A step isn’t all wasted energy. Legs are pendulums swinging back and forth. Thus, wouldn’t this just be a drain on one’s walking speed?

zzzz, the holes in the soles of my vans would suggest that there is plenty of waste energy. think about your standard gait. like you mentioned, the leg swings like a pendulum, and then you fall forward and drop all of your weight to your heel, your shoe, and the ground beneath.

if there was better conservation of energy, you wouldn’t need to exert any effort to take the next step.

on the other hand, you’re probably right in that a lot of shoe science has gone into recycling this energy in other ways. i’m assuming the idea behind the nike airs was to conserve some of that energy and push your heel back up like a trampoline.

oh, and the see through bubbles look cool.

I’m not sure that they are really trying to use waste energy. The site calls it “Parasitic Power” which is what it really is. You don’t notice the extra energy required to move the device because it is relatively small compared to the amount of energy required to walk.

If they had replaced the shock absorbing sole with something that converted the energy into electricity instead of heat then they would have been using otherwise wasted energy.

Link works fine for me…

All we need now is a desert planet.

Don’t those shoes for kids not already have something like this, (e.g. LEDs that burn when they walk)? Or are those battery powered?

is it just a dead prototype or what? i mean the project page seems kinda outdated.

I remember those shoes with all kinds of colored flashing LED’s. Those were so cool 10 years ago. Now it just seems pimperish.

What if you fell in a puddle wearing these? Or.. global warming suddenly kicked in and your town flooded?

now if they could just do it with a blackspot…

I WANT TO BE YOUR ONLINE BUYER.

Excellent Shoes, information store for shoes, man shoes, women shoes,footwear, running shoes. Find out the latest information about the various man and women shoes and select the right new balance shoes for you. Easy up the selection of footwear, shoes by knowing more from Experts