There are also Darth Vader shoes and hoodies, all part of next year’s Adidas Star Wars Collection. Check out the rest of the images at: [Kicks on Fire]

Let’s just get this first one out of the way: Not only does the Head Spa Massager look like someone in the 1970s designed it in a future-Sparta fashion, but it’s a massage helmet. You look ridiculous, and it can’t even secretly double as a sexual aid.

This handsome silver fox has it going on. I mean, he’s talking to a sexy lady, and a power call could easily come through his Bluetooth earpiece at any moment, right? Nope, he fooled you! He’s hard of hearing, and that’s just his Stealth Secret Sound Amplifier. (I laughed when I first saw this, but now it just makes me sad.)

Every cyborg I know of has a head-mounted camera, and since this 5-megapixel Digital Camera Swim Mask is only good for 4.5m depth (that is, snorkelling or swimming pools), you might as well make the most of it and wear it on dry land too! Even has a cyborg-friendly LED that shines inside the mask, to let your friends know who’s part robot tell you when you’re shooting.

If sci-fi tells us anything, it’s that the bionic man (or woman) has great posture. Thankfully, the Posturetek Biofeedback System — it’s a shirt, but they call it a system — “senses incorrect posture and gently encourages posture correction”. My assumption is that it doesn’t use sharp spikes or electric shocks, but it’s still a tad sinister.

Snore correction makes up approximately 94 per cent of SkyMall revenue, but only one, the SnorePro Snore Relief Device, attaches to your wrist and sends a “biofeedback digital pulse” when the log sawing kicks in. (Can you imagine having a business card with the word SnorePro emblazoned on it? Would that be awful or awesome?)

When you embark on the man-machine merger, it makes sense to complement some of that silicon with silicone, if you catch my drift. Hell, you got so much going on, nobody’s going to notice that you’ve shoved some Body Figure Enhancing Pads down your pants. Well, they’ll notice, but not in a bad way.

What good is the cyborg life if it doesn’t permit you to jump higher, run faster, have more energy, appear two inches taller and “look like a million dollars”? The Gravity Defyers (spelling lessons sold separately) have been tempting travellers for ages with those very promises. Besides, its patented spring-loaded sole is found on no other shoe in the world pretty much ever, for some reason.

Locutus of Borg wasn’t much of a jumper — his footwear of choice skewed toward the comfort-illumination lines. That’s why he swore by the Brightfeet Lighted Slippers. They’re just the thing to slip on when you’re making the midnight trek from the regeneration chamber to the cube pissoir.

This week, Gizmodo is exploring the enhanced human future in a segment we call This Cyborg Life. It’s about what happens when we treat our body less as a sacred object and more as what it is: Nature’s ultimate machine.

Either way, these are funky and pretty. [Le Creative Sweatshop via Mocoloco]

The Columbia Bugathermo boots will make your feet straight-up sweat even in the coldest of conditions, at least for a few hours. You’ll want to start heading home when the battery display starts dropping, lest you’re stuck out in the snow with just plain normal boots on instead of futuristic superboots. You wouldn’t want that to happen!

They’re available now for $US250. [Columbia via Besportier via Engadget]

But I always wore joggers for sprinting and cross-country races. They were just cheap things, but I didn’t run as well without them. I was frightened of bindies, and without the shock absorption the shoes provided, my feet got sore very quickly. But according to Chris McDougall, author of Born to Run and Dr Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University, this is false logic.

McDougall and Lieberman believe that running shoes can do more harm than good, and say that the human body was designed to run barefooted. Lieberman reckons that the foot and knee injuries we see today were virtually non-existent before Nike came along and invented the modern running shoe in the 1970s. He says that the thick-soled ones, in particular, are making our feet weak and forcing our ankles to rotate too much. And with more injuries, we’re running less and becoming unhealthier, suggesting that preventable diseases like obesity and diabetes would be less of a problem for the Western world if it weren’t for the modern running shoe.

