The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said a warrant is required for police to access location information from a cellphone or other mobile device. The case involved the conviction of two men for armed robbery, a conviction that relied in part on cell site location information (CSLI) obtained from Sprint. The decision in U.S. v. Aaron Graham was written by Senior Judge Andre Davis for himself and for Judge Stephanie Thacker. But Thacker also issued a concurrence and Judge Diana Gribbon Motz partly dissented. “We hold that the government conducts a search under the Fourth Amendment when it obtains and inspects a cell phone user’s historical CSLI for an extended period of time,” the court ruled Wednesday. “Examination of a person’s historical CSLI can enable the government to trace the movements of the cell phone and its user across public and private spaces and thereby discover the private activities and personal habits of the user. Cell phone users have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in this information.” The 4th Circuit said cellphone location information raises bigger privacy issues than data from tracking devices in an automobile. “Quite unlike an automobile, a cell phone is a small hand-held device that is often hidden on the person of its user and seldom leaves her presence,” the court said. “Cell phone users regularly carry these devices into their homes and other private spaces to which automobiles have limited access at best.” Motz disagreed with the majority that obtaining information from a voluntarily surrendered cellphone requires a warrant. The decision did the two defendants in the case little good, saying that since the government “relied in good faith on court orders” issued in accordance with Title II of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or the Stored Communications Act, “the court’s admission of the challenged evidence must be sustained.” Thacker wrote separately of her concern "about the erosion of privacy in this era of rapid technological development." The "tension between the right to privacy and emerging technology, particularly as it relates to cell phones, impacts all Americans," she wrote. "As the march of technological progress continues to advance upon our zone of privacy, each step forward should be met with considered judgment that errs on the side of protecting privacy and accounts for the practical realities of modern life. At bottom, this decision continues a time-honored American tradition -- obtaining a warrant is the rule, not the exception." The Center for Democracy & Technology said the decision is significant. “The government compelled the disclosure of 221 days of cell phone location information, which included 26,659 location data points for one defendant and 28,410 for another,” a CDT news release said. “Unless reversed by the full 4th Circuit, the decision sets up a clear split in the circuits about the extent of protection of cell phone location information. As a result, this issue will likely require resolution by the Supreme Court.” Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said the case is “an important reminder that government should not have free rein to infringe on the constitutional right to due process” and called for overhaul of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). “More than 20 years after email became ubiquitous, our laws remain woefully outdated,” she said in a statement. “I urge leadership to take up ECPA reform without delay.”

Samsung is implementing a new Android security update process to fast-track security patches over the air when vulnerabilities are discovered, it said Wednesday. Security updates will release monthly, the company said. Samsung recently sent updates to Galaxy devices after reports of vulnerabilities in Google’s Stagefright media playback engine that could allow an attacker to send a media file over a Multimedia Messaging Service, it said. “With the recent security issues, we have been rethinking the approach to getting security updates to our devices in a more timely manner,” said Dong Jin Koh, Samsung executive vice president-mobile research and development. “Since software is constantly exploited in new ways, developing a fast response process to deliver security patches to our devices is critical to keep them protected,” he said. Samsung is communicating with carriers around the world to implement the new approach, and details about models and timelines will be released soon, it said.

Kphone announced an unlocked Android smartphone that’s due to hit the U.S. market in October. The company cited the growing popularity of unlocked phones, which it said provide the latest smartphone technology along with the flexibility to switch among networks with no termination fees. The first Kphone to be sold in the U.S. is the 5-inch K5, with Android 5.0, Corning Gorilla Glass, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor, a 13-megapixel back camera, 5-megapixel front camera and dual SIM card slots. The phone supports AT&T and T-Mobile in the U.S., the company said. Pricing for the Kphone, made by Chinese smartphone maker K-Touch, will be "aggressive," according to a company spokeswoman, who said the U.S. phone retailer isn't ready to release pricing details.

A special meeting of the Finance Committee of the FirstNet board was rescheduled from Wednesday to Thursday starting at 1:30 p.m., said a notice on the authority’s website. The meeting, via teleconference, is to discuss FirstNet’s FY 2016 budget.

