Netflix's new shuffle button: Overwhelmed with choosing what to watch? Netflix wants to help

4/29/21 7:00PM

In the last decade, Netflix has made a pretty clear move towards beefing up its TV show roster. Known more for movies back in 2010, Netflix has roughly quadrupled the number of TV shows in its US library since, as its movie library has shrunk (data from ReelGood). That means that if you just want a series to dip into on a couple of weekday evenings, you've got 2000+ shows to choose from (and that's just Netflix) — a decent chunk of which you probably have absolutely no interest in. That makes deciding what to watch quite hard.

‍Netflix, hit shuffle‍

‍Netflix has launched a new feature, which they're calling "Play Something", which the company hopes will take the dithering out of deciding what you want to watch. The button, which is being rolled out this week to all of its users, will choose something from Netflix's content that it thinks you'll like.

This is a pretty big test of just how good the Netflix algorithm is. Can an algorithm really make a better decision about what you want to watch on a regular basis? Or is this button only going to help those houses where arguments over what to watch boil over every night? Time will tell.

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Amazon expands low-price Haul section to 14 new markets as Amazon Bazaar app

Amazon is expanding its low-cost Amazon Haul experience to a new stand-alone app called Amazon Bazaar.

Amazon launched its Temu and Shein competitor a year ago as a US mobile storefront on its website and has since expanded to about a dozen markets. Consumers could purchase many items for under $10, as long as they were willing to stomach longer delivery times.

Now, thanks to success in those places, the programming is expanding to 14 new markets — Hong Kong, the Philippines, Taiwan, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Nigeria — with a new app and name: Amazon Bazaar.

“Both Amazon Haul and Amazon Bazaar deliver the same ultra low-price shopping experience, with different names chosen to better resonate with local language preferences and cultures,” the company said in a press release.

Amazon extends Haul’s ultra low-price shopping experience to 14 new destinations with new Amazon Bazaar app

Big Tech’s most important infrastructure is at the bottom of the sea

While data centers on land are getting all the attention, Big Tech’s vast network of undersea fiber-optic cables carry 99% of all international network traffic.

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After watching small drones reshape the battlefield in Ukraine, the US Army has announced plans to buy 1 million drones over the next two to three years, according to a report from Reuters.

The military threat of China’s dominance of the quadcopter-style drone industry is also driving the decision. But China’s control over much of the supply chain for drones, including rare earth magnets, sensors, and microcontrollers, will make it much harder for American drone manufacturers to catch up.

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