Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

New Adidas Line Brings 'Augmented Reality' to Your Kicks

by Amar Toor on December 28, 2009 at 07:25 AM

Augmented reality technology has really caught fire this year, touching upon everything from movie promotions to sharpshooting games to John Mayer videos. So what's the next augmented frontier? In the immortal words of Mars Blackmon, "it's gotta be the shoes."

At least that's what Adidas thinks. The company, according to Wired, is gearing up to launch a new augmented reality sneaker that allows users to wander around a virtual 3-D Adidas world, using their sneaker as their virtual compass. All they have to do is log on to the Adidas site, hold up one of the shoes in front of a webcam, and a special code embedded in the tongue of the sneakers will then allow them to "walk" around the urban environment, using the shoe as their controller. Chris Barbour, head of digital marketing for Adidas Originals, claims that the virtual landscape has "a more stylized, pop-up book creative approach," as opposed to a more realistic design.

The kicks aren't due out until February, but Adidas is already looking beyond the launch, and is planning to expand the experiment to include skateboard, music, and even 'Star Wars'-like games. Sounds intriguing enough to entice us into buying a pair, though we'll probably leave them at home when we go to the gym. The thought of using a sweaty sneaker to play some augmented reality rendition of Tony Hawk makes the whole thing seem somewhat less than appetizing. [From: Wired; via: TechRadar]

Tags: adidas, adidas originals, AdidasOriginals, augmented reality, AugmentedReality, chris barbour, ChrisBarbour, shoes, top, virtual, webcam

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular