Jon Westfall and I are joined by an old friend of mine – well known Hawaii technologist Ryan Ozawa.

1. A sign that the world will end soon: Microsoft Xamarin Visual Studio for Mac announced (preview version).
2. Ref: Ars Technica. “…while many executive branch employees now have PIV cards with [smart] chips embedded in them, Senate employees get ID cards with a picture of a chip on them.”

Ryan’s news items:

3. Uber getting scolded by Tim Cook for using private APIs to ‘fingerprint’ users in a way that survives even after the app is deleted.
4. Facebook going big into Augmented Reality as a platform, trying to kill Snapchat over and over, helping creators monetize stolen videos
   Samsung S8, LG G6, and whatever Apple announces this Fall: Apple self-driving cars? Siri speaker?
5. Questions for Ryan

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

1. New Google Earth for the web
2. New Microsoft To-Do (was Wunderlist)
3. Ballmer Discovers joys of open data. USAFacts.org
4. Coin’s competitor, Plastc, announced it’s filing for Chapter 7, and the cards that Jon pre-ordered (for a hefty sum, $150) will never ship. No idea if any money will ever make it back to the backers. And while Jon’s pretty irked about the loss of money, he’s hopeful that maybe this means electronic payments via cell phones / watches will eventually replace credit cards. Jon first mentioned Coin back in Podcast 69

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

Jon Westfall and I recorded a short podcast today (17 minutes). But, we still managed to cover a couple of different topics:

1. Google AutoDraw
2. Image stabilization available in Google Photos for Android. Ref: 9to5google
3. Spike in VPN signups since repeal of US ISP privacy rules. Ref: IBTimes
4. Signed up for Private Internet Access service that Jon recommended nearly a year ago during podcast #159. The price went up slightly. It is now $40 per year. Unintended consequence? YouTube streaming video seems smoother/more stable.
5. iOS 10.3.1 iPad Pro Jr. Went from 5.7GB free to 7.91

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

Jon Westfall and I discuss the following topics in podcast 201.

1. Day 905 since the Mac mini was refreshed MacRumors
2. Sensu Artist Brush & Stylus
3. Anker PowerPort 5 USB-C
4. Showtime makes entire library available for mobile offline viewing. Ref: TechCrunch
5. Who does the Red iPhone appeal to?
6. On April 7, Nothing Happened
7. iPhone 8 pre-orders still in Sept, but perhaps long wait to actually see the phone?
8. Jon performed iSurgery this week on his wife’s iPhone 6, overview of the experience. Used iFixit toolset purchased years ago and iFixit guide which listed the procedure as “moderate” difficulty

Available via Google Music Podcasts and Apple iTunes.

Jon Westfall and I are joined by return guest panelist Frank McPherson for this 200th MobileViews Podcast.

1. Amazon starts charging sales tax in a number of states that have not had that imposed on them until now.
2. iOS 10.3 released
3. New home for Google Open Source projects: Google Open Source
4. Samsung Galaxy S8 announcement
5. U.S. Congress rolled back FCC ISP privacy rules. Should you use a VPN? Ref: Krebs on Security
6. Logitech MK850 Performance keyboard & mouse bundle