Tech Trends- Dec 19-20
Stars Wars breaks records, Netflix gives a helpful DIY, SpaceX delays launch and more in this week’s Weekend in Tech Trends.
Tech Trends 1) Netflix Socks help with your holiday binge
Are you planning on binging on Netflix over the holidays? Well Netflix has you covered for when you fall asleep watching your favorite series. Over the weekend, Netflix released a how to guide for how to make Netflix socks.
Netflix socks pause the show you’re currently watching once they sense that you’ve fallen asleep so that you never miss a moment. The socks are powered by an Arduino microcontroller and an accelerometer is used to detect motion. When the accelerometer detects you’ve stopped moving, an LED light will flash red and send a signal to your TV to tell it to pause the video. Netflix says they are “good at detecting when you’re just sitting still, raptly watching Netflix, and when you’ve actually fallen asleep.”
Check out Netflix’s how to guide here and check out the promo video below-
Source: Mashable
Tech Trends 2) Star wars has a record breaking opening weekend as expected
Star Wars finally hit theaters on Thursday and hasn’t slowed down since. The J.J. Abrams directed, The Force Awakens, set an opening day record by bringing in a total of $120 million. Becoming the first movie to bring in $100 million on opening day. Star Wars is also projected to bring in well over $240 million for the weekend, which crushes the previous record set by Jurassic World in June with $208 million. We’ll be on standby for the official numbers but as of now we can expect it to be setting the record quite high.
Source: LATimes
Tech Trends 3) SpaceX delays launch and landing due to weather
SpaceX has been wanting to land their Falcon 9 rocket for awhile. They were prepared to launch and land the rocket on Sunday but decided to delay the launch due to weather. Musk tweeted saying that the rocket had a 10% higher chance of a successful landing if it were to launch on Monday.
In the past, SpaceX has landed the first stage of the Falcon 9 on sea. This will be there first attempt of landing it on the ground of Cape Canaveral. Tune in for the event on Monday at 8:33 pm et time here.
Source: TheVerge
Tech Trends 4) Transform your Spotify progress bar into a lightsaber
In the midst of the Star Wars craze, Spotify has planted an easter egg in their song progress bar. There’s two ways to get it. One, you can go to the new Star Wars soundtrack and start playing it, you should then see your progress bar switch and you can click the hilt to switch between styles. If you don’t want to go to the soundtrack, type “THX1138” into the search bar. Your progress bar should then switch over. You can also check out which Star Wars character you would be based on your music listening history.
Source: TechRadar
