MICRO – The World’s Smallest Universal Travel Adapter With Surge Protection!

If you’re travelling the world for work or pleasure, you’ve no doubt ran into problems with power adapters. There’s just so many type of different power outlets out there, having a single portable universal power adapter that can fit everywhere can be quite headache-inducing. They do exist, but most are super bulky and do not come with surge protection.

But now, thanks to the MICRO, the world’s smallest universal travel adapter, you can travel everywhere with just one single adapter, compatible in over 150 countries on all 7 continents!

The Micro is currently on Kickstarter and has collected over 415,000£ with an initial goal of 15,500£ (ships worldwide.) Be sure to check out everything the device has to offer on its product page right here!

[MICRO – The World’s Smallest Universal Travel Adapter]

Hydrodynamic Levitation! [Video]

From Veritasium:

My friend Blake from InnoVinci emailed me with a cool idea for a video and footage of levitating balls in water streams. Initially it was tough to explain the physics of what was going on. The standard Bernoulli effect relies on the object being completely immersed in the upward-flowing fluid. But in this case the water seems to form a single stream around the object and it’s deflected away and down from the stream. By Newton’s third law, the force on the water by the ball is equal and opposite to the force of the water back on the ball, pushing it up into the stream. There is a stable equilibrium position because if the ball moves into the stream, it “cuts off” the water going over the ball so it drifts out. If it drifts out too far, then lots of water passes over the ball, pushing it back into the stream.

[Veritasium]

Toy Story Zero: The True Story Of Andy’s Dad & Woody’s Origin

One of the longest standing mysteries about Pixar’s Toy Story movies is what happened to Andy’s dad? It turns out the secret was once revealed by Pixar’s Head Writer Joe Ranft to his friend Mike Mozart. Today J sits down with Mike to discuss and retell the amazing story that happened before Toy Story.

[SuperCarlinBrothers]

Amazon’s Dash Wand Not Quite Magical Yet

Amazon has released a wand, though it’s far from an essential right now. The Dash Wand is effectively a version of the existing Dash button with a built-in barcode reader.

The Dash buttons are simply Wi-Fi connected buttons that perform a specific action when pressed. In the case of most of the buttons available right now, that means re-ordering a particular household product from Amazon (with a daily limit to reduce and mitigate the risk of mistaken orders) rather than have to remember to get it from a store next time you shop.

Most of the interesting uses of the system have come from modifications, either home hackers trying to find useful ways to exploit the button and internet connection, or white goods manufacturers exploring the idea of, for example, a washing machine that automatically re-orders laundry detergent when it calculates it has used most of a carton.

The Dash Wand adds a barcode reader and a slimmed-down version of the Alexa Assistant with reduced functionality. Those added tools mean it’s a little bulkier as it uses two AA batteries. The gadget is magnetic, most likely to make it easy to keep on a fridge door.

The concept is that once the device is set-up, you can scan a barcode on anything to add it (or the closest alternative that’s available) to your Amazon shopping cart. You’ll still need to visit the Amazon website or app to confirm the cart contents and place the order.

You can also use Alexa by pressing the button rather than speaking, though the Dash Wand doesn’t support any functions such as playing music or using reminders that require the device to be switched on continuously rather than resolved instantly. As with other Alexa gadgets, you can speak the name of a product to buy it.

The gadget costs $20 and includes a three-month free trial of Amazon Fresh grocery ordering if available in your area. If you’re a Prime customer you get $20 credit, offsetting the purchase price of the Dash Wand.