Are Your Tennis Shoes Tracking You?

Vim Vocifero
4 June 2014

Special News Agent Ryan Rocifero uncovered a little advertised feature of many athletic shoes: the tracking system. As the cutaway view below shows, the typical athletic shoe now contains, in addition to air cushions, a heart rate monitor, and one or more plasmapheretic catheters, a sophisticated wireless tracking system.

Power for the tracking system is provided by a micro-generator in the heel, which uses the force of the wearer’s steps to keep the transmitter charged. Sophisticated micro-electronics employing 4th generation superconducting magnets handle the data processing, and a mini microwave dish antenna communicates with the tracking satellites.

Most of the cost of adding this advanced technology to shoes has not been passed on to shoe-buyers. Rather, an unidentified international technology company has financed the innovation. Our intrepid reporter is currently engaged in attempting to determine the use to which the data produced by the tracking system is being put.

Images based on public domain photo, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pump_bringback_weiss2.jpg.

More News:

Photo by Lynn Locifero, © The Flying News, 2014Summer Vacation Advice A water fountain, dutifully spouting waterWater Fountain Cameras Cow-Shark Discovered on Exoplanet Based on public domain images by Evan Amos, Mehy, and NeD80, available at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Conair-brush.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Conair-brush.jpg, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ElephantArmRobot.jpg#mediaviewer/File:ElephantArmRobot.jpg, and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robot_arm_model_1.png#mediaviewer/File:Robot_arm_model_1.png.The Electric Hairbrush

Add a Comment Here (This Means You!):

Your email is safe and will not be published, shared, sold, bought, or used to order doughnuts. Required fields are marked *

Note that, in an effort to prevent comment spam and manipulation by computational bacteria, certain words (including a number of brand names) will prevent your comment from being submitted.

*