New ‘Backup and Sync’ Tool to Replace Google Drive Mac App

Google is readying a new Google Drive replacement backup tool that’s intended to help users back up files located anywhere on their computer.

Called Backup and Sync, the new app will replace both the Google Drive client and the Google Photos Backup app, combining their sync features in a more unified client interface.

Backup and Sync will be able to monitor and backup files and photos inside of any folder specified by the user. Currently, files have to be moved into the Google Drive folder for them to be synced to the cloud, but the new app will be able to back up files and photos on the desktop, in the Documents folder, in Pictures, or from anywhere else the user chooses.

Backup and Sync will be released on June 28. When Drive users come to upgrade, Google says the new tool will respect any existing folder settings on Mac and PC to make the change seamless.

The new Files app coming in iOS 11 supports third party cloud services including Google Drive, so the new Backup and Sync tool should offer users another option for easily accessing files on their Mac from their iPhone or iPad.

Google says the new app is intended for consumer users and recommends that G Suite customers continue to use Google Drive until its new enterprise-focused solution, Drive File Stream, becomes available later this year.

Tags: Google, Google Drive
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Mobile Roaming Charges Abolished in the EU

A new European Union law came into effect on Thursday that abolishes roaming charges for people using mobile phones abroad. The new rules mean that European citizens traveling within the EU that call, text, and browse the internet on their mobile devices will be charged the same price they pay in their home country.

Previously, roaming charges were added to the cost of calls, SMS messages, and web browsing whenever mobile users in the EU traveled to another country and connected to another cellular network. The practice of charging consumers extra while they were abroad gained widespread notoriety because users often ended up having to pay extortionate fees for relatively moderate data usage.

“Each time a European citizen crossed an EU border, be it for holidays, work, studies or just for a day, they had to worry about using their mobile phones and a high phone bill from the roaming charges when they came home,” said the European Commission in a statement. “The European Union is about bringing people together and making their lives easier. The end of roaming charges is a true European success story. Eliminating roaming charges is one of the greatest and most tangible successes of the EU,” the statement added.

The EU has been negotiating with mobile networks for nearly 10 years to come to an agreement regarding the legislation, following repeated warnings from networks that the law could mean higher tariffs at home. That outcome appears to have been avoided, however.

“The EU has managed to find the right balance between the end of roaming charges and the need to keep domestic mobile packages competitive and attractive,” continued the statement. “Operators have had 2 years to prepare for the end of roaming charges, and we are confident that they will seize the opportunities the new rules bring to the benefit of their customers.”

Despite the new law, consumer watchdog Which? told the BBC that mobile users need to be aware that if they exceed contract data allowances while traveling within the EU they will still be charged, just as they would be in their own country. Also, the law only applies to travelers, so calling another EU country from home will still incur additional charges.

Tags: European Union, European Commission
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Grab an umbrella! Animated GIFs are raining down on Facebook

Why it matters to you

Despite being 30 years old, the GIF image format is more popular than ever, particularly on social networks like Facebook.

The image format, Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF – commonly associated with those animated, looping photographs – is turning 30 on June 15, and Facebook is celebrating by adding the option to find and use GIFs within comments. Facebook is also asking readers that quizzical question, how do you pronounce GIF anyway?

GIF support isn’t new to Facebook, of course, but the company says GIFs have become increasingly popular since support was introduced to Facebook Messenger in 2015, allowing users to chat with GIFs without opening up a web browser to find the appropriate animation. To date, users have shared almost 13 billion GIFs – from cute animations to funny video-like memes – inside the Messenger app in the last year alone, which amounts to about 25,000 per minute. That number is triple the amount of GIFs sent from the previous year, Facebook says.

For GIF’s 30th milestone, Facebook is rolling out the ability to send a GIF in the comments without leaving the platform. The feature, which had been available to select users but is being opened to all global users, just requires tapping the GIF button when commenting, then typing in a few words to find the appropriate GIF – similar to how a GIF is sent in Messenger. Previously, GIFs could only be uploaded to comments by adding a link from Giphy, the GIF library.

Several new GIFs were created for the occasion, in partnership with Giphy. Facebook designed 20 unique GIFs designed starring internet celebrities, including DNCE, Logan Paul, DREEZY, Amanda Cerny, Wuz Good, Brandi Marie, Landon Moss, Patric Starr, and Violet Benson. Besides comments, these 20 animations are accessible inside the Facebook and Messenger apps, as well as Giphy (simply search for #GIFparty or head to giphy.com/facebook).

