First the awesome emergency shoes, now another shoe-related technology from Japan: NTT, the country’s biggest telecommunications company, presents sandals that are able to generate electricity when walking.

Each step users take puts pressure on the liquid-filled sole. Two tanks are positioned below the toe and heel and connected via a small pipe. Every step creates water flows within the soles, enabling a small turbine generator to produce up to 1.2W of electricity.

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Your task was to come up with a caption for the above photo, which shows our intrepid editor John Biggs wearing one of his new shoes from Aussie Soles.

Here are your winners, ladies and gentlemen. They’ll each take home an IPEVO POV webcam for their troubles. Winners, we’ll contact you via e-mail to arrange shipment.

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In our long tradition of receiving strangely inapplicable pitches that somehow just work we present the Aussie Soles. These are not Crocs, although, ummm, I’d be concerned about patent infringement – after all they’re calling their snuggly boot line SnUggs. That said, I’m wearing the Aussie Soles Marines right now and, as Peter points out, as if there weren’t enough to make fun of me for…

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I come here today to present to you the fruition of years of labor. Between research, design, eating snacks, and playing video games, countless man hours were spent on what I am about to unveil. It is with much pride that I present to you: The P. Has.

Okay. So it wasn’t really countless man hours. It was more like 15 man minutes. I just grabbed a picture of Peter Ha and stuck it into Zazzle.com’s new custom shoe creation tool. Just like their services for custom posters/t-shirts/etc, you just upload your own images (or if you’re boring, use the pre-supplied stuff), then twist and tweak ’till its just right. Once you’re done, they’ll make it real and ship it out.

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During the summer some people find it difficult figuring out what kind of shoes to wear, sandals or sneakers. A German designer named K&T hopes to end that dilemma. They’ve designed a shoe called the Nat-2 that transforms from shoes into sandals with a pull of a zipper.
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If there’s one lesson we can all learn from Goonies, it’s that looks aren’t everything. Take Sloth, for example. He was no Tony Danza but he had a big heart. So don’t look at the Puma Disc Blaze “The Goonies Edition” sneakers and think about how you’ll probably only be able to wear them inside the privacy of your own home. Strap them on, wear them outside, and LIVE! – dammit – LIVE!

They’ll be available in early December from Overkill Shop (out of Berlin). Not sure about the price but sometimes with fashion, trends, and nostalgia, ugly costs a lot.

[via ALBOTAS]

I presume that the time scale on these Brooks Trance 8 runners biodegrading is along the lines of years (as opposed to decades) and not months. Wouldn’t want them sloughing off while you run. It’s a nice move towards waste reduction, but as usual they carry a “Conscience Tax,” in this case bringing up the price to $140.

I know you ballers pay more than that for your kicks regularly, but for a bill and a half you could buy six or seven Super Nintendos. They’ll never biodegrade.

My car has a thing called automatic stability control. You’ve heard of it, it uses a small computer to make cornering and handling easier and smoother at high speeds in less-than-perfect conditions. VectraSense is bringing a similar idea to your shoes with the Verb for Shoe platform.

It’s a smartshoe with a pair of air bladders controlled by a microprocessor that’s fed information from sensors around the shoe. Depending on what you’re doing, the bladders are emptied or filled as needed.

While the styling of the shoe is questionable, the idea is sound, if not cheap. A pair of these sneakers will set you back almost $700. For the well heeled (ha! ha!) set who wants ultimate comfort in everything, these might be tempting, but I’ll stick with my Chuck Taylors and back aches, thank you very much.

A Wi-Fi sensor? OK. Shoes with a Wi-Fi sensor built-in? Just amazing. These fugly kicks have a Wi-Fi sensor built-in that is activated when you step on the insole. A blinking light signifies no signal and one or more lights shows you the local Wi-Fi status, ensuring you won’t ever look like you’re not a mouth-breathing freak ever again.

These are basically a design project by Stefan Dukaczewski, so don’t expect to wear these any time soon. Actually, be glad you don’t have to wear them.

If the thought of sticking your dirty-ass feet into a new pair of shoes that you bought from a vending machine because you somehow lost your regular pair of shoes doesn’t appeal to you, then maybe this machine’s not for you.

Shoppers, hobos, and late-night footwear forgetters near Carnaby Street in London will be able to pick up a pair of emergency shoes at the new Onitsuka Tigers vending machine. It holds two dozen pairs of shoes spanning half a dozen different sizes. I’m not sure how much they cost, but I’ll be in London in two weeks so I’ll try to swing by, snap some photos, and get prices. I will not, however, be purchasing these shoes.

via Geekologie

I’ll unabashedly admit that I have a pair of Crocs that I wear around the house. Actually, they’re knock-off Crocs that I bought at Target for $10. I call them Croocs.

What you’ll not see me sporting, however, is the Crocs cell phone holder — not even a knock-off version.

They’ll be available in May for $15 and will come in the following magically delicious colors, according to SlashGear; black, silver, red, grape, fuchsia, celery, cotton candy, and turquoise.

It seems that they might only be available in the UK, which would be nice.

Crocs creates cellphone cases for Europe [SlashGear]

I present you with a dilemma. You’ve spent $300 on a pair of limited edition Adidas Superstar 1 Force Star Wars sneakers (available in Yoda white or Darth Vader black) that look otherwise unassuming until someone gets a glimpse of the logos on the upper heels. You want the world to know that you’ve purchase these sneakers but the only way to do so would be to wear very short pants. What to do?

You could rely on the lightsaber laces, but they’re nothing more than red or green lace tips. Your best bet might be to stop people on the street and strike up a conversation about Star Wars, hoping that you can steer it towards footwear. That, or wear shorts all the time but then you’ve got those doughy, pasty legs to worry about. Sigh.

Adidas does Star Wars-themed trainers [Pocket Lint]

Well look at these humdingers. They’re up for auction on eBay right now with a current bid of $1000 and there’s still three and a half days to go. They come with some pretty loud purple laces that you can’t see in this photograph, but why not just click on through and see what all the hubbub’s about? Man, these are size 13. I wear size 13. Should I buy them? I can’t think of a much better use of (at least) $1000.

NIKE AIR FORCE 1 PLAYSTATION PS2 PREMIUM DS Sz 13 OG PE [eBay] via gameSniped via Kotaku

Oh wow. We’re looking at what appears to be a working Nintendo Entertainment System built into the bottom of a shoe. This photo was apparently taken last night in New York City at the end of the Sneaker Pimps’ nationwide tour.

Flyguy’s goldfish platform shoes from I’m Gonna Git You Sucka were pretty awesome but, come on, full blown NES in a shoe here.

Sneaker Pimps Nintendo [Flickr] via Digg

I had an incredible opportunity to visit the Reebok campus and see what effect the Adidas takeover had on the company and its vision for the future. What they showed me blew my mind. When the Spring ‘08 lineup hits stores, you’ll find me first in line somewhere in Manhattan. Two separate lines of running shoes will change your mind about the current state of running shoes and what you’ve been putting on your feet. Reebok is going back to the basics and they’re going to kick some ass. Welcome SmoothFit and HexRide.
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It isn’t April, so this can’t be a joke, but the Aphrodite Project looks pretty darn odd. It is some sort of shoe — a platform pump, I believe they call it — that contains a GPS tracker and little compartment for money, mace, and pictures of Mama, is sleeping on the Russian steppes, far, far from this horrible nightclub.
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