Martyn Williams

A bill requiring that all smartphones sold in California contain a “kill-switch” that allows users to disable them if stolen was approved by the California Assembly.

The California bill mandates that all smartphones contain software that will allow the user to remotely wipe the phone of personal data and lock it so it cannot be used unless an unlocking code is entered.

One of the amendments made to the bill in the assembly allows for phones that were introduced prior to 2015 “that cannot reasonably be reengineered” to continue to be sold past July 1, 2015. Proponents of the bill say that it will reduce smartphone theft because thieves are much less likely to steal phones if the handsets quickly become unusable.

The smartphone kill switch appears to be on its way to every handset sold in the US so what's all the fuss about? Here's a look at the main points of the technology.

1. What is it? It's a piece of software installed in every new phone that can disable a stolen handset.
2. Why is it needed? In the last few years, the number of violent thefts of smartphones on the streets of major US cities has been rising. Some estimates say 1 in 3 thefts in the US involve a smartphone.
3. How will it work? If your phone is stolen, you or someone you have authorized will be able to call your carrier or use a website to send a "kill" signal to your phone. That signal will lock the device and, if you choose, will also delete personal data.
4. When will it begin? Minnesota's law and the proposed California legislation both mandate a kill-switch for smartphones that are both sold in those states and manufactured after July 1, 2015. Pending federal legislation says Jan 1, 2015.
5. How much will it cost? The Minnesota law and the proposed legislation in California and at the federal level mandate it must be available at no extra cost to users.
6. Do I have to have it on my phone? No. Minnesota's law says it should be installed or available for download.
7. What about Find My iPhone or Google's Android locator? Built-in tracking services can help locate a phone and wipe its memory if the phone remains online, but all too often thieves switch off a stolen phone and reinstall the operating system.
8. What's the industry doing? The industry is hoping to avoid legislation and make it a voluntary commitment. Previously, it launched a database of stolen phones that could be used to prevent them from being reused with new accounts. However, the database has limited reach outside of the US and many stolen phones are sent overseas.
9. Will it work? It's too early to tell, although some early data from New York, London and San Francisco showed significant drops in thefts of iPhones after Apple launched its kill switch.
10. So, can the government kill my smartphone? A court order is typically required, although an exception is made in an emergency that poses "immediate danger of death or great bodily injury."

The total amount of data handled by wireless carriers in the US more than doubled in 2013, an increase driven in large part by video traffic. US carriers saw 3.2 exabytes of data traffic run across their networks, the CTIA said in its annual report on the US wireless industry.

An exabyte is 10x18 bytes or, put another way, a billion gigabytes.

The figure represents a 120 percent increase from the 1.5 exabytes carried in all of 2012, the group said.

The data refers to traffic carried over licensed spectrum. With 336 million subscriptions in the US, that figure works out to an average of 801 megabytes per subscriber line per month. A large proportion of that data was video. That's an average of 563 megabytes per subscriber line per month.

US customers spent 218 billion minutes per month talking on their wireless devices, which works out to an average of 650 minutes per month per line; sent 153 billion text messages per month, or 457 messages per line; and 10 billion multimedia messages, or 30 per line.

Personal information, including Social Security numbers and call records, was accessed for an unknown number of AT&T Mobility customers by people outside of the company, AT&T has confirmed.

The breach took place between April 9-21, but was only disclosed recently in a filing with California regulators.

While AT&T wouldn't say how many customers were affected, state law requires such disclosures if an incident affects at least 500 customers in California.

"Employees of one of our service providers violated our strict privacy and security guidelines by accessing your account without authorization," the company said in a letter to affected customers. "AT&T believes the employees accessed your account as part of an effort to request codes from AT&T than are used to unlock AT&T mobile phones in the secondary mobile phone market."

Google has expanded its Project Loon tests to the Nevada desert and, for the first time, into licensed radio spectrum.

Google declined to comment on the secret trials, but a local official confirmed they are related to Project Loon, and government filings point to several recent balloon launches.

Loon is an ambitious attempt by Google to bring Internet access to vast swathes of the planet that currently have little or no connectivity. The project was unveiled last June, and Google said at the time it was experimenting with balloons flying around 20 kilometers (65,000 feet) above the Earth, using radio links in an unlicensed portion of the spectrum at around 2.4GHz.

Google’s application didn’t say exactly which wireless technology it planned to use, but it did disclose the broad type of signal: a class that includes LTE, WiMax and other point-to-point microwave data transmission systems. That clue, coupled with the use of paired spectrum, points to the likelihood of LTE.