How Much Computing Will You Wear In Your Shoes?

Bleeding Edge

from the very-smart-shoes dept

Forget gimmicky tricks like the “air pump” in the tongue or blinking lights on the back of sneakers, now companies like Adidas are working on “smart” shoes that include sophisticated sensors, a microprocessor and an electric motor to monitor how the shoe is responding to whatever the wearer is doing and adjust the shoe on the fly. That is, if the compression of the base of the shoe is too soft or too hard, it will adjust to make it better, lessening the wear and tear on a runner’s knees. Like those blinking lights on shoes that are popular with kids, it appears this sneaker will come with some blinking lights too – but they’ll serve a purpose: displaying the “settings” of your sneakers. This may be the first shoe that needs its own CD-ROM instruction manual. Don’t think shoe technology ends here, either. This is just the start of where some people see these smart shoes going. Some are even predicting that, for all the hype about wearable computing, the best place to put such processing power is in the shoe.