Most smartphones include some sort of GPS functionality but a Londoner named Dominic Wilcox has extended that function to a pair of prototype shoes.
Artist Wilcox was commissioned to make a pair of shoes by the Global Footprint project in Northamptonshire and decided to go for the prototype No Place Like Home GPS shoes. The footwear got its name from The Wizard of Oz since the GPS functionality is enabled by clicking the shoe’s heels together.
They’re not all that simple to use however. A destination needs to be uploaded to the shoes via a USB cable from some customised mapping software rather than via any sort of wireless solution. There is a rather novel technique in place for giving the wearer directions though. LED lights in one shoe act as an indicator as to how close the user is to their destination while a ring of LEDs in the other shoe show which direction the wearer should be walking in.
While GPS footwear probably won’t catch on the idea does seem like it would do well for pub crawling (with a permanent ‘Home’ destination programmed into the shoes).
Source: via Digital Trends