Boots

Nancy Sinatra once mused that her boots were made for walking. In these days of global positioning, going walkabout is not as random an event as it might once have been, but there are still occasions when the all-seeing GPS device can't pick up a satellite. In such cases, having a back-up could mean the difference between getting out of the deep, dark underground cave in one piece or being lost in its tunnels forever. Researchers from North Carolina State University and Carnegie Mellon University have combined technology that is used to measure speed and distance with portable radar equipment to help keep track of a user's location. Read More

Winter sports offer all manner of exhilarating and exhausting possibilities - from negotiating seriously difficult trails, to mountain trekking or adrenaline-producing snowmobiling. But what if your boots aren’t up to the job, and you have to confess to your fellow hikers that you can’t go on because your feet are too cold? Enter Columbia’s Bugaboot Thermo Hiking Boots - the first hiking boots to integrate a three-temperature heating system to provide protection from the cold…and scornful looks from your hiking buddies. Read More

March 19, 2007 A few years ago we ran a story on the Russian-built Saigak Power Boots, which enabled a human wearing them to achieve nearly 22 mph while running. We could never quite understand what happened to the boots as they disappeared from view and … now we know – they were too unsafe in the wrong hands, and The New York Times has an excellent article on Viktor Gordeyev’s petrol-burning seven league boots and why they never got to market and an array of images that we’re sure will fire the imagination of more than a few Gizmag readers. Read More

October 25, 2006 There’s nothing as important as a competitive edge in the high-stakes game of world class sport and the recent launch of a new manufacturer in the sportswear industry with a seeming significant advantage will be interesting to watch. Simon Skirrow has spent three decades in the global sports industry, including many years at Adidas in charge of global marketing, promotions, product and sales, and his new company, SS Sportswear was established less than three years ago to bring its Nomis grip technologies to market. Independent tests show that Nomis Control Leather Technology gives up to 16 times more grip and control on the ball in the dry and eight times more grip and control when the leather gets wet. Not surprisingly, quite a few professionals have trialed the technology and a few have walked away from lucrative contracts with competitor products to stay with the Nomis technology, most notably Liverpool star Harry Kewell amongst more than 40 professionals that have begun wearing the boots. Nomis is available in both boots and gloves in the UK, USA, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the internet and the company is seeking further international distributors. Adding weight to the professionals who have adopted the new technology, two of NOMIS' boot designs took first and second place in the 2006 Soccer International Magazine Boot Test, beating big-name brand competitors including Adidas, Nike, Puma, Reebok and Umbro. Both NOMIS boots scored top marks for comfort, stability/manoeuvrability, touch/feel and received a perfect score for the 'value for money' category. Read More

April 11, 2006 Rapid manufacturing and rapid prototyping machinery is not new, and has been written about many times across these pages – in essence, these machines print 3D objects in the same way an inkjet printer works. Each time we run such a story, it is extraordinarily well read as a high proportion of our readers explore the latest developments in the process. Now it seems, the rapid manufacturing concept will yield a new era in manufacturing products for individuals based on three dimensional scans of their body – garments, helmets, or boots that fit just one person perfectly. British company P2L has announced a football boot designed uniquely for the individual player using selective laser sintering. The Assassin is the name of the new soccer boot featuring laser sintered outsoles and hand-crafted one-piece leather uppers. Each boot is sculpted to the individual's foot. The upper is made of exclusively sourced calfskin from Italy which can be manipulated using sophisticated technology to adapt colour, appearance and function to the athlete's needs. Read More

January 31, 2006 adidas unveiled a new soccer footwear concept late last week in Germany which could have far-reaching ramifications for the world's fashion footwear and sporting footwear industries. The boot is modular and will be known as the +F50 TUNIT. This new soccer boot concept allows players to customize, adapt and tune their boots to any weather, any pitch and their very own personal style. The revolutionary +F50 TUNIT is easily constructed from three interchangeable components: the upper, the chassis and the studs. Each component comes in a variety of styles and functions. Simply by mixing and matching their components of choice, each player can easily build and tune their boots. Read More

Seven League Boots are the stuff of fairy stories but a new design known as "Seven Mile Boots" is aiming to assist the wearer travel virtually whilst strolling around a city. Sitting somewhere between performance and experiential art, Seven Mile Boots are interactive shoes with audio. One can wear the boots, and walk around simultaneousy in the physical world and in the literal world of the internet. By walking in the physical world one may suddenly encounter a group of people chatting in real time in the virtual world. The chats are heard as a spoken text coming from the boots. The concept is that whenever you wear the boots, the physical and the virtual worlds will merge together. Read More

One of Gizmag's earliest stories was about the efforts of Russian engineers in resurrecting a 30-year old Soviet Military prototype to develop "Quickwalker" boots - a hydraulic piston mounted on each boot is driven by an engine contained in the heel to supplement the human walking motion and allow the user to jump over obstacles two metres high, take four metre strides and run at up to 60kph over long distances. Read More