Logan Paul is one of the internet celebrities featured in 20 new Facebook GIFs that celebrate the file format’s 30th milestone.

But is GIF pronounced with a hard or soft “g” sound? That’s what Facebook will be asking users in a poll. Despite the file format being around for thirty years, there isn’t a general consensus on whether to pronounce the abbreviation like “gift” (without the T) or with a soft “g” like Jif, the peanut butter brand – how GIF’s inventor, Steve Wilhite, says it’s suppose to be pronounced. The poll will pop up in users’ newsfeed, and maybe settle the debate once and for all (we doubt it).

The GIF has been around since 1987 – which makes it older than the World Wide Web – created by a group of programmers led by Wilhite. At the time, the format became popular for still images because the compression algorithm allowed for colored images to take up less digital space. In fact, the first photo on the web was a GIF. While JPEG has superseded GIF as a default format for photos, GIF has regained popularity for looping animations and videos and its universal support by browsers. Happy birthday, GIF!

We could soon be painting our houses with ‘solar paint’ for clean energy

Why it matters to you

The technology could be used alongside traditional solar panels and hit the market in five years.

Imagine if painting the outside of your house not only made it look easy on the eye, but also took care of all of your home’s energy needs.

This, it seems, could soon be a reality as researchers in Australia have come up with a “solar paint” capable of absorbing moisture from the air and turning it into hydrogen fuel for clean energy.

Based at RMIT University in Melbourne, southern Australia, the research team has developed a unique paint containing a newly developed compound that acts like silica gel — that’s the stuff used in those little sachets that absorb moisture to keep things like food, medicines, and electronics in good shape.

But where they differ is that the new material, called synthetic molybdenum-sulphide, “also acts as a semi-conductor and catalyses the splitting of water atoms into hydrogen and oxygen,” a report on the university’s website explained.

RMIT lead researcher Dr Torben Daeneke said his team discovered that “mixing the compound with titanium oxide particles leads to a sunlight-absorbing paint that produces hydrogen fuel from solar energy and moist air.”

He continued: “Titanium oxide is the white pigment that is already commonly used in wall paint, meaning that the simple addition of the new material can convert a brick wall into energy harvesting and fuel production real estate.”

Daeneke said the the team’s findings offer “a big range” of advantages, including the elimination of “the need for clean or filtered water to feed the system. Any place that has water vapour in the air, even remote areas far from water, can produce fuel.”

So besides damp climates, the solar paint will also be effective in, for example, hot and dry climates near oceans, with the absorbed vapor coming from the nearby sea water as it evaporates in the heat.

The team described it as “an extraordinary concept, making fuel from the sun and water vapor in the air.”

Daeneke told Inverse that the team hopes the special paint can one day be used alongside traditional solar cells, “potentially coating areas that receive too little light to be viably covered with expensive solar cell modules.”

He added that it’s likely to take at least five years to commercialize and should be cheap to produce.

CNBC: Apple wants the iPhone to manage your medical history

Apple has been working on a hush-hush project that would make your whole medical history more accessible, according to CNBC. The tech titan reportedly wants to turn your iPhone into a repository for every diagnosis, lab test result, prescription, health info and doctor’s comment. That way, you don’t have to go through a bunch of emails to find that one test result sent as a PDF attachment or to have your previous doctor send data over to your new one. All you need to do to share any part of your medical history is to look fire up your iPhone.

According to CNBC, Cupertino is attempting to replicate what it did for music: it wants to create sort of an iTunes for health that would serve as a centralized management system for all your medical info. Apple is reportedly already in talks with various hospitals and health IT industry groups to work out the best way to make its vision a reality. One of those groups is “The Argonaut Project,” an initiative promoting the widespread adoption of open standards for health info, while the other is “The Carin Alliance,” an organization that wants to give patients control over their own medical data.

It’s unclear how far into the project Apple is at this point, but it sounds like the tech titan plans to store all your data on the cloud, since it has already started talking to cloud storage startups. If the company succeeds into making your full medical history available on the iPhone, it will solve what the medical industry calls “interoperability crisis.” That’s the lack of data-sharing between health providers that could lead to unnecessary mistakes and missed diagnoses that could be fatal for some patients.

