User:MatthewMckenney/sandbox

A-Capella work:

A cappella, being something any human could feasibly do, could very well be as old as man itself. In fact, research suggests that singing and vocables could have been the language that early humans had used before the invention of language. That in mind, the earliest piece of sheet music is thought to have originated from times as early as 2000 B.C. But the earliest sheet music that has survived in its entirety is from the first century, A.D. This was a piece from Greece labeled “Seikilos Epitaph.”

Editing A-Capella article: In addition to singing words, some a cappella singers also emulate instrumentation by reproducing instrumental sounds with their vocal cords and mouth, often pitched using specialized pitch pipes. One of the earliest 20th century practitioners of this method were The Mills Brothers whose early recordings of the 1930s clearly stated on the label that all instrumentation was done vocally. More recently, "Twilight Zone" by 2 Unlimited was sung a cappella to the instrumentation on the comedy television series Tompkins Square. Another famous example of the human voice emulating instrumentation, is the theme song for The New Addams Family series on Fox Family Channel (now ABC Family). Groups such as Vocal Sampling and Undivided emulate Latin rhythms a cappella. In the 1960s, the Swingle Singers used their voices to emulate musical instruments to Baroque and Classical music. Vocal artist Bobby McFerrin is famous for his instrumental emulation. A cappella group Naturally Seven recreates entire songs using vocal tones for every instrument.

The Swingle Singers used ad libs to sound like instruments, but have been known to produce non-verbal versions of musical instruments. Beatboxing, more accurately known as vocal percussion, is a technique used in a cappella music popularized by the hip-hop community, where rap is sometimes performed a cappella also. The advent of vocal percussion added new dimensions to the a cappella genre and has become very prevalent in modern arrangements. Beatboxing came

Jazz vocalist Petra Haden used a four-track recorder to produce an a cappella version of The Who Sell Out including the instruments and fake advertisements on her album Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out in 2005. Haden has also released a cappella versions of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", The Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" and Michael Jackson's "Thriller".

Christian rock group Relient K recorded the song "Plead the Fifth" a cappella on its album Five Score and Seven Years Ago. The group recorded lead singer Matt Thiessen making drum noises and played them with an electronic drum machine to record the song, blurring the lines between true a capella and instrument use.

Netflix Button work:

The Netflix button is a device implemented on many modern remotes. This button is used to directly connect to the popular streaming service Netflix and was initially implemented in America, 2011. In 2015, the button was added to European remotes. This button sends an infrared(IR) signal to the television and opens up the Netflix app. Many popular TV companies have adopted the Netflix button, including: LG, Samsung, and Sony. Some of the TVs have made it to a list that Netflix has dubbed the "Netflix Recommended TVs". These are TVs that have a Netflix button on them which Netflix recommends to their subscribers to get the best viewing experience for their service.

The Netflix button only works on those TVs that support it, this includes: "Smart TVs, game consoles, streaming media players, set-top boxes, and Blu-ray players". Although hard-programmed on many devices, the Netflix button as of recent has been opening up to re-purposing. On the NVIDIA shield remote, the remote has a Netflix button that can be reprogrammed very easily using a program on the TV itself.

Netflix button on a TV remote

Netflix, in 2015, had also open sourced a design for consumers to create their own Netflix button with additional features. Labeled "The Switch", this homemade device can dim the lights, silence incoming phone calls, order take-out, and open Netflix with one button press. The Switch is part of a series of DIY projects Netflix created, knows as "Netflix Make It" for their consumers to learn more about programming and create their own projects.

The Netflix button has not been received without controversy, as an article from "The Verge" says, the button comes as a constant advertisement on a device you had already payed up to thousands of dollars for. Arguing that the buttons are "putting making money ahead of actual user experience or design". A common complaint is when a consumer accidentally hits the Netflix button as a non-subscriber and are taken to a useless screen. This mistake is rather easy, as the Netflix button is often the largest button on the remotes they are manufactured onto.

A popular option for streaming services, Roku, has 4 separate streaming buttons on their remotes. Each of these buttons cost the streaming service one dollar per unit sold. The Roku has many different buttons for the consumer to choose, but most of the remotes feature a Netflix button on them.