On Netflix’s bi-annual “Hack Day” employees are encouraged to try out new ideas and concepts. This time, Hack Day produced a new VR app for HTC Vive, QuietCast for Chromecast, a customizable "Tetris" user interface, and other things.
Only concepts so far
On a previous Hack Days, company’s employees built the first virtual reality app for Netflix, which went on to lay the foundation for the Netflix VR app on Samsung Gear VR. We have also seen concepts such as Philips Hue integration. However, most of them stay in the concept phase.
This time, three employees created the "Netflix Zone", which is a virtual reality app for the HTC Vive. The user can walk around in a virtual video store that resembles an old Blockbuster shop. Netflix’s content is placed on store shelves and each title resembles a video tape. Whenever you want to watch something you pick it up the tape and hold it up to you face, after which a movie canvas rolls down from the ceiling. You can download the app if you own the HTC Vive headset.
QuietCast is another concept produced on Hack Day. It integrates with Chromecast and allows the user to cast video only to the TV screen while listening with headphones on. A third concept is a customizable “tetris” user interface that lets the user to re-arrange the rows of content.
You check out some of the concepts from Netflix Hack Day below.