Source: CNBC

The ambition of ‘Beyond Good and Evil 2’ might exceed the hype

We’ve waited a long time for the sequel to Beyond Good and Evil. And you know what? They actually went and did it. Arguably the biggest surprise of E3 2017 was a minute-long trailer teasing a game that barely seems recognizable to the 2003 original. But even the anticipated return of the cult hit might not match the vision that director Michel Ancel and his team has for Beyond Good and Evil 2. Ancel himself explains the return of the quirky game — and we have a ton of concept artwork to keep the hype going. Ubisoft has (literally) big plans.

14 years is an eternity in gaming, and Beyond Good and Evil’s sequel/prequel is a rare tale of development hell that managed to turn itself around. Ancel explained to Engadget that the gaming technology of the time, around 2006, simply wasn’t capable enough to replicate the team’s vision for the game series: a space opera that encompassed not only multiple cities but multiple planets and online play that could involve your friends.

But it’s 2017: No Man’s Sky, the GTA series and Mass Effect have shown what’s possible now. Scale is a word that came up several times during the presentation. The planet “System 3” is at the center of both the trailer and a brief in-game engine preview Ubisoft showed us. The BGE2 team has made a proprietary new in-game engine: it exists, it works, and we got to see multiple spaceships and Knox the monkey move around within it.

Ancel tapped away at a keyboard and zoomed out from the city to reveal even more cities across the world. He zoomed out further to show the dark side of the planet ravaged by asteroids, then even further to the planets and stars surrounding it. He then tinkered with it even further, adjusting the angles of light on key character Knox. He then took control of a spaceship and blasted away from a giant Ganesh statue at hyperspeed, touring System 3 and showcasing the speed at which the game scales. It’s not perfect, but it’s fast and smooth. No more “light-speed jump” loading screens? That’s the dream.

Ubisoft

Unlike No Man’s Sky, however, the team explained these worlds weren’t drawn at random through algorithms: designers crafted these worlds with logical rules in mind. So if you follow a river, it leads to a mountain or a lake. Even the story of a planet hinges on its nature: that aforementioned asteroid-ravaged “dark side” is a pretty inhospitable place, so only the poorest citizens (or slaves) attempt to claim space debris and other precious materials from it. The rich live in safety in Sector 3. The poor do not.

Let’s return to Knox the grapplehook-toting monkey that’s the unashamed (f-bomb dropping) star of the Beyond Good and Evil 2 trailer. He is not the main character though, nor is the unnamed hoverbike driver. You will choose the look, gender, even race, of the game’s protagonist. You can be human or you can be humanoid — that’s your choice. Ancel adds that the plan will be to even offer where your character starts the game, whether that’s a prison ship, a planet, or elsewhere. It will be your story to tell.

Ubisoft

The next step for the Beyond Good & Evil 2 team will be extensive playtesting: it’s already started the “Space Monkey Program” (inspired by humanity’s first non-human test pilots sent into space) to help debug and even inspire the direction of the game.

Talking to Ancel, and listening the team’s presentation of various facets of the game’s lore offered up so many more tantalizing details at this still-early stage: a single-player game where your friends can play online with you, the ability to share photos and parts of the game (complete with galactic geotags) with buddies or in-game characters. It all points to a game that’s just so much bigger, grander, than the original Beyond Good and Evil. It looks like the team finally gets to make the game they dreamed of making.

Follow all the latest news from E3 2017 here!

Mobile roaming is (mostly) free across the EU

It’s been a long time in coming and had plenty of trials and tribulations, but it’s finally here: mobile roaming is now free in the EU. As long as you have service in a member state and live there for at least 8 months each year, you can use your phone’s voice, messaging and data in other EU countries at the same rate you’d pay as if you were at home. Well, mostly. There are a number of exceptions to the rule that could leave you paying more, although the likelihood of coming home to a gigantic bill is relatively small.

Carriers can still impose a fair use limit on data while you’re traveling (if you have an unlimited or very inexpensive plan), but they’re capped at charging you no more than €7.70 per gigabyte plus tax. That ceiling should gradually drop to €2.50 by 2022. Also, a “very small number” of EU carriers are allowed to charge a small roaming fee to make up for lower-than-usual domestic rates, but they should be lower than they were before. And of course, traveling abroad for more than 4 months can incur extra fees.

A handful of countries in the European Economic Area (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) should get free roaming in the near future.

Yes, it’s been hard to avoid news of the roaming change if you live in the EU. Some carriers even went so far as to announce changes ahead of time. Nevertheless, it’s significant — even with all the caveats, it promises to alleviate some of the headaches when using a smartphone in densely-packed Europe. You can now focus on enjoying your vacation instead of hoarding data as much as possible.

