Author: Clinton

The day has finally arrived Star Wars fans.  Rogue One:  A Star Wars Story is now available for purchase in the Google Play Movies & TV Store.  The movie has been available to add to your wishlist since January and was one of the most successful movies of 2016.  The movie is set between the much maligned prequels and A New Hope, the original Star Wars movie, focusing on a band of Rebels who are trying to steal the plans to the Death Star.  If you haven’t seen it yet, rent it and see what you missed.  It has become one of my favorite movies in the franchise.

The movie is $19.99 in HD.  Right now there is not a rental option nor is there a UHD option for the movie.

OnePlus took to Twitter today with some good news for OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T owners.  Google Assistant is coming your way.  The built in assistant, which Google announced was coming to all devices running Marshmallow and Nougat, has been slowly making the rounds as manufactures work with Google to get it on their devices.  OnePlus is just one of the latest but it is good to see that manufactures aren’t standing in the way of getting it out to customers.

If you own a 3 or a 3T, like other devices who have already received Google Assistant, there isn’t anything you need to do other than make sure you have the latest build of the Google Search app on your phone.  That more-or-less tells Google your phone is ready to be updated on the backend.

Google Trips has seen its second update this week, bringing two new features that users will appreciate.  First, you now have the ability to manually add hotel and airline reservations to a trip.  Previously, there was no way to do this and the only way to get reservations into a trip was by having it automatically added via Gmail.  Now when you go into a trip within the app, you will see a FAB (Floating Action Button) which will now let you add flight and hotel information.

The other big change in this update is that Google Trips will now watch your Gmail for bus and train travel and add those automatically to your trips.  This expands the apps ability in searching Gmail as previously only hotel and airline information was automatically added.

Wells Fargo, the third largest bank here in the United States, is rolling out the ability to use your Android phone or iPhone to withdraw funds from any of their 13,000 ATMs nationally.  The new feature will be in place starting Monday, March 27th.  It is yet another step towards technology in the banking sector, a sector notoriously slow at adopting new technologies.  That is particularly true here in the US where Chip-and-PIN terminals are just now making their way into retailers.

How the new system will work is straightforward.  In the Wells Fargo app, you will be able to request an 8-digit code which you then enter into the ATM.  You will then have to enter your personal PIN for your account and once it is verified, your funds will be provided.  This means that you can withdraw cash from your account even if you forgot your bank card.

When it comes to travel, there is always the need for USB wall chargers.  The question is how many you want to carry and if they are really designed for travel.  For me, when I’m on the road, I have a separate charger for my Nexus 6P, my Nexus 9 and my Fitbit Blaze.  That’s a lot of cables and a lot of chargers.  Then the team over at iClever sent me their recently redesigned dual-port USB wall charger.  I now carry one less wall charger.

The iClever BoostCube series is actually made up of several different models but the one they sent me to review, the IC-WB21W, is perfect in so many ways.  It is truly designed for travel with folding AC prongs and a compact design.  Recently the team at iClever sent me this newly redesigned charger to review and I’m quite pleased with what they have done with this simple yet important accessory.

A day earlier than expected, Super Mario Run is now available to download and install on your Android devices.  The endless runner style game has been exclusive to iOS since it was released in December last year with some 50 million downloads on that platform.  With the release of the game on Android, that’s likely to easily double in just a few weeks time.

In the game, you are the ever popular Mario and you are doing what you do best:  Collecting coins and progressing your way through six worlds in the game.  The way gameplay works is that you can only move forward, up or down so no going back to get coins you missed for example.  The object of the game is to collect as many coins as you can before get to the flagpole at the end of the level before time runs out.  Sound familiar? Oh, and yes you still can save Princess Peach and defeat Bowser too.  There are two other game play modes as well to keep you entertained.