Author: Clinton

With the 2016 NASCAR season kicking off this weekend in Daytona, Florida, it seems only appropriate that one of the top racing simulator games for Android be updated to get you in on the action.  Real Racing 3 received a healthy update yesterday that allows you to compete in the Daytona 500, considered the “Super Bowl” of stock car racing, and earn four iconic cars from the series.  The update also allows you to race alongside current NASCAR drivers such as Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick and you can compete in The gauntlet to earn a limited edition Richard Petty throwback Ford Fusion.

Owners of the HTC One M9 on Verizon are now starting to see the Android Marshmallow update roll to their devices.  The updated software is version 3.37.605.7 in Verizon numbering convention and brings the M9 up to Android Marshmallow 6.0.  If you remember, HTC rolled out the Marshmallow 6.0 update to the unlocked variant of the M9 back in December.  Those devices have subsequently been further updated to Marshmallow 6.0.1 so yes, this update from Verizon is behind in security updates and features.  Still, it’s here at that is very much a positive sign.

Over at Amazon, SanDisk is running a huge sale on their Ultra series of MicroSD cards.  These cards are compatible with Android devices (assuming you have a MicroSD expansion slot) but you will want to check the maximum size your particular phone or tablet can handle.  The headliner of this sale is the 200GB card.  Normally this card retails for $249.99 on Amazon but today (or while supplies last, it is down to $89.99.  Do the math and that tells you this is a 64% savings.  That’s a huge deal.

While the news is not a real surprise, Google has announced that the support of Picasa is going away in favor of Google Photos.

Since the launch of Google Photos, we’ve had a lot of questions around what this means for the future of Picasa. After much thought and consideration, we’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos. We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products.

The news was made on Google Photos blog and the end of support is coming pretty quick but not at the expense of those who have content on the site.  You will still be able to access it but won’t be able to upload to it any longer.  In a nutshell, here is what is happening.  On March 15th, Google will stop supporting the desktop application for Picasa.  That means no new updates will be coming to it but you can still use the app.

Google has released an update to their utility app Google Clock.  As the name suggest, it allows you to have a clock and date on any of your home screens on your Android phone or tablet via a Widget.  These very widgets are the main focus of this update to the app which is now up to version 4.3 for those keeping score at home.  In previous builds, the Widgets for the app were pretty rigid.  You couldn’t really resize them well, especially if you wanted a small clock.  That’s changed with this update as now the Widget is very flexible on sizing and layout.  You have two Widgets as you did previously:  One for an analog clock and one for a digital clock.

American Airlines has released an update to their Android app that now allows you to seamlessly pinpoint your pick up point for Uber right from within the app.  The partnership between the two companies is new and while the Uber pick up isn’t in every location American flies, it will save you from having to fumble around through both apps to arrange your pick up location.  To do this, users need to go to the terminal maps in the app, which also have been significantly improved, and let the app leverage your location services to pinpoint you and get you an Uber.  There is even a $20 discount if you use the code RIDEAA for you first time Uber users.