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Back to the Future II technology made real: The Powerlace

By Salehuddin Bin Husin - on 24 Dec 2014, 10:30am

Back to the Future technology made real: The Powerlace

It might not be from Nike like in Back to the Future II but at this point we'll take what we can get.

What is it with our constant need to have Back to the Future II technology in our lives? Is it the fact that we've been waiting decades for them to appear ever since we saw them and were amazed? Maybe, maybe not.

With 2015 fast approaching, Back to the Future fans are in a frenzy as that's the year in the movie where Marty and Doc Brown (and Jennifer) arrive in from the past. We've already seen the hoverboard (two of them infact; the Hendo hoverboard and Mr Hoverboard) become reality. While they aren't exactly carbon copies of the hoverboard we've seen in the movies, the fact that they are hovering boards' enough for most people.

It seems like the next piece of tech that's about to become reality is the self lacing shoe. Now this isn't exactly new news. Nike's been harping about making self lacing shoes possible since earlier in the the year, so it's not exactly unexpected. But while Nike is just talking about power lacing shoes, another company's already made them a reality.

Introducing the Powerlace from The Powerteam. Yeah, it doesn't look anything like the image ingrained in our minds of how an auto tying shoe might look like, mainly because the only image we have is the one from Back to the Future II. But like the hoverboards, this is the real thing. It's not done with Hollywood sleight of hand.

The good news is that it's pretty affordable. Right now, you can get them for CAD$175 (if you manage to get the early bird price) or CAD$195 (if not). That's just about ~$199 or ~$223 respectively. Of course you need to add in CAD$25 for shipping on top of that but that's a small price to pay for something this cool. You don't even need batteries of any kind, you just slot your foot in and it automatically laces you up.

There's a bit of bad news in the middle of all this. The Powerlace is a Kickstarter project, which means that unless the funding goal of CAD$650,000 is reached in the next 21 days, the shoes won't be produced. Right now at the time of publishing this news, the pledges only total to about CAD$86K so it might get funded, or it might not. Honestly, things could go either way.

So if you want an auto lace tying shoe, you really should go pledge. Besides, even if Nike does release their version of a power lacing shoe next year like they said, expect it to cost much, much more than the Powerlace's asking price.

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