Source: European Commission (1), (2)

7 brilliant earthquake-proof buildings that are ready for The Big One

As our urban centers become more densely populated, engineers are continuously looking to maximize this space by building upward rather than outward. As a result, we’ve seen massive skyscrapers sprout up in metropolitans around the world. But some of the most populated areas on the globe are also prone to earthquakes. As history has shown time and time again, a massive tremor in an ill-designed city center can have costly and, most importantly, deadly ramifications. This is why earthquake proof buildings, also known as earthquake resistant buildings, are becoming more common.

In an attempt to prevent damage during a quake, many earthquake-prone cities have mandated sweeping engineering standards for new high-rises as well as retrofitting standards for older units. But just because a building is sturdy doesn’t mean it can’t have style. We’ve collected the most amazing and gorgeous earthquake proof buildings from around the world.

(When you’re done with these buildings, check out the craziest, most tricked-out shipping container homes, or everything we know about how China builds artificial islands.)

Taipei 101 (Taipei, Taiwan)

At 1,667 feet tall, Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world when it was completed in 2004. While it may no longer hold claim to this engineering title, Taipei 101 still houses some of the most impressive seismic- and weather-resistant technologies ever designed. Taipei 101 uses a a massive internal damper to control swaying and minimize the possibility of structural damage or failure, making it a very earthquake resistant building. The goal of such a damper isn’t to prevent swaying in general, but to instead attempt to control this movement.

This tuned mass damper weighs 728 tons and is suspended between the 87th and 92nd floors. During an earthquake or high winds, the pendulum counteracts the building’s movements. In 2005, during Typhoon Soudelor, Taipei 101 was blitzed with winds of 100 miles per hour and even a gust of 145 mph. However, the damper — which was engineered for a maximum wind speed of 135 mph — quite literally weathered the storm. You can watch the pendulum in motion during Typhoon Soudelor.

Shanghai Tower (Shanghai, China)

Standing more than 2,000 feet high, the Shanghai Tower is the second tallest building on the planet. Unfortunately, Shanghai is located in a seismically active area and the site of the tower is composed primarily of soft, clay-heavy soil. To boost the foundation and make it more of an earthquake proof building, engineers incorporated 980 piles — some nearly 300 feet deep — secured within 2.15 million cubic feet of reinforced concrete.

Like Taipei 101, the Shanghai Tower also utilizes a tuned mass damper to control sway during an earthquake or high winds. Weighing in at 1,000 tons, the damper in the Shanghai Tower dwarfs the device used in Taipei 101 by more than 200 tons. As the building sways, the inertia of the weight counters this movement. For optimal counterbalancing, a series of shock absorbers keep the pendulum from swinging too far or too quickly.

The Transamerica Pyramid (San Francisco, California)

A study published in 2016, stated that current predictive earthquake models could be significantly underestimating the potential of the next massive tremor to strike the Bay Area. This future shock is currently forecasted to be at least as strong as the notorious 1994 6.7-magnitude Northridge quake and the Transamerica Pyramid — currently the tallest building in San Francisco — was deigned to withstand the inevitable Big One.

The building itself sits on a 52-feet deep foundation of concrete and steel that was designed to move with the earth during a quake. The exterior is made of precast quartz aggregate, buttressed with reinforcing rods at four points on each level. During the 1989, the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta quake, the building shook for more than a minute and the top floor swayed from side-to-side nearly a foot, but the building sustained no structural damage. A series of sensors installed in the frame of the building measure horizontal displacement and according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Transamerica Pyramid could withstand an even larger seismic event. It may be a truly earthquake proof building.

Mori Tower (Tokyo, Japan)

Japan sits in one of the most seismically active regions on the planet. Each year, the country experiences more than 100,000 earthquakes, according to the Seismology Society of Japan. After the catastrophic 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake — or Kobe earthquake is it more commonly known — the country mandated new engineering standards and sweeping retrofitting overhauls to prevent similar devastation in the future.

Mori Tower is one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo and per its official website, the tower was designed to be a “a ‘city to escape into’ rather than a city from which people run away.” To fulfill this ambitious goal, the Mori Tower features some of the most sophisticated motion-absorbing, earthquake resistant building technology ever implemented.

Like Taipei 101, Mori Tower uses damper engineering for seismic resistance. However, rather than implementing a massive tuned damper Mori Tower uses 192 of fluid-filled shock absorbers. These semi-active dampers are filled with a thick oil, and as the tower begins to sway — as a result of tremor or high winds — this oil is sloshed in the opposite direction to counter and/or minimize this swaying.