5G service revenue is expected to exceed $65 billion by 2025, said a report from Juniper Research Wednesday. Juniper said it estimates commercial rollouts of 5G will begin in 2020 and at least $25 billion will be invested during the next five years in 5G development, research and trials. But Juniper said it anticipates widespread 5G adoption won't occur until 2025, accounting for years of national spectrum licensing. Juniper said it found "a growing consensus" on the development of 5G standards, which include network speeds of at least 10 Gbps, 1 millisecond latency or less, improved spectral efficiency, lower energy consumption, better battery life and higher device density. 5G will "act as a catalyst" for a wide range of new experiences, including high-definition 4K-8K video, self-driving cars, advanced virtual reality and both data intensive and energy efficient applications, said the researcher. It expects more than 3 billion global 4G LTE connections by 2020.

Verizon Wireless and Flat Wireless jointly sought a protective order as both companies file data on a roaming complaint Flat filed against Verizon in June. The request was posted Wednesday in FCC docket 15-147. Flat, a Texas-based carrier, said in its June complaint that it uses CDMA and Verizon is the dominant CDMA operator in the U.S., but has been unwilling to offer roaming services at “just and reasonable” rates. Key data was redacted from the June filing.

New low-cost smartphones from Motorola will boast a feature called Turbopower, making them what is claimed to be the world's fastest-charging smartphones. Smartphones with Turbopower can run for 10 hours on a 15-minute charge, Motorola said. When connected to a new Moto X Style or X Play phone, the charger handshakes with the phone through the USB data wires and sends 12 volts. After partial charging is complete, the chargers steps down to 9 volts. Moto X Play will be available in late August, while Moto X Style will follow later in the year.

Most conspicuously “missing” in the smartwatch space is “a small-format women’s watch,” Martian Watch President Stan Kinsey told us. Martian is toying with introducing by 2016 smartwatches with form factors that do away with screen features, to salvage the haptic, vibrating-notification functionality that the company thinks many women will crave in a small smartwatch, Kinsey said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the industry tries to move the whole watch smaller,” he said of the smartwatch space. It would be to “differentiate as if to say, ‘You’re not wearing something in style if you’re wearing a big smartwatch,’” he said. Kinsey hopes Martian can showcase smaller-form-factor smartwatches for women at the January CES as a prelude to a market introduction by next spring. Home control is one of the many “wild cards” that may well guide the success of the smartwatch industry, Kinsey said.

Google challenged arguments by the Wireless Medical Telemetry Service Coalition (WMTS) and GE Healthcare (GEHC) that data presented to the FCC by NAB show problems with the TV white spaces (TVWS) database of concern to the medical community as the agency examines unlicensed use of TV Channel 37. The coalition and GEHC asked for additional technical rules to protect wireless telemetry use of the spectrum (see 1508030059). “Like NAB, GE Healthcare and the WMTS Coalition fail to identify even one instance of harmful interference from a TVWS device," Google said. “Indeed, as Google has previously revealed, the flawed NAB filing that GE Healthcare and the WMTS Coalition invoke focused on entries into TVWS databases that almost certainly reflect professional testing by hardware manufacturers, not misuse of devices by the rogue operators that GE Healthcare and the WMTS Coalition attempt to conjure.” The filing was posted Tuesday in docket 12-268.

New America’s Open Technology Institute and Common Cause discussed the "widespread concern in the unlicensed spectrum community about the incentive auction team’s recommendation to relocate broadcast stations in the Duplex Gap in certain key markets, including possibly Los Angeles,” they said in reports on a series of meetings with FCC officials to make their closing arguments on why the agency shouldn't put TV stations in the duplex gap. The groups met with Gary Epstein, chairman of the FCC Incentive Auction Task Force, and Julius Knapp, chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, among other officials, said a filing in docket 12-268: “This could preempt mass markets for next generation Wi-Fi that leverages the unique propagation characteristics of spectrum below 1 GHz.” The public interest group representatives reiterated their concerns that leading chipmakers want access to a minimum of three unlicensed channels in every market to justify the investment needed to integrate the IEEE 802.11af standard for TV white spaces devices into Wi-Fi chips for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.