Author Name: Carribean Channel, Cuba TV.
This story was originally published on canalcaribe.ict.cu. [1]

Don’t let Netflix keep us awake
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Without a doubt, more than one will agree that the best nap or “fishing”, as they say in good Cuban, is the one that catches you in front of the television. It does not matter if it is at night or after lunch; if you are watching Mediodia on TV or the Brazilian soap opera; the eyes close little by little, the jaw relaxes and like the swaying of the waves, the head goes from one side to the other in search of a resting surface. For a head butt, how many episodes have we missed of our favorite series?

How many times have we missed the end of a movie? Precisely, to save this type of inconvenience, Netflix, the streaming platform par excellence, just launched last Friday, January 29th, a global test on Android devices that will allow subscribers to set a timer to prevent content from continuing to play, in case they fall asleep. The new function allows to program that at 15, 30, 45 minutes or at the end of the episode the screen turns off automatically; And although for the moment the test is limited to selected users worldwide, Netflix will study the possibility of bringing it to other devices, including televisions, laptops and desktop computers, depending on the degree of adaptation of the product and if it seems to like to subscribers.

The content timer isn’t your first attempt at saving customers the awkward act of breaking inertia to turn off the screen. In 2015, smart socks came onto the market (yes, like the ones we wear inside our shoes), which pause what you are watching when they detect that you have fallen asleep. “We have based our sleep detection system on a popular method called actigraphy. An accelerometer detects when you have stopped moving for an extended period of time and sends a signal to the TV that pauses playback, “explains Netflix. In fact, a red LED light is activated to warn that the pause signal is about to be sent.

Apparently, the entertainment company is doing so well that it is not so concerned about the rivalry of other companies such as Amazon Prime, Apple TV +, Hulu and Disney +, as the dream of its subscribers. “We are competing with the dream,” has confessed Reed Hastings, its CEO, on more than one occasion in conferences and interviews. “If you think about it, when you watch Netflix and get hooked on a series, you stay up late watching episodes. Really, our true competitor to keep people watching is the dream, ”Hastings said during the company’s 2017 quarterly earnings release. The road to hell is paved with good intentions Its name comes from Net abbreviation for “Internet” and flix for “flicks” colloquial English for movies.

It emerged in 1997 in California, United States, as a DVD rental company delivered by postal mail and since 2012 it has participated from the conception or acquisition of the script to the dissemination of its audiovisual products (films, series, documentaries), in this case to through an online platform. With 158 million subscribers around the world, in 2019 it was recognized as the largest streaming service on a global scale.

Currently, it defines itself as a global Internet television network. Among his most acclaimed titles are the series Stranger Things, La casa de papel, The Crown, Sex Education, The Umbrella Academy, and more recently, The Queen’s Gambit and Brigderton.However, with the advancement in network infrastructure and access facilities, netizens are subject to the clauses and conditions that these service and data exchange platforms impose.

As users, we do not know, most of the time, the route that the information provided to its destination follows, at what intermediate points they are temporarily stored and who can access, copy, modify and use them for a purpose other than the one for which they were delivered. Hence, it is necessary to live in cyberspace with the same caution with which we live in public life. And although Netflix does not want us to miss a detail of their videos, I do not renounce the lashes, even if they tell me the intermissions later.

(C) Cuba TV, Cuban state owned media.
[1] Url: https://www.canalcaribe.icrt.cu/en/dont-let-netflix-keep-us-awake/