New Wilshire Grand Center (Los Angeles, California)

Southern California is long overdue for a massive earthquake and this was known even prior to a newly identified fault in the area capable of creating a 7.4-magnitude earthquake. With this rather foreboding knowledge in mind, Los Angeles has some of the most expansive seismic building regulations in the country. In fact, in 2015, more than 15,000 buildings were required to be retrofitted to meet these new guidelines.

As one could imagine, the tallest building in Los Angeles, the New Wilshire Grand tower, went through rather rigorous seismic modeling beforehand. During testing it was realized that an earthquake could create catastrophic whiplash on the top floors of the building. To counter this, the team implemented 30 outriggers along three sections of the building. Outriggers are braces that form triangles that extend from the center of the complex to the exterior columns of the building, allowing the facility to resist vertical and lateral forces.

To further buttress these outriggers, engineers incorporated a series of so-called buckling-restrained braces to each unit. These specialized braces can stretch and also compress without buckling. The building itself sits on a 17.5-foot concrete foundation and the seismic savvy skyscraper also utilizes a joint between the base and the tower that is capable of sustaining up to 1.5-feet of sway.

Sabiha Gökçen Airport (Istanbul, Turkey)

In 1999, a 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit Istanbul killing 17,000 people. Seeing as the city is situated near the Arabian, African, and Eurasian tectonic plates, another large quake is projected to happen within the next 30 years. With that in mind, engineers designed Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen Airport to be able to withstand the next inevitable seismic shock. The airport now claims the lofty and very specific title of the world’s largest seismically isolated building.

The two-million square foot complex sits above the ground on more than 300 seismic isolators. These individual bearings shift with the undulations of the earthquake, allowing the entire building to move as a single unit. This design diminishes the acceleration the building would experience during an earthquake by 80 percent.

Komatsu Seiren (Nomi, Japan)

Not all earthquake proof building designs utilize the most sophisticated dampers or seismic isolators to protect buildings during major seismic shifts. A Japanese textile firm, Komatsu Seiren, recently used high-tensile twine developed from carbon fiber to reinforce its facility in Nomi, Japan. Architects Kengo Kuma and Associates then attached more than 1,000 of these high-tensile rods to the roof of the facility. Inside the showroom, another “curtain” of nearly 3,000 additional rods add further structural reinforcement. Together these systems help minimize the horizontal forces exerted during an earthquake.

Alienware Area 51 (2017): Our first take

Research Center:
Alienware Area 51 (2017)

Alienware came to E3 2017 packing eye-opening announcements, and none was more impressive than its upcoming Area 51 systems with AMD Threadripper and Intel Core X processors. These super-high-end configurations are, for many gamers, the definition of a dream machine. And we had a chance to look at them on the show floor.

A familiar but still awesome chassis

The models of Area 51 announced at E3 may be stuffed with cores, but they’re packed in a familiar crust. Luckily, it’s as appealing and delicious as ever. Triangular in design, the Area 51 is still unique in the world of gaming desktops.

Alienware’s unusual aesthetic has some functional benefits, as well. It allows a simple, straight avenue for airflow through the case, with intake coming in the bottom, and exhaust flowing out the top-rear. And plugging a headset or controller into the forward points, which are sloped towards the user, is easier than with most standard setups. It’s even easier to pick up the Area 51 than most rectangular cases.

Matt Smith/Digital Trends

Matt Smith/Digital Trends

Matt Smith/Digital Trends

Matt Smith/Digital Trends

Shape aside, the Area 51 is not overly boisterous. Its sleek, gray side panels don’t scream for attention as loudly as the tempered glass windows and sculpted plastic front façades found on some competitors. Still, the system does include a triad of AlienFX lighting on each side, as well as some touches along the front. These light strips can coordinate with other Alienware peripherals through a bundled software interface.

The real power is inside

Of course, looks are half the story – or maybe a third. The real news is what’s inside these systems. Area 51 systems with AMD Threadripper will ship July 27, while the Core X version will ship in late August. Strangely, the system will only ship with Intel Core X chips up to the 10-core i9-7900X.