A study by Switzerland’s University of Bern found that shoes costing over $95 were more than twice as likely to cause injury compared to shoes costing less than $40. Double the price for double the pain. Mind you, this research was done 20 years ago, but it supports McDougall and Lieberman’s core argument. Similarly, Dr Craig Richards of the University of Newcastle revealed last year in the British Journal Of Sports Medicine that there is no evidence running shoes make you less prone to injury. He then contacted shoe manufacturers and offered them an opportunity to prove the validity of their products:

Is any running-shoe company prepared to claim that wearing their distance running shoes will decrease your risk of suffering musculoskeletal running injuries? Is any shoe manufacturer prepared to claim that wearing their running shoes will improve your distance running performance? If you are prepared to make these claims, where is your peer-reviewed data to back it up?

Surprisingly (at least to me), the shoe manufacturers didn’t jump at the chance to get some publicity. Richards got no response to his challenge. In this case, no news was not good news. In their vow of silence, running-shoe manufacturers were basically admitting their $20 billion industry is based on nothing more than false promises.

It’s a compelling argument, but so long as they continue dangling shoes with built-in computers and built-in headlights in our faces, the running-shoe manufacturers have us bedazzled.

[Daily Mail via Lifehacker, top image credit]

Playing With Balls is Gizmodo AU’s week-long look at the technology behind the sports we love, from the jerseys to the balls and everything in between. Go the runners up!

Loaded with a mysterious, unnamed glowing substance (one can only assume hordes of ground-up lightning bugs), the shoes leave a simple footprint trail that can be tracked in case of sudden panic. (We’re assuming this goop would be more sticky than slippery, though honestly, neither scenario sounds fantastic.)

Maybe these boots would help firefighters, and maybe they wouldn’t (firefighters in the audience, please share your thoughts). But as some sort of child’s toy involving special goggles, Nerf darts and booby traps, the glow boots sound like a lot of fun…especially if you can buy em in an men’s size 12 and the liquid permanently stains carpets. [Yanko Design via ubergizmo]

And a high heel shoe at that. Designed by London architect Julian Hakes, the Mojito shoe is made of carbon fibre—to give it strength and spring—and on top, it’s laminated with rubber on the bottom and leather from furniture manufacturers in High Wycombe, England. According to Hakes:

With a high heel providing the heel is supported, even by standing on a wooden block the foot naturally ’spans’ the gap naturally, with bones and tendons.

Maybe. I guess. Who knows. I need to see this because I have to admit that I’m quite amazed by it—and so was Joanna when she saw it. It will probably cost a gajillion dollars, and will make this curve go completely vertical:

[Dezeen]

This piece was a continuation of my previous piece JUNK DUNK. I wanted to attempt this approach again, with a more refined and detailed outcome. I used very little wire and more glue to keep the piece more clean, and less bulky. I also added new details, a hinged tongue and nike logo’s on both the tongue and back of the shoe. On previous models I used a real nike sole to build of off. With this piece I started from scratch and build the sole from circuit boards.

Yeah, but does all of this circuitry actually make me jump like Jordan? I thought not. Besides, this doesn’t look like it would offer any arch support. [Gabriel Dishaw via Likecool]

Designed and decorated like gigantic toy cartons complete with the extra little flap thing that allows to box to secure itself to a hook (sorry, packaging terminology is not our specialty), they’re just retro enough to make you think that you’re going to get a real Transformer (but then you just get a stupid pair of shoes that you’re just too old to justify ever wearing off of your own property).

Look for the limited edition Soundwave, Megatron and Bumblebee footwear this July for between $US100-120—if you’re able to score a pair before they head to eBay. [Kix and the City via StreetLevel via walyou]

The Foot Pee! Pack, essentially two ziplock bags intended for your feet, supports an age-old philosophy that one’s pee can have benefits to their skin. Now I’m no expert, but I’ve been accidentally urinating on stuff for years now, and I can’t say that my crotch, toes, knees, backyard bushes or bathroom walls look any younger because of it. [Toyko Times via Tokyo Mango]

Also note the products tagline: “Easy & Surprise”