Worth Reading?
-1 [1 votes]
Loading ...Typical, you wait for ages with your boring do-nothing-but-cover-your-feet shoes and then multiple tech footwear shows up at once. Verb for Shoe, who believe that our feet are nothing without wireless contact exchange, are back with v.6 of their design. Meanwhile, “A Step in the Right Direction” (ASRD) take normal Nike Dunks and add some WiFi catching clever in the shape of an LED-blinking lace guard.
Verb for Shoe uses a short-range wireless link and integrated controls to beam your contact details - which could include name, address, phone number and a description of your favourite foot antics - to another person’s feet. Once back home, you plug them into your PC and synchronise with your address book. That, of course, assumes your new friend has also shelled out $700 for a pair of custom-made Verb for Shoe shoes.
ASRD, meanwhile, is slightly less collaborative but, given the fact that we already have address-exchanging methods (such as our mouths), perhaps more useful. A pressure-switch in the sole of the left shoe triggers a WiFi scan, the results of which are displayed via the three LEDs. Blinking means no signal, solid means a signal found, and however many are lit up indicates the strength. Sadly there’s no indication of whether the WiFi is encrypted or not, so you’re probably better off sticking with a detector that clips onto your keyring. No price, but presume that the hand-crafted electronics add-ons will add wildly to the cost of a standard set of Dunks.
[Verb for Shoe via Gear Diary]
[ASRD via Engadget]
With respect to verb for shoe, I’m now wondering why the whole wireless contact portion couldn’t be some type of external swappable chip like the Nike/iPod system.
Verb for Shoe is a pretty unique idea — but unless you have a LOT of ways to adjust how the shoe fits your foot (one of their claims to fame) - I think it’s a rather costly pair of shoes. The wireless portion should be external.
I agree that the wireless device should be removable, and much cheaper! Now if it could only hook up to mobile mesh I saw at wirelessworlds.com and do something besides blink, that too would rock ! Love the idea, but ontop of the $700 for the shoes, its cheaper to get a $29 wifi finder!