Brand: Z-CoiL
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: $99-$149
Features: Z-CoiL shoes have a spring that absorbs the shock and distributes across the shoe more than any other shoe.  This means less pain for the human body.  This would be especially useful if you’re into Parkour.
Source: ZCoiL.com

Brand: Vibram
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: $70-$90
Features: Vibram is an Italian company that creates rubber footwear for better grip and comfort.  The company was started by Vitale Bramani.  He started the company after 6 of his mountaineering friends died in the Italian Alps partly due to the footwear.

The shoe displayed above is called Vibram Five Fingers.  They were designed to be in the same shape of your foot to give you a more natural walking motion.  This reduces the impact on your back and knees when climbing.
Source: Vibram Five Fingers

Brand: Nike (put together with an NES console by Sneaker Pimps)
Available for Purchase? No (Concept) Cost: N/A
Features: The Sneaker Pimps gutted the components out of an NES and stuck it into a shoe… literally.  The Sneaker Pimps took this device on a tour with them on a nationwide tour in October 2007. 
Source: The above photo was taken by Flickr user Mobius1ski.   

Brand: Pioneer
Available for Purchase? No (Concept) Cost: N/A
Features: These shoes were designed by Feijun Chen and Bin Zhao.  The shoes come equipped with headlights to make sure you don’t trip over anything while jogging in the dark.  The shoes light up the ground 5 feet ahead.  There is also a bright green LED light on the back so cars can see you when in the dark.  The best part is that the lights are powered by kinetic energy.
Source: YankoDesign.com

Brand: Natalie Cosette Thorne
Available for Purchase? No (Concept) Cost: N/A
Features: These shoes have adjustable heel sizes.  The adjustable heel can go from 3.5 inches to 1.5 inches and vice versa using a peg system and magnets.  The shoe also has snap-on parts with different colors.
Source: CNET

Brand: Electrolux
Available for Purchase? No (Concept) Cost: N/A
Features: These shoes were made for those that are too lazy to pull out the vacuum cleaner.  How the shoes actually do the vacuuming job has not be revealed.  The company did not specify whether the shoes suction or store dirt.
Source: Gizmodo

Brand: Verb For Shoe
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: $699
Features: Verb For Shoe has an embedded computer that automatically adjusts the level of support on your shoes depending on the activities you do.  You can share your contact information with other people wearing Verb For Shoes by automatically pressing a button.  The shoe has a built-in wireless connection to connect to your PC.  You can adjust the comfort of your shoes or sync your contacts from your shoe to your PC and vice-versa.
Source: VerbForShoe.com

Brand: Reno Gmbh
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: N/A
Features: These shoes are the first I’ve heard of that will be using RFID technology.  Earlier last year, Reno signed a deal with Checkpoint Systems to have RFID tags and store tagging systems for their shoes.  They are being used to track the shipping of the shoes from Asia and for security purposes within their stores.
Source: Wired

Brand: Dada Code M
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: Starting at $199
Features: These sneakers have built-in speakers and an MP3 player.  The MP3 player can hold about 100 songs.  The shoes are water-resistant and are very durable.  The built-in music player has about 3 hours of battery life.  The music player is compatible with a PC and a Mac (via iTunes).

The shoe comes with a headset where you can control the music player’s volume and song change.  The shoe is available at retailers such as Journeys, The Finish Line, Underground Station, Footaction, Footlocker, etc.
Source: Dadafootwear.com

Brand: Adidas
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: $250
Features: Adidas first created these shoes in 1984 as the cutting edge shoes for runners.  Fourteen years later they decided to reintroduce them to the market with a new design.  The shoes are made of leather, nylon, and suede.

Inside the shoe there is a microprocessor that has a built-in pedometer, stopwatch, and LCD display.  This shoe is perfect for short and long distance runners.
Source: Uncrate

Brand: N/A
Available for Purchase? No (Concept) Cost: N/A
Features: The Keyboard Shoes won first prize in the sports category at the 6th Hong Kong Footwear Design Contest at the 14th China International Clothing & Accessories
Source: China Daily

Brand: The Aphrodite Project
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: N/A
Features: The Aphrodite Project is an artistic shoe that comes complete with GPS, an alarm system to scare off attackers, a button with a silent alarm that gives away the location of the shoes to the emergency services, and an LCD screen.  The shoe was designed with the safety of prostitutes in mind.

