Netflix ‘Hack Day’ Results In Some Fantastic Ideas

This hooded hacker is in the Matrix, stealing your identities

Let’s be real for a minute. You totally stream video at work while you’re pretending to bust out expense reports for your boss. Normally that requires lightning quick reflexes and CMD+Tab button mashes, but there’s a nice little Chrome plugin that’s being bottled up at Netflix that minimizes your video stream into a tiny window.

The plugin, birthed during the company’s Hack Day, is called NetflixMini, and it’s glorious. Problem is, it doesn’t exist publicly yet. There’s mention of it as an award winner from Netflix’s Hack Day, but there’s nowhere to download it yet. Fact is, the hacks are internal at Netflix, but there’s no word on if any of them will be made public in the future, or ever. That makes me sad. Really, really sad.

Another cool hack that managed to come from the Hack Day was a project that integrated the Philips Hue lighting system with Netflix. The system provided a beautiful backlight for a television while you watched your favorite videos on the service. It’s another award winner, and it’s something I would use immediately as well.

Netflix, these hacks are too good to keep bottled up. Set the hacks free.

Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld and TechHive.