These are trying times for many of us, and Twitch wants to help out: it's announced that it's rolling out a beta version of its Watch Parties product in the US, so you can watch Prime Video content with your friends while you're physically separated.As per the official tweet, the feature is coming to Twitch partners in the US, before rolling out more generally in the weeks ahead.When it arrives for you, you'll be able to start a stream from Prime Video, and then invite friends to join you in a remote viewing session, so you can stay in sync and discuss what you're watching over chat.The service doesn't cover everything on Prime Video, but there's a decent selection of stuff here Good Omens, Hannah, Mission: Impossible Fallout, Mr Robot, Vikings, Star Trek, The Expanse and more besides.Watch Parties was first announced last year, but its actual launch is timely: with many of us stuck indoors for extended periods of time, you can add some extra interest to your binge watching by tuning in with friends.It only works on the desktop though, and you'll need Firefox or Chrome installed to join in with a Twitter Watch Party.
Mobile devices and apps on smart TVs are left out of the fun for the time being.This same group-watching functionality is available in Netflix, but you need a third-party extension (which is free to install) to get it working and to sync a stream across browsers in different parts of the world.It's more evidence of the changing tech landscape as we all adjust to being apart from each other for most of the time from digital assistants getting up to speed with Covid-19, to tech companies are giving away free content to help us all through this.