Aztechnology SmartShoe, ..or was that Adidas? Options

[krishcane]

Check out the new Aztechnology Smartshoe!

Pioneered by Adidas around 2004, the Aztechnology Smartshoe adapts support and contour to your particular running style, your weight, the timing of your footfalls, and the surface you are running on. Embedded microprocessors calculate optimal support during each step-impact and adjust during air-time between steps, so even as you change your rhythm, find that second wind, or switch from pavement to sand to grass and back again, you'll always have the perfect support.

Go long with the Aztechnology Smartshoe!

Check out other fine adaptive-clothing products by Aztechnology, such as the SmartJacket Autotemp system, SmartGloves w/Surface-Adaptive Grips, and the SmartBra, the world's only adapative-technology brassiere, giving you the best in comfort and athletic support.

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GM notes: The SmartShoe provides -1 TN to running tests, and possibly jumping tests as the GM's discretion. SmartJacket avoids overheating or overcooling, adapting air-flow as needed to temperature and your exertion level. SmartGloves gives -1 to TN for climbing tests -- not compatible with climbing claws.

--K

[Caine Hazen]

If they add a USB cable to this, give me an odometer and at least 256 meg of hard drive spce...I'll buy one!!! :grinbig: :nuyen:

[Erebus]

Thats pretty cool. Reminds me of the self-drying clothing from Back to the Future II.

[Lilt]

Shadowrun Game effects: Perhaps +1 die athletics(Running) tests? I'd assume the shoes would be far more advanced in shadowrun's time, but do these shoes (compared to other good trainers) really have that much of an effect on running speed?

Certainly there was a program on not long ago about how much sports gear had advanced since the 4 minute mile was broken. In the years since the 4-minute marker was broken the record has advanced by 13 seconds, and the gear has advanced to the point that current running shoes are less than 1/2 the weight they were back when the record was broken.

[Bearclaw]

It wouldn't effect speed so much as endurance. Sprinters wear as little shoe as possible. If it weren't for the spikes that give them better traction, they'd probably not wear shoes at all. Shoes are for guys doing a mile or better. Then, the advanced shock absorbing properties would save wear, tear and fatigue on bones, joints and muscles.

[Nikoli]

I think soon we'll see runners wearing smart suit similair to the smart swim suit, to reduce air resistence while keeping the body at a good temperature.
The world class atheletes are that way for a reason, equipment only gets them a few miliseconds of time. Though it may help to prolong their carrerr as active atheletes.
Take away Jordan's shows and he'll stomp almost any other player into the ground 1 on 1.

[Dax]

I actually belive this shoe has some pratical sports application to it. As my soccer obsessed father can tell you, Adidas is well known for making top of the line soccer gear.

So maybe a +1 bonus to shooting the ball?

[Kagetenshi]

[Nikoli]

Not saying the shoes are worthless, just saying they aren't worth the money for Joe Average jogger, shavign .001 seconds off your run around the park isn't going to be worth 400 or more bucks (to most people)

[krishcane]

For most people, the big benefit will be in the injury-avoidance benefit and not a speed benefit or even one-time-event endurance benefit. The biggest problem for training for long footraces (say 10K or more) is that you gradually wear out your body training for it. A person with the wrong shoes -- shoes that may seem just fine for normal activities -- can end up with knee, lower back, or foot problems after several weeks of running. Those problems bring an abrupt end to training. Because of that, many runners are obsessed with "the right shoes" and will spend $100 on a new pair as much as every month, trying to find what will support them so they don't injure themselves trying to go further.

Assuming the chipped shoe does what it says it does, this one shoe would eliminate all that guess-and-check and the injury cycle that runners live with now. If it really works, it would be worth $200 to $400 to a decent percentage of people who jog or run every week all year round.

How that gets represented in SR, I dunno. Maybe a karma discount for upping Athletics, but that's not very interesting. Instead, I imagine a really efficient shoe that even adapts the pressure for optimal traction during each push-off of the foot, so you have a shoe that lets you optimally apply your muscle power to leg-powered activities, while protecting you from strain. For that, perhaps a -1 to Athletics TN is appropriate. More than that, I just liked the parallel to the Smartlink (which gives a hefty -2 to TN after all!).

About air-resistance-minimizing suits for running... I think wind resistance doesn't mean much until at least 10 mph, so only world-class distance runners or average-class sprinters would much need it. I think. Bicyclists, however, oh yeah. They already go crazy with clothes and gear to streamline wind profile.

--K

[Snow_Fox]

The hell with that, you guys just wouldn't appreciate the benes of the smart bra. :oops: Comfort is a big help in protection.

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Snow_Fox]

Seriously, if you've got a C cup size and not sufficent restraint it is , at best uncomfortable. Other wise, you know darn well I'd keep control of THAT remote. ;)

[Herald of Verjig...]

Yes, you'd keep that remote, but every guy will be buying the universal bra-remote watch from Sharper Image ™©®(etc.).

[Capt. Dave]

As to the shoes, don't forget that after some rapper sings a song he wrote in the bathroom while high you get a +1 bonus to Etiquette(Street), however, the availability goes to 12.

Plus the downside of hearing "So I can get to stompin' in my smart-ass shoes" blasting out of every other car at max volume.

[Snow_Fox]

[krishcane]

I was able to come up with game mechanics for all the Smart-line products except the SmartBra. Since the game doesn't have a penalty to Athletics for busty women going topless, I just couldn't come up with a good TN modifier for it. But it probably is the one item that would sell the most -- very few people need adaptive-grip gloves, and only some needs the jacket or shoes, but the majority of women would want the bra.

Thinking along these lines, another thing occurred to me... this will sound cheesy as hell, but it would be useful.... Imagine a cybernetic implant that allows you to change your cup size via DNI. You could pump up to D for a night out on the town in that new dress, and then drop down to a comfortable B for a day at the topless beach, or even flatten out completely for jogging. It's also an effective quick-disguise mechanism, since many men are only looking at your breasts anyway. "Hey, it couldn't have been that lady who shot those security guards -- I remember the chick with the shotgun had much bigger boobs. In fact, that's all I remember about her."

--K

[I Eat Time]

Taking this seriously (and god knows I shouldn't), the main problem is skin stretching and contracting. The only other skin that I can think of that doesn't have a problem with increasing to 40-60% its original size doesn't look very supple or attractive when uh... uninflated.

Is there some other cyberware in SR that does something like this?

[Firewall]

[I Eat Time]

You know, those are just stats I heard on some education channel a long time ago, and I've always cast them to doubt. Then again, I guess it's my fault, I never went out and got a meter stick to judge for myself. :grinbig:

[Xirces]

There are still stories IRL about certain "glamour" models who have, essentially, pump-up breasts - allowing them to change size. The comments about that were primarily about what that would do the skin - I imagine that, especially as age took its toll it would be a bit of a mess, but then I hear that about standard surgery as well.

I've never actually met anyone who's had reduction surgery (but plenty of stripp^^^ girls I know have had enlargement), so I can only imagine it will leave the chest in the same sort of state that pregnancy leaves the abdomen. All idle speculation of course...

In other news if people are interested in these kinds of things Oakley seem about the coolest place to look. I had to chuckle when I first saw Unobtainium ™...

:)