Just in time to hit the pre-holiday purchasing rush, Marty McFly’s famous footwear from Back to the Future will be available to buy starting at the end of November. The HyperAdapt 1.0 is going to carry a high price tag (yet unannounced), but heck, it will lace itself, too.

Each shoe has a cable system using fishing line and a pressure sensor – when you put in, the cable tightens based on an algorithmic pressures equation. This can be further adjusted via buttons in the tongue.

And yes, it takes power, so LEDs in the heel light up when loosening or tightening but also as a low-battery warning. A single charge will take a few hours but last weeks and can be achieved through a clip-on charger (like the Apple Watch).

So why does it still have laces? Those are just for the visuals – they loosen and tighten but just reflect the hidden mechanism doing the actual loosening and tightening below. Replicas and props have been released before, but these are the real deal: they will work, even if they cost a pretty penny.

The post For Sale: Nike’s Back-to-the-Futuristic Self-Lacing Shoes first appeared on Gajitz.

The movements of ballerinas are like the graceful brush strokes of a watercolor artist. They are flowy, light, and far more complicated than they look. Designer Lesia Trubat has developed a way to capture those brush strokes of movement by outfitting pointe shoes with electronics and connecting them to a proprietary app. She calls the system Electronic Traces, or E-Traces.

A Lilypad Arduino microcontroller board attached to the bottom of each shoe records the pressure and movements of the feet and sends the information to a mobile device.

From there, the dancer can see their foot movements drawn out on the screen in graphics. They can view the movements as a video and even print out extracted images.

The movement data can be used to track dancer’s progress in learning a particular routine, compare their moves with those of other dancers, and make corrections to foot placement.

Trubat feels that the technology could be used for dance styles other than ballet and would be particularly helpful to those who are just learning or who are self-teaching.

The post Wired Ballet Shoes Trace Movements to Make Visual Art first appeared on Gajitz.

Dhairya Dand, a researcher at MIT’s Media Lab, thinks that we rely on our smartphones so much that we’re missing the world around us. We use our phones to navigate, to find new places, and even to locate our friends. He’s designed an electronic shoe insole that gives you little haptic signals to guide you so that you can free up your hands from your smartphone and actually look around you as you wander.

SuperShoes are, of course, paired with a smartphone app – that’s probably unavoidable. Users plug their favorite destinations and interests into the online ShoeCentral platform, giving the insoles some insight into where you might like to be guided. When you’re out walking, the SuperShoes will give your feet a little tickle to alert you to a suggested destination. The shoe insole also links up with your calendar and to-do list, reminding you when to do certain tasks and sending you on shortcuts when you’re running late.

The most seemingly useful aspect of the shoes are as a navigation tool. Before you start out, you program your destination on the smartphone app. As you walk, the shoes tickle your left or right foot to tell you which way to turn. No more staring at the map on your phone or listening to a robotic voice telling you which way to go – just a set of tickly feet helping you find your way.

The SuperShoes project would undoubtedly be helpful in everyday life, but Dand doesn’t plan to turn them into a consumer product. His goal was simply to create a tech product that wasn’t as invasive as those which already rule our every waking moment, but is just as useful.

(via: Gizmag)

The post SmartyShoes: Haptic Insoles Guide Your Steps + Schedule first appeared on Gajitz.

Remember the days of dudes walking through the neighborhood carrying huge blaring boomboxes on their shoulders? IPods and other pocket-sized music players have effectively ensured that the boombox trend is completely dead, but New York studio Ray Kingston Inc. is bringing it into the 21st century.

Their Sneaker Speaker is a wireless, battery-powered sneaker that fits over a shoe. It’s paired via Bluetooth with a mobile phone, iPod or tablet so the music can stream endlessly.

The speaker attaches to the shoe via one or two straps around the ankle. Even when you aren’t walking around sharing your tunes with everyone in earshot, the speakers come with a stereo input and AC adapter port so you can use them at home like regular speakers.

The post Boogie Shoes: Speakers Attach to Your Feet for Portable Party first appeared on Gajitz.

At the end of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy clicked her heels together to go back home. These shoes designed by Dominic Wilcox are similarly designed to get you home, though maybe not as quickly. A GPS system in the heel of the left shoe shares a wireless connection with the right shoe. The right shoe has a number of lights which display how far away home is and which way the user needs to walk in order to get there.

The navigation feature of the No Place Like Home shoes is activated by clicking the heels together. Lights on the shoes show exactly how to get home, step by step. If you move to a new address or want to be guided to a different destination at the end of the night, the USB connection and mapping software make the change simple.

The post Ruby Slippers 2.0: GPS Shoes Light Up to Guide You Home first appeared on Gajitz.