Movie theaters are closed, house parties are ill-advised, and we’re all basically stuck at home watching TV in isolation (or out and about and risking infections, I suppose). So it’s unsurprising that this has turned out to be the year when “watch parties” have become a trend in online video.
Hulu and Plex rolled out watch-together-remotely features a little while back. Amazon introduce its own version a month later. And while Netflix doesn’t have an official watch party feature, a third-party browser add-on has been allowing you to host Netflix Parties for a few years.
Now Movies Anywhere is getting on the action. The service, which allows you to link multiple accounts so you can buy once and watch on Apple TV, Google Play, Prime Video, Vudu, Microsoft, and other platforms, now lets you create Watch Together sessions with up to 9 people.
In order to participate, you and your guests will all either need to own the same movies, or you can send guest a Screen Pass that lets them borrow access your movie for a limited time. The Screen Pass feature is still in beta and not available for all users yet though — and you can only send up to 3 screen passes per month.
- Movies Anywhere lets you create watch parties with up to nine guests [Engadget]
Movies Anywhere is the latest to jump on the “Watch Together” bandwagon, with support for watching with up to 9 viewers in remote locations while keeping the movie synced and offering a text chat window. Works on mobile, web, and smart TV platforms. - Firefox 79 [Mozilla Hacks]
Firefox 79 released with support for WebRender for more Windows users with Intel or AMD graphics, security fixes, and new developer tools. - The best third-party file managers for Android [Android Police]
After switching from ES File Explorer to Solid Explorer a few years back, I haven’t looked back. How about you? - Spotify for desktop adds Chromecast support [9to5Google]
Now you can use the Spotify app for Windows or Mac desktop computers to stream music to a Chromecast. - Konami is taking pre-orders for a gaming desktop PC in Japan [PC Watch]
Scheduled to ship in September, the more noteworthy thing about the Konami ARESPEAR series gaming PCs is probably the Konami pedigree. In terms of hardware, they’re already looking a bit dated, with 9th-gen Intel Core desktop processors rather than newer 10th-gen Intel chips (or AMD Renoir processors). - Chromebook Perks updated [Google]
In addition to 3 months of Disney+ and 100GB of Google One storage for 12-months, new Chromebook owners can also now score a 12 month Dropbox subscription with access to 100GB of cloud storage.
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