yahoo's working closely with Motorola to deliver Go 2.0 out of the gate (hence the keynote tie-in), which we get the impression will find its way onto many of Motorola's upcoming models before they even leave the factory. Unlike the first version, Go 2.0 looks like it provides a fairly rich experience, partially thanks to integration with Yahoo's also-announced "oneSearch" mobile search. The system attempts to provide the user with "answers" rather than simply a series of links -- relevant content that is related to the search terms like stock prices, weather, and movie times, much of which can be integrated with a device's location-based services to provide local results as well. Though the beta is available as of today on a good number of devices, Yahoo is definitely playing up the Motorola angle, peppering its website with shots of the HSDPA-capable V3xx and V6 maxx models. Look for the compatibility list to expand significantly over the course of the year, and with the V3xx getting hyped like this, we wouldn't be surprised to see Cingular's rendition of it roll out any minute now.

Sprint-Nextel (the company that has one messaging problem after another) has introduced a new combined email client for several of its current phones. With Mobile Email, Sprint customers can access their AOL, Windows Live, and Yahoo! accounts from their handsets. Mobile Email will also be able to add access to other POP3 and IMAP accounts, allow users to set up alerts when new mail arrives, and compose and save email for later use even when they are out of coverage. With this being a zero cost application to download, Sprint is hoping to increase users' dependency for mobile data which will drive other application downloads. Don't be too worried that Gmail didn't make the list of included clients as the POP support should have you covered.

Well, it looks like that WSJ rumor we ran yesterday was pretty much spot on. Cingular is indeed launching a music service today, and we must say the scope of their undertaking is quite impressive: integration with three separate music stores, along with supplemental content aplenty. For starters, a Cingular Music phone can work with Napster to add subscription tracks from your computer with a $15 a month Napster To Go account, and you can also access the new Napster Mobile, which allows 30 second previews and song purchases, but it looks like the songs are only downloaded to your PC, and will be transferred to your phone later. The good news is that those tracks only cost $0.99, quite a bargain compared to most current mobile services, but of course you're not paying for those hefty data charges, and you're not getting the track right when you want it. The Yahoo! Music offering is quite similar to that of Napster, with $12 a month buying unlimited subscription track usage, but phone-based song purchases still being downloaded to the PC, for syncing with your phone later. There doesn't seem to be much of a mobile slant to eMusic's DRM-free MP3 offerings, just added integration with Cingular, and 50 free tracks with the purchase of a W810i or W300i. A free 60-day trial of Napster is also available to Cingular customers. Cingular says all of this music store integration is "allowing consumers to extend their existing music libraries not rebuild them," but the lack of mobile song purchasing straight to a handset seems to sort of miss the point. But wait, there's more! Cingular is also announcing 25 channels of XM radio for $9 a month, that MusicID song identification service we mentioned yesterday, Music Videos, and all sorts streaming music and music related content. Cingular music will be supported by the upcoming Cingular SYNC (Samsung A707), along with the LG CU500, Cingular 3125 and those two Sony Ericssons we already told you about. All this should be going down November 6-ish.

According to The Wall Street Journal, those in the know are predicting Cingular to announce a music service for its cellphone network as early as tomorrow. It seems that despite rampant rumoring of an iPhone and related wireless iTunes service, Cingular is taking things into its own hands -- with a little help from Napster, Yahoo and eMusic. Initially the service will just involve rolling out PlaysForSure functionality to handsets so that they can play subscription tracks from the major non-Apple music services, but Cingular is also planning a wireless music store with pay-per-track and all-you-can-eat offerings. The phones will also purportedly feature Cingular's "Music ID" tech that will allow a user to hold the phone up to a speaker and have the song playing automatically matched with the Napster database and available for purchase. Of course, there's enough room in the world for more than one music service, and right now it appears Cingular is fine with squeezing both Apple and the PFS onto its network. The word is that (as rumored) Apple and Cingular have signed a deal to co-develop an iPhone, and the same article predicts a January launch at the Macworld Expo. Apple also has recently been awarded a phone-related speech recognition system that adds even more fuel to the fire. Being the seasoned iPhone rumor-mongers we are, we'll take all of these reports with a few grains of salt and sit back to see what actually happens.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read - Cingular to announce music service [Thanks, Maurice]
Read - Apple and Cingular forge iPhone deal [Thanks, Ben]

We, of course, can't speak for Yahoo -- but if we had to guess, we'd imagine they're at least a little bit perturbed at Nokia right about now. Just under two weeks after announcing a partnership with the search company to include Yahoo! Search in its Mobile Search application, Nokia's now announced a similar deal with Microsoft, which'll see Windows Live Search find a home alongside Yahoo in the mobile search platform. Them's the breaks of the cut-throat search biz, we guess. Hard feelings aside, if you choose the Live Search route you'll get stock quotes, movie times, and results from Encarta Instant Answers in addition to search results in 14 languages -- the idea being that you can access all that info faster than you could using a web browser. Look for it come pre-loaded on Nokia Nseries handhelds, with a free download already available from Nokia's website for compatible Nokia S60 devices.

[Via Slashphone]