Currently the shoe is not available for the public but are being sold at exhibitions. 
Source: TheAphroditeProject.tv

Brand: ASRD
Available for Purchase? No (Concept) Cost: N/A
Features: A Step in the Right Direction created a sneaker that detects Wi-Fi connections.  The end of the sneaker above has a Wi-Fi Internet dectection unit.  When a connection is detected, the LEDs would light up.  Each light would turn on depending on the strength of the connection.

The ASRD shoes was built based on the Nike Dunk.  Only one pair was created as a project between designer Stefan Dukaczewski/MSTRPLN and UBIQ Boutique. 
Source: MSTRPLN.com

Brand: Nike
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: Roughly $69.99+ plus another $29.99 for the Apple iPod sports kit
Features: Nike and Apple partnered to help train runners.  The Nike+ shoes have space to place a sensor.  The sensor communicates with your iPod receiver to inform your iPod how many miles you’ve ran in the amount of time spent.  The data can be synced to Nike+’s website where you can track running data and share motivation with others that have the same product. 
Source: NikePlus

Brand: Non-Stop Shoes (NSS)
Available for Purchase? No (Concept) Cost: N/A
Features: Designer Emili Padrós looked at all of the energy potential that is available by performing tasks such as walking, going up and down the stairs, running, etc.  Energy stored in these shoes can be used to power devices.  Check out the light bulb being powered above.

These shoes were on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art this past May.
Source: WallyG

Brand: Reebok (Volton theme designed by PickYourShoes)
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: $79.99-$124.99
Features: These Voltron shoes don’t have any high-tech features specifically, but they look like they should.  The shoes come in a variety of colors that represent the robots from the Voltron cartoon.  This is the perfect shoe for robot fans.    
Source: Uncrate

Brand: Designed by Simona Brusa Pasque
Available for Purchase? No (designer looking for funding) Cost: N/A
Features: Looks like an ordinary shoe, right?  Wrong.  This shoe has a built-in stun-gun controlled by a necklace.  The stun gun is powered with 100,000 volts.  It can only be used once for emergencies by breaking the tip of the shoes.
Source: Gizmag

Brand: Takara
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: $29.99-$99.99
Features: NOT A REAL SHOE! When the Transformers movie came out last year, Takara prepared a toy that would be able to take the form of a Nike shoe.  The shoe that the toy transform into is pictured on the bottom right.  It is about 1/2 the size of a normal sized Nike shoe.
Source: Geekologie

Brand: Good Vibrations
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: $30
Features: What if you go for a run all day and then need a foot rub?  The Good Vibrations shoe does just that.  By hitting the switch, you can turn your running shoe into a foot masseur.  The shoe comes in a style that makes it unisex.  It also comes in 4 different sizes (S/M/L/XL). 
Source: Good Vibrations

Brand: iShoes
Available for Purchase? Yes Cost: $269.99
Features: Ilya Kaganovich, an inventor in Minnesota came up with a shoe that can reach speeds of about 13.5 miles per hour.  The shoes run on a A123 Lithium ion battery.  The pair of shoes weigh about 11.8 lbs. total.       
Source: TheiShoes.com

1. Apple 1984 commercial

2. Steve Ballmer Pitching Windows 1.0

3. Apple vs. Mac featuring Gisele Bündchen

4. Microsoft – I’m A PC

5. eBay.com.au – Make Shopping Exciting

Limewire recently announced a number of upcoming upgrades to its P2P software. The company is going more social by adding social networking features into verson 5.0 of its software. The company also shared its vision of turning Limewire into a platform for services.

Here is a list of upcoming features in Limewire 5.0:

Set up secure personal sharing networks based on existing contacts; users can choose to limit distribution to personal network only

Integrate buddy lists from Jabber-compatible services

Provide better virus protection

Interface with The LimeWire Store

Easier navigation with a new visual design of both website and application allowing users more security and better ability to manage shared files, download, search and connect with friends

Via: MarketWatch

Tesla Motors secured an additional $40 million in capital today. The company had only  $9 million left from previous funding rounds. The $40 millin is a convertible debt. Unlike equity-based venture funding, convertible debt is a loan that can be converted to equity at the discretion of an investor.

