CNET reports that law enforcement groups have submitted a proposal to the US Senate asking them to pass a law that would require wireless carriers to Americans’ text messages for two years. The groups argue that text messages, much like email, are increasingly required in criminal investigations.

What information would be stored under the proposed law? It’s not exactly clear at the moment, but it could go in two directions. Either law enforcement wants access to all of your texts including what you said in them, or they just want the metadata that includes the sender and recipients of the text. My guess is on the former considering law enforcement’s push to have nearly limitless access to Americans’ emails.

While it sounds like a flagrant abuse of power and an imminent invasion of privacy, the law enforcement groups do have one point that should be considered. There needs to be a standard on if and how wireless carriers store text messages. Among companies, there’s no consensus on how long this data must be stored as some companies keep records for years while others keep no records at all.

It should be noted that this is just a proposal for now. There’s no telling if the Senate will take it up as an added amendment to the ECPA early next year, but chances are pretty good. Law enforcement really wants the warrant requirement to die, but it may not get that. Setting a standard for how long wireless carriers must hold onto text messages would be a nice consolation prize.

ECPA is going to be a hot ticket item as the 113th Congress begins early next year. There are going to be a lot more amendments proposed from both sides of the aisle, and it has the potential to get really messy.

In short, this is one to bust out the popcorn for. It’s gonna be good.

TrustGo Security recently stumbled upon a new piece of malware that can take control of your phone to make unauthorized payments, steal bank card numbers and more. They call it Trojan!SMSZombie.A and it’s a doozy. The good news is that it’s currently only infecting users in China, but the bad news is that it could make it’s way over here at any time.

The team at TrustGo has found the malware to be hosted on various apps at GFan, China’s largest mobile app marketplace. The nasty piece of software can be found hiding in provocative wallpaper apps. It’s an easy sell since nothing attracts downloads like pictures of models and their ilk.

What’s worse is that the malware in question refuses to say no. Upon installing, the app will ask for various permissions. You can hit cancel but it will just reload the permissions page once again. In other words, it forces users to accept the terms of their infection.

After it’s been installed, the malware will intercept and forward SMS messages on your behalf. This is a much bigger deal in China as users send money via SMS. It’s still something to be wary of even here in the U.S. as SMS often contains private info that third parties should not have access to.

For now, the malware can only be manually removed. Fortunately, the guys at TrustGo have a handy guide that will show you how to remove it. They’re also working on an automatic removal process for the next update to their app.

Once again, this virus is currently only ravaging Chinese Android phones, but that doesn’t mean people in other countries are immune. It could just as easily find its way into the many third-party app stores out there. That’s why it’s recommended to only download apps from Google Play. Google has software that scans apps throughout Google Play to make sure they’re virus free.

If all else fails, only download apps from developers you can trust. I know it’s hard to resist the provocative wallpaper app, but there are plenty of those from trusted developers.

“We expect global mobile transaction volume and value to average 42 percent annual growth between 2011 and 2016, and we are forecasting a market worth $617 billion with 448 million users by 2016,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. “This will bring opportunities for service and solution providers who will need to cater to the local demand patterns to customize their offerings.”

Gartner said the mobile payments market would remain “fragmented” for at least the next two years, with local markets using a variety of technology and business models. In addition, different regulations around the world will prevent consolidation of the market.

“There will be a few global players that have the scale and resources to serve large customers and the mass market whose requirements can be readily satisfied by standard solutions,” Shen said. “However, there will always be segments that cannot be sufficiently served by the global players. The demand of these segments can only be satisfied by specialized or local players who can better understand the segment and have specific solutions to meet the unique challenges.”

Though NFC technologies are beginning to proliferate into the smartphone market, Gartner predicts that mobile payments using the technology will remain low until 2015. In the meantime, SMS will remain the dominant technology in developing mobile markets and Web/WAP will continue to be highly used in North America and Europe.

“NFC payment involves a change in user behavior and requires collaboration among stakeholders that includes banks, mobile carriers, card networks and merchants,” said Shen. “It takes time for both to happen, so we don’t expect NFC payments to come into the mass market before 2015. In the meantime, ticketing, rather than retail payment, will drive NFC transactions.”

With current technology, you have to either send out a massive email, or bombard everyone you know with texts. Now, thanks to group texting, that last one isn’t too terribly difficult, but it is still a bit time consuming. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way to just have your new contact info go out to everybody in your address book?

If you think so, then you may be in luck. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has just granted Apple a patent for that very technology. The patent deals with a smartphone feature that will automatically detect when your phone’s number changes and send out a mass text to the people in your address book, letting them know your new contact info.

Of course, you may not want to text everybody in your address book about your new number (for example: my local Pizza Hut has no need to know the best way to get ahold of me). The patent doesn’t mention any customization options with this feature, but it’s highly unlikely that Apple wouldn’t include the ability to select who gets your new info.

Unfortunately, this is only a patent, so there’s no real clue as to when we might actually see this sort of feature coming to the iPhone. On the other hand, it seems like a fairly straightforward software issue, so there is likely no reason it couldn’t be incorporated as soon as iOS 6, which should be coming out this autumn with the next iPhone.

What do you think? Would you like to see a feature like this come to the iPhone? Let us know in the comments.

“Now, even if phone lines and the Internet are inaccessible — for example, in a war zone or after a natural disaster — people will be able to share news and stay informed via Twitter,” the company says on its blog.

