Shoes

As great as fresh comfy shoes feel after an exhausting hike, the extra weight is hard to justify on a backpacking trip. Zpacks' collapsible camp shoes weigh less than 1 oz/shoe so you can afford to have a cozy place to retire those aching feet.

Hoka completely redefines urban-to-mountain footwear with the Speed Loafer – business up top, wilderness expedition down below. The new business casual slip-on marries classic leather with one of the company's most aggressive, trail-biting outsoles.

In the world of ugly shoes, we've had some real bangers. Now there's the new Syntilay, the world's first entirely AI-designed and 3D-printed piece of thermoplastic polyurethane to call itself a shoe.

Shimano has been granted a US patent on a wireless electronic cleat system for cycling shoes. The system is used to adjust the position of the shoe relative to your pedals as you ride.

People may joke about tight jeans being "spray-on pants," but On's new Cloudboom Strike LS is a spray-on running shoe. Its LightSpray production process is much faster than traditional methods, resulting in an ultra-lightweight finished product.

Although most of our clothes fold and crease with our bodies as we move, our shoes maintain the same shape and appearance pretty much all the time. With that fact in mind, scientists are now developing a method of catching criminals via shoe ID.

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.

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.

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.