Footwear

Whether you're an athlete or someone experiencing foot pain, it's important to eliminate high-pressure areas in the soles of your shoes. An experimental insole could help, by showing where such areas are located during a variety of activities.

Heated insoles generally rely on batteries to warm icy toes. Solecooler has a different idea, getting its power straight from the source: the feet. Its insoles harness basic stepping motions to generate heating and cooling.

If slips, trips and falls tend to occur in one area of an outdoor workplace, employers ought to know about it, so they can address the problem. A new "smart" insole is designed to provide that information, in case workers forget or don't bother.

For a few years now, Inov-8 has been focusing in on graphene for its trail running shoes. Now it mixes a little nitrogen into the formula. The nitrogen-injected foam adds a light, soft ride and a response so reactive it almost feels like cheating.

Although there are now a number of systems that capture carbon emissions from smokestacks, many people may still wonder – what is that captured carbon used for? Well, Swiss company On is making shoes out of the stuff.

In most body-tracking VR systems, users have to wear sensors on various parts of their body, and/or they must remain within the confines of a base station. The Surplex system, however, is claimed to track body movements via a single pair of shoes.

Shoes with lots of cushioning may be nice and comfy, but they're not ideal for all situations. Wahu shoes are designed with that fact in mind, as their built-in pneumatic cushioning system can be switched between three different levels as needed.

Nothing stops a relaxing hike dead in its tracks quite like an ankle-crumpling misstep. The high-rising Terrein Ascent boot from German startup Terrein with its ankle-stabilizing piston is designed to make such incidents a problem of the past.

Nike looks to make shoe recycling simpler with its new ISPA Link, a glue-less sneaker that quickly separates into three pieces to presort itself for recycling. The company hopes to scale the program to make sneaker recycling a more universal concept.

Discarded shoes are a particularly bulky form of waste, with their molded rubber soles joined to often synthetic uppers. Blueview shoes reportedly offer a greener alternative, however, as they're claimed to completely biodegrade once thrown away.

Because diabetics often lack sensation in their feet, they may not shift foot pressure as needed, potentially leading to serious skin ulcers. A set of experimental insoles were created that problem in mind, as they shift the pressure for the wearer.

Graphene is featuring more and more heavily in footwear firm inov-8's catalog, this time around as part of foam cushioning in trail running shoes that is claimed to last twice as long as the industry standard.