By Dan Frommer. From the 
archives.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 12:39 pm.
Everything’s A Gadget Now
Nike really gets it: The future of athletic shoes is as much about software as it is about the actual shoes.
The new stuff announced today, Nike+ Training, looks cool: Sensors that track your movement in detail — even capable of measuring your jumps — and turn workouts into a game on your iPhone. Exercise against your friends! I don’t see anything close from any other shoe company.
I haven’t bought a pair of Nikes since the 90s, but this is the sort of thing that might actually bring me back. It’s neat! Even better if it’s actually useful to you, or helps you get in shape.
Everything’s a gadget now.
Ok, well, not everything. But increasingly, the companies that start adding useful and interesting software and electronics to their previously-non-gadgety products could build huge advantages for themselves.
That’s why, as much as I want to make fun of Google for its new computerized glasses project, or call it a distraction, or a sure-failure, I’m actually intrigued by it.
These sort of technologies will probably take decades to perfect — remember voice control in the 90s? Or, uh, Android phones right now? But why shouldn’t glasses in the future have some sort of software installed in them? And why shouldn’t Google be involved in building toward the inevitable future?
Check out my new site: The New Consumer, a publication about how and why people spend their time and money.