A new “Hack Day” has taken place at Netflix, leaving in its wake some very strange developments that will probably never go beyond the prototype stage. I still remember well that episode of House of Cards on an NES console, but this time around, Netflix engineers decided to explore the potential of mind control under the MindFlix project. In essence, the remote control is replaced by the user’s brain, and a tiara with EEG support.
The Remote Control Dilemma
Who hasn’t lost a remote control? How many times has it been destroyed by that last shot that hit the post in the 94th minute, or drowned in unclear circumstances? The remote control must not only respond to the user’s commands, but also tolerate a significant amount of abuse. In other words, remote controls break, or end up in very hard-to-reach places (whether in one piece or several). The market has tried to offer various universal options, but at the last Hack Day organized by Netflix, they decided to explore a much less conventional route, to say the least. The project is called MindFlix, and its operation boils down to two words: mind control.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/cyMqFEJSI_UMindFlix in Action
What they did was take a “Muse meditation tiara” and reprogram it so that it recognizes head movements, as well as other specific orders emitted with our thoughts. The demo lasts about 20 seconds, but it’s enough to prove that the hack works. It’s just a proof of concept that could be of some use among users with reduced mobility, although most likely it will end up in a box like the Ark of the Covenant in the first Indiana Jones movie.
Alongside MindFlix, other projects were also created, including a Stranger Things video game, and a Christmas sweater that displays messages imitating the lights we see in the series. Personally, Netflix can experiment as much as it wants with mind control, as long as it doesn’t lose sight of its priorities, that is, improving its catalogs and speed, while maintaining a reasonable price.
