SJ101: Disaster time! Huawei & Google get caught, Verizon gets burned, Facebook gets pulled, & more

It may be the end times, cadets -- at least that's the impression you'd get if you took a look at planet Earth these days: some places are on fire, others full of water, and that's before you get to the weekly disasters, fubars, and general fails we call the tech world. Verizon bungles an emergency call, Facebook loses face over a fake VPN, Android and Google get caught lying about their privacy parties, Huawei and Samsung get caught cheating over photos (again), and -- worse of all -- pundits predict doooom because of the iPhone X: it's just ... too ... popular! And that's just us warming up, friends -- a third-party Mac email client let in malware, a battery raised some alarms in an Apple Store in Holland, Mojave has stripped out Back to My Mac, a 3D printer started a rumour about the next iPad Pros, and some guy punched a lady salesperson right in the Face ID. To be fair, there was some good news -- Nikon has some new mirrorless models, Verizon apologized and lifted its data caps on first responders, Costco is now rolling out Apple Pay, and Microsoft Office 2019 is on the way. Walmart is launching an ebook shop! Civilization VI on iPad is totally awesome! There's new iDevices and maybe even new Macs on the way! Someone has figured out why people switch mobile platforms, and of course there's at least one crazy pundit that says something ridiculous so Mike and Charles can rake them over the dilithium crystals. All this and more, cadets, so strap in and prepare for the incredibly real sensations of a real disaster ... because it's a real disaster!