You can now watch Disney+ shows like The Mandalorian together with your friends virtually through the streaming service’s new GroupWatch feature.
The feature allows up to seven people to simultaneously watch the same show or movie on Disney+ by syncing screens. You can also share emoji reactions with your friends while watching.
You can connect with any of your friends who are monthly Disney+ subscribers. While you can’t see or message your friends with GroupWatch, Disney reportedly wants to add a chat feature in the future.
Digital Trends reached out to Disney to find out if and when more features, such as a chat option, would be available to GroupWatch. We will update this story when we hear back.
Disney is the latest streaming service to have a shared stream feature available: Netflix has the third-party Netflix Party and Amazon has Amazon Prime Video Watch Party. These options have gained even more popularity during the pandemic since people are limited to physically hanging out with their friends or family, but can still enjoy a movie night together virtually.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.