News

Netflix Is Introducing Sleep Timer Functionality On Android

Published

9 months ago

February 1, 2021

Joanna

netflix is introducing sleep timer functionality on android

Do you often doze off while watching Netflix? If so, the streaming giant has a nice surprise for you: a sleep timer feature that lets you configure when you want Netflix to automatically stop playing.

This feature is currently available only in the Android version of the Netflix app, and only select Android users have access to it. If you see a clock icon in the top-right corner (right next to the Chromecast icon) while playing a video, that means you’re one of the lucky people who have been randomly picked by Netflix to test the sleep timer.

To activate it, you simply need to tap it and choose the preferred time setting. You can pick between 15, 30, and 45 minutes, and there’s also an option to stop playback at the end of whatever content is playing at the moment.

netflix sleep timer android

In November 2020, Android developers and power users at XDA Developers were among the first to receive the news about Netflix potentially adding a sleep timer feature in a future update when the following string was discovered in the resource files of Netflix 7.82.1:

<string name=”sleep_timer_button”>Timer</string>

Of course, Netflix isn’t the only streaming service that has introduced this feature (Spotify, Pandora, and other music streaming services have sleep timers as well). But none of its direct competitors, including Amazon Video, Hulu, and Display+, have made it possible for their users to set a sleep timer yet, so it definitely takes the lead there.

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Besides stopping your Android device from streaming video content until its battery reaches zero, the sleep timer can be useful if you like to watch Netflix while cooking, reminding you that your baked potatoes are ready. Once the feature leaves the testing phase and becomes globally available, we’re sure that Android users will come up with many more use cases for it.

News

Facebook Will Create 10,000 Jobs In The EU To Build Its Metaverse

Facebook decided to invest in the EU because the company believes that European talent is world-leading, supported by first-class universities.

Published

17 hours ago

October 21, 2021

David

facebook will create 10,000 jobs in the eu to build its metaverse

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Facebook has announced that it wants to create 10,000 jobs in the European Union (EU) to build its metaverse, a virtual reality space in which users can interact with a computer-generated environment and other users.

The concept of the metaverse can be traced to Neal Stephenson’s 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash. In the novel, the metaverse is a virtual shared space that appears to its users as an urban environment. This space is accessed through personal terminals connected to virtual reality goggles.

Sound familiar? That’s because the metaverse is quickly becoming a reality thanks to companies like Oculus, a subsidiary of Facebook, and the combined effort of developers and content creators from around the world.

By creating thousands of new high-skilled jobs within the EU over the next five years, Facebook wants to accelerate the development of the metaverse to usher in a new phase of interconnected virtual experiences, enabled by technologies like virtual and augmented reality.

“At its heart is the idea that by creating a greater sense of ‘virtual presence,’ interacting online can become much closer to the experience of interacting in person,” said Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs. “The metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social and economic opportunities”.

According to the official announcement, Facebook decided to invest in the EU because the company believes that European talent is world-leading, supported by first-class universities. Facebook also mentioned the role European policymakers are playing in shaping the internet, so it’s likely that the investment has a political dimension to it.

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Aware of its tarnished reputation, the social media giant stressed that no single company would own and operate the metaverse — just like no single company owns the internet today. Of course, that doesn’t change anything about the fact that Facebook wants to play a huge role in it.

Earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg told his employees that Facebook is becoming a metaverse company with the goal of building a set of connected social apps and supporting hardware. The recently released Horizon Workrooms remote collaboration app for the Oculus Quest 2 headset can be seen as an early piece of the much larger puzzle the metaverse will become in the future.