Alienware Area 51 (2017) Compared To

MSI Trident 9S6-B90611-02S

Digital Storm Velox (Kaby Lake)

Cybertron CLX Ra

Acer Predator G1

Digital Storm Aventum 3

AVADirect X99 Gaming System

Maingear F131

Dell XPS 625

AVA Direct Gaming PC Workstation

Gateway FX540XT

Gateway FX7020

eMachines T6212

Gateway 7200XL

Gateway Media Center XL

Gateway 700XL

The massive chips are noticeable even under the water blocks that conceal them. Most systems have a water block that, at its core, is the size of a dollar coin, but these Area 51 rigs have blocks the size of a hockey puck. Even then, some elements of the socket are visible from beneath them. That’s what multi-core insanity looks like.

Alienware also displayed an Area 51 system stuffed with two Radeon video cards (no – they weren’t Vega). Gamers can order the rigs with up to two Nvidia GTX cards in SLI, or up to three AMD Radeon cards in CrossFire. Quad-card setups aren’t supported. At least, not yet.

Normally, we’d expect such firepower to consume much of a rig’s interior space, but the Area 51 does an excellent job of managing its components. The case door simply snaps off and, once inside, most components are accessible without removing other components. Power and data cords are smartly run as well, so they shouldn’t get in the way of upgrades.

Mainstream for a reason

Alienware’s Area 51 is among the most popular gaming desktops available, yet it’s also full of clever ideas rarely found elsewhere. Its massive, unusual case has practical benefits, and its internal layout is among the cleanest in the business. The new Area 51, packed with up to 16 cores, looks ready to conquer all challengers when it’s released in late July.

Streamers and press duke it out at E3 2017, but let’s not forget we’re all gamers

Streamers and YouTube creators are attending E3 2017 in record numbers, and that’s creating a bit of tension on the show floor. With bigger media outlets and streamers jockeying for the same demos and access, these growing pains are only natural, but it’s important to keep in mind that democratizing access at E3 is ultimately a good thing for gamers.

Public access

Since the event is open to the public for the first time, fans, streamers, and content creators who may not have large enough followings to qualify for press access, are able to enjoy the biggest gaming event of the year right alongside big media outlets. At a few pre-show events, some publishers set aside streamer-centric seating right alongside the press.

This has, of course, ruffled some feathers, but game publishers getting friendly with streamers is not going to herald the death of the traditional media or journalism, or any of the other apocalyptic predictions made since Bethesda stopped sending early review copies of their games to big media outlets.

The barriers between the people making games and the people playing them are getting thinner and thinner.

Keep in mind, we’ve seen these arguments before. Remember when those dastardly bloggers started getting invited to press-only events — back when LiveJournal was the hot new platform? Exactly.

Publishers may see streamers as a killer marketing opportunity, but there’s another big opportunity here, and it’s all about gamers. Access is a two-way street. Game publishers and developers that reach out to streamers are also giving them access to developers, news, and games that otherwise would be reserved for fewer eyes. That means big game publishers are more directly accountable to their fans.

The barriers between the people making games and the people playing them are getting thinner and thinner, and that makes feedback and criticism more difficult for publishers and developers to avoid. They’re exposed to a plurality of voices, with diverse backgrounds and perspectives that they otherwise may not have heard, or may not have had a reason to listen to.

Big business

Streaming is ubiquitous. It’s big enough, and popular enough, that every major tech company is trying to get in on the action — or keep their share of it. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are all pushing their livestreaming platforms, while Amazon continues to dominate with its incredibly popular Twitch platform.

E3/Flickr

Rather than ignore this captive audience which commands immense influence and buying power, companies like Bethesda, Intel, and other exhibitors at this year’s E3 are making sure they include fans, enthusiasts, and streamers in their efforts to promote their products.

That means carving out access for streamers and YouTube content creators, in addition to traditional media outlets. It’s ruffled some feathers on the show floor, as streamers are getting the kind of access usually reserved for the press, but that’s not what matters to gamers. Everyone now has a seat on the couch, and that’s awesome.

Inclusive over exclusive

Opening E3 up for streamers, and welcoming the public, means longer lines and bigger crowds to navigate. It might also mean the loss of some exclusive access. In the long run, though, inclusion is never a bad thing.

In the long run, though, inclusion is never a bad thing.

E3 is about video games. People who play games should have a stake in what’s going on here, whether that’s through a media outlet like Digital Trends, or through their favorite streamer. The end goal is the same. Gamers want to find their new favorite game.

Press or public, we’re all here for the same reasons; because we’re passionate about games, because we want to see what’s coming out in the coming year. So, even though lines are longer, and our access might not be as exclusive as it used to be, let’s try to be remember we’re all here for the same reason.

Free T-shirts.