“We work with as many carriers as we can to support SMS around the world,” Twitter says. “If your carrier does not currently support Twitter SMS, you can still Tweet. Just use one of our long codes.”

Those can be found here.

As the company points out, Twitter did begin as an SMS service. Over the years, Twitter has become even more SMS-friendly, as evidenced by today’s update.

For example, in 2010, Twitter started letting users in the U.S. follow Twitter accounts via SMS without actually signing up for Twitter.

Within apps alone, you can do your banking, queue up (or watch) Netflix choices, edit HD photos, learn to play guitar, or buy anything on Amazon and track the UPS shipment.

With some simple accessories that plug in to the iPhone, you can record in stereo, take telephoto lens pictures, and swipe credit cards.

So, why hasn’t some enterprising developer come up with this career-saving add-on yet? I’m sure there are lots of young, upwardly-mobile professionals who would appreciate someone, or something, having their back on a Saturday night. For company-issued phones, it should be installed by IT before ever being put into anyone’s hands.

In fact, if RIM makes it to this first, it might just be the biggest comeback story of the year.

In this announcement for the app on the Yahoo Mail blog, there is only mention of an Android version, and no mention of an iPhone version, though an iPhone is shown in the image provided (above) – I guess to just show that iPhone users can still get text messages from it.

“For those heavy texters out there, we are excited to introduce Hub, a fast and easy-to-use mobile messaging app that allows you to send text messages and have group conversations for free,” says the Yahoo Mail team. “Hub allows you to easily add participants to any conversation thread so it’s easy to switch from private messaging to a group conversation. Whether it is just keeping up with a close group of friends or making spontaneous plans, you no longer have to deal with scattered messages.”

“What’s more, Hub allows you to send messages to anyone without incurring any text messaging fees,” the company adds. “Yes, you heard us right. There are no text messaging fees – messages are sent over WIFI or using your data connection – and Hub is device agnostic, which means you can communicate with anyone on any mobile device as long as you have their mobile phone numbers. Your friends are not required to download the app in order to reply to your messages although they are strongly encouraged to do so in order to enjoy the full feature set!”

This isn’t the first app to to offer free text messaging, but the Yahoo brand probably won’t hurt in it getting some downloads. It has group messaging, and support for local and international SMS messages.

You do have to have a Yahoo ID to use the app from the looks of it.

Earlier this week, Yahoo launched a new version of Yahoo Messenger (11.5). Yahoo lists the highlights as follows:

Now, it has been revealed that AT&T is going to offer only unlimited text messing plans starting August 21. There was previously a $10 plan for 1,000 messages.

Engadget, who first learned about the plans, shares in an article called “AT&T Streamlining Individual Messaging Plans August 21st, Leaving Unlimited As the Sole Survivor,” this official statement from AT&T:

“We regularly evaluate our offers and are making some adjustments to our messaging lineup.

Starting August 21, we’re streamlining our text messaging plans for new customers and will offer an unlimited plan for individuals for $20 per month and an unlimited plan for families of up to five lines for $30 per month. The vast majority of our messaging customers prefer unlimited plans and with text messaging growth stronger than ever, that number continues to climb among new customers. Existing customers don’t have to change any messaging plan they have today, even when changing handsets.”

There is plenty of reaction around the tech blogosphere as you could imagine. TechCrunch writer MG Siegler goes so far as to say on his personal blog, “A cynical person may think that AT&T are being huge fucking scumbags here. Really, they’re just ‘streamlining’ their plans. Just like when they ‘streamlined’ their plans by removing unlimited data a few months back. It’s all in the name of what’s best for the consumer. What class acts.”

Here’s some reaction from the Twitterverse:

Some are complaining about the service itself:

In other AT&T news, Reuters reports that the company is suing customers who are trying to block its deal with T-Mobile.

There are free features as well as upgrade features available. For free, users can receive text notifications when users are added or removed, when the theme changes, and/or when the privacy settings change. 

With the Text Messaging Upgrade, users can protect their blog by using a two-step login process, and a text message will be sent to their phone upon login with a passcode that must be entered in order to access the Dashboard. 

With the upgrade, users can also get notified of new comments and moderate them with a text reply, as well as send a reply to comments they receive. Finally, users can send a text for a new post to be added to the blog instantly. 

The new text features are only available in the U.S. at this point. Standard text message and data rates apply, of course. 

The upgrade costs $20 a year. It can be accessed from the Dashboard. 

I can’t imagine blogging through SMS being very fun, but it could come in handy if something comes up, and you don’t have access to a computer, but you need to blog about it. The other features should be quite useful. 

"We’ve always been big fans of trusty SMS messaging. In fact, sending a text was originally the only way users could tweet. This is why Tweets are 140 characters — they need to fit into a text message," says Twitter’s Leland Rechis. "We value SMS because it’s simple, instant and universal."

Users can also now get SMS alerts from Twitter accounts they wish to. From a computer, you can hover over a user’s name or avatar, and click on the little phone icon that appears in the "hovercard". You will then get a text every time that user tweets – probably not a good idea unless you have an unlimited text plan. You can also set alerts from your phone by sending "on [username]" or "off [username]" to 40404. You can send "on" or "off" to start and stop text messages altogether.

Finally, if you text "get [username]" the user’s most recent tweet will be sent to you phone. There are more commands here.

In other Twitter news, Mashable is reporting that the company will launch its official Tweet button this week. This is for publishers to stick on their content and increase traffic.