Sony Ericsson announces today that it has been appointed the Official Mobile Phone Handset of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.

“We are very excited about this announcement. At Sony Ericsson we feel we are uniquely placed to be a champion of football fans worldwide, using the marketing and promotional rights this agreement grants us to make Sony Ericsson handsets and accessories an integral part of the fan experience. Our role in football will be to use our sponsorship to innovate the experience of fans and give them greater access to football,” said Lennard Hoornik, Corporate Vice President and Head of Global Marketing

[via Sony Ericsson Press Release]

The PlayNow Plus service is due to launch commercially with operator Telenor in Sweden in Q4 of this year, with further roll-outs around the world beginning in early 2009.

Sony Ericsson W902 Walkman phone will be the first special edition handset to feature integrated support for the new PlayNow Plus service.

“All mobile consumers want to have content on their phone, but many find the experience difficult, slow and time consuming,” said Lennard Hoornik, Corporate Vice President and Head of Marketing at Sony Ericsson. “With PlayNow™ plus, there will be no more barriers, we’re giving consumers the freedom to instantly discover, download, play and recommend all the music they want—anytime, anywhere.”

– From Sony Ericsson

The price of the PlayNow Plus service is not yet known.

This video, for the Eskimohunter’s Surfing at 32ºF, was filmed only with Nokia N93, N93i and N95 by director Mike Hodgkinson and premiered at the Hollywood Hill BigBrain Summit on Friday, September 12.

“Each of the Nokia Nseries devices I used was perfectly suited to the kind of experimental, ‘out-there’ shots I wanted to capture for ‘Surfing at 32ºF’. For example, as a highly compact slider, the Nokia N95 slotted neatly into the customized pouch I attached to my fishing-line monorail, while the flip-out screens on the Nokia N93 and N93i allowed me to cover the lens with DIY color filters quickly and easily,” said Hodgkinson. “Everything I imagined, the Nokia Nseries devices let me create. I really wanted to push the Nokia equipment to its limits, and each responded brilliantly. I’ve taken Nseries devices underwater, attached them to helium balloons and dangled them 100 feet above the Los Angeles River . . . and I’ve never lost a shot.”

“Surfing at 32ºF,” the second video directed and shot by Hodgkinson using Nokia Nseries devices, continues to stretch the capabilities of Nokia’s high-end mobile devices. Hodgkinson chose to use only the Nokia N93, Nokia N93i and Nokia N95 as his arsenal to shoot the music video, as well as a “behind the scenes” video – all three of which feature top of class Carl Zeiss optics and a variety of on-device editing capabilities.

- From Nokia Press Release

Nokia Comes With Music on the 5310 XpressMusic will soon be launched, first in the United Kingdom.

The Nokia 5310 XpressMusic music phone is expected to ship next month. First announced last December, this service is to compete with Apple’s wildly successfull iPhone store, and it packages mobile phones with a year of unlimited access to tracks in the Nokia Music store catalog (includes some major labels such as Sony BMG, Universal Music and Warner Music) and the ability to keep all downloaded tracks even after the year is over, according to Nokia.

The cost of the Nokia’s Comes With Music is included in the price of the phone. After your free year expires you then have to pay a monthly subscription fee to retain the service. Or buy a new Nokia phone, costing $200-$600. You will be able keep all downloaded tracks after the year is over.

Apple Inc. recently invited analysts and members of the media to its Cupertino headquarters for an event March 6 to announce Software Development Kit (SDK) for its much anticipated iPhone and iPod touch.

“Please join us to learn about the iPhone software roadmap, including the iPhone SDK and some exciting new enterprise features,” the company wrote in a digital invite distributed by email.

All this fuss is coming only two days after Apple released the iPhone 1.1.4 firmware version, a firmware update that came with nothing spectacular and that featured only a list of bug fixes with no mention of new included features. This might just be the thing that announces a future (March 6) iPhone update to contain “some exciting new enterprise features”… Or not… We will just have to wait and see what the invitation-only iPhone Software Roadmap event will bring.

[via Reuters & Softpedia]

The Abilene Christian University (ACU), a private university from Texas, affiliated with the Churches of Christ will provide free iPhones and free iPod Touches to all its freshmen from the fall of 2008.

“We are not merely providing cutting-edge technology tools to our incoming students,” said Kevin Roberts, ACU Chief Information Officer. “We are also providing the web applications that ensure these tools will become critical to the students’ learning experience. Because 93 percent of ACU students bring their own computers with them to college, we are choosing to take them to the next level by providing converged mobile devices.”
[via softpedia]

According to Robert X. Cringely, Samsung will release two Android-powered handsets, one in September, and the other after Christmas. Both of the high end models look like Blackberry Pearl, have built-in WiFi and might actually come with a built-in VoIP client.
[via Engadget & PBS.ORG]

Apple’s iPhone has not been officially released in China yet, however, there are more than 400,000 unlocked iPhones used in China according to In-Stat, a global market research company. The number is about 10% of the total number of iPhones sold by Apple world-wide until now.
[via softpedia]

Google offered a customized iGoogle homepage for iPhone users. This special iGoogle edition allows iPhone users to access their gadgets and feeds while on the go, it also can be accessed from outside the US. You can access iGoogle for iPhone here.

[via softpedia]