That’s right, it’s apparently time for an all-new episode of The Flickcast. Apologies for being late, but at least you have something to entertain you on a Monday.

On this week’s show Chris and Joe talk about all sorts of stuff including podcasting coming to Google Play (here’s a link to The Flickcast, btw), the future of public transport, the upcoming new Star Trek series, James Cameron’s latest plans for Avatar sequels, the Defenders series on Netflix, Mr. Robot, Hollywood’s latest horrible thing and assholes who talk or text in movie theaters. Plus, there’s the usual more, more, more.

Picks this week include Chris’ pick of Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight and Joe’s pick of the band The Dan Reed Network.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship, or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook, Google+ or via email.

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If you want the latest news about updates and improvements to Google services, you won’t find a much better source than Vic Gundotra. As Senior VP of Engineering for Google, he’s privy to pretty much everything that happens at the company. And he likes to share.

So, when he touts a new update for Google+, we listen. In fact, that’s just what he did this morning. According to his post, the update introduces a new navigation drawer that is “more consistent with other Google apps.” In addition, notifications will now sync across devices so you no longer have to see the same notifications from device to device if you’ve already dismissed them.

You also get a new notifications tray with a bell icon that lets you know if there’s something for you to see as well as unread and read trays. So, some nice improvements. This update should start being availbe today for Android and the web with iOS update to follow.

Here’s what the changelog says about the update:

Even though Google is pretty much the king of maps and traffic avoidance these days, it would seem the company wants to do it even better. So, with that in mind, today Google announced they are buying Waze, the GPS social traffic app that updates routes and drive information in real-time as users post updates.

The app has voice navigation, shows community-contributed road alerts, learns from your frequently traveled routes, and can even find the cheapest gas station near you, all based on community interaction with other users. With over 10 million downloads via the Google Play store and at least as many in iTunes, Waze has quite a large user base. With this, Google is hoping to further improve the ability for its Maps app to help drivers avoid those pesky long commute times.

According to the company, they are “excited” about the prospect of “enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features” already used by Waze. They are hoping to “outsmart traffic together.”

Let’s hope they can. We, like everyone else in the world, hates traffic.

If you haven’t already heard the news, the email wars are over and Google won. Gmail is the dominate email address and platform that most people use. In fact, we’re not sure we know anyone who doesn’t have a Gmail account.

Fortunately, those who do don’t usually have to decide between using an iOS or Android-powered smartphone to get their email on the go. There’s plenty of other reasons for the debate between Android and iOS, but thankfully Google doesn’t make you choose — at least where email is concerned.

Today the Gmail apps for both iOS and Android got an update. Both updates feature the new “Categories” tabs as well as the usual bug fixes and performance improvements.

Here’s what you specifically get in the new iOS version:

• New notifications options: Get notified for all messages, only important messages, or none at all, on a per account basis. Customize these settings from the in-app settings page.

• Meet the new inbox: If you’ve enabled the new inbox, your mail is now grouped into categories so that you can see what’s new at a glance and decide which emails you want to read when. Primary mail is shown first and it’s easy to access and keep track of email in other categories by opening the menu. Configure this feature by going to Gmail.com on your computer.

Rejoice Android-using fans of short videos, your iOS-using friends no longer have a reason to gloat. Well, one less reason at least.

That’s right, Twitter’s popular Vine application, that was previously an iOS-only exclusive, has arrived for Android. For those not familiar (and it could be a few of you), Vine allows users to record 6 seconds of video with sound and then share it with the world, much like you do with a Tweet on Twitter.

Once the video is posted, others can view it as it loops continuously. The app has become pretty popular and has spawned some very inventive videos that utilize the 6 second time limit as part of the piece and not a hindrance.

Now that Android users can join the fun, it will be interesting to see what new videos pop up. To get the app now, head over to the Play Store.