Tesla has now raised a total of $186 million.

Source: Reuters

[image credit: Tomas]

The NASDAQ Composite Index ended 11.81% higher today.  And at the biggest point gain ever, the Dow upped 976 points.  While my fellow tech bloggers are reporting how bad the economic crisis is for tech companies, they started making a recovery today. 

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) closed at $381.02 (+$49.02, 14.77% gain)
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) closed at $110.26 (+$13.46, 13.90% gain)
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) closed at $25.50 (+$4.00, 18.60% gain)
Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) closed at $13.49 (+$1.20, 9.76% gain)
Adobe Systems Incorporation (NASDAQ:ADBE) closed at $30.38 (+$3.26, 12.02% gain)
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) closed at $62.02 (+$5.77, 10.26% gain)
Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) closed at $16.97 (+$1.61, 10.48% gain)

What bubble?

Russian search engine Yandex receives 50 million searches per day.  These search numbers includes those conducted on Mail.ru, Quintura.ru, and Tut.by.  This also includes sites that are powered by Yandex.XML.  This means that Yandex conducts 1.5 billion searches per month, making it to the 6th largest search engine property.

Yandex’s Advertising Network reaches about 10 million users.  This is an increase of 80% from Sept. 2007.  Yandex’s Advertising partners include Livejournal.com, Mail.ru, Aport.ru, Gogo.ru, Quintura.ru, and Mamba.ru.  Yandex’s revenue in 2007 was $167 million.

Yandex decided to postpone their IPO until the economy recovers.  The IPO was planned for some time in the second half of 2008.  Internet Search Investments and Baring Vostok Capital Partners owns 35% of Yandex.  Tiger Technologies owns 15% of the company.  Mail.ru also is postponing their IPO.

This past week, David Kernell was indicted with a charge for accessing Sarah Palin’s protected computer by means of an interstate communication.  The maximum charge can be a $250,000 fine and 5 years of prison for this charge.  Kernell pleaded not guilty to this charge.  Around the same time that this was taking place, Superior Court Judge Craig Stowers was looking at this case from another perception.

Judge Stowers ordered that Sarah Palin’s must be preserved.  Andree McLeod, a Republican watchdog pushed the case forward.  The e-mails exchanged between Palin, her husband, and others may reveal how the vice-presidential candidate runs the state of Alaska.  The e-mails may also reveal any communication about Walt Monegan. 

Walt Monegan is the former Police Chief of Anchorage, Alaska.  Sarah Palin laid him off on July 11, 2008 for not being “a team player on budgeting issues.”  Palin offered Monegan a position as a director of the Alaska Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, but he turned it down.  Monegan also stated that he resisted pressure from Sarah and Todd Palin to fire Trooper Mike Wooten.  Wooten was in a custody battle with, Sarah Palin’s sister Molly at the time. 

David Kernell brought Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! e-mail account into the public eye.  And the e-mails revealed in the screenshots that Kernell published clearly indicate that the e-mails relate to legislation.  Palin and her husband also created an e-mail account monitored by a computer company in Wasilla, Alaska.  That e-mail account was frozen after Kernell penetrated the Yahoo! account.

“On one hand, I’m pleased that the judge saw fit to order the retrieval and preservation of these e-mails, to the extent of going to the providers to get them,” stated McLeod.  McLeod is a Republican who used to be close to Palin. “But on the other hand, I’m amazed that I even have to go to court to get the governor to comply with Alaska’s public record laws.”

McLeod also is pushing for Palin to release 1,100 e-mails that have been withheld from the public.  This includes 40 that were CC’d to Sarah’s husband.  McLeod was described by Palin as a disgruntled former employee.  However, Palin endorsed McLeod in 2004 as a state House candidate that is “not afraid to stand up for what’s right.”

David Kernell does not deserve jail-time.  I actually think that he did the right thing by bringing this into the limelight.  It helps keep politicians transparent.