If you have no sense of direction, these vibrating running shoes may be the answer.

Have you had this happen before? You’re mapping a long run out before you go. You want your route to include inspiring views, little traffic, no hills, and the necessary distance. You’ve got it all planned out, until of course you miss a turn and end up climbing a monster hill and jogging through bumper to bumper traffic.

The Indian tech firm Lechal is working on a project that merges insertable footbeds with your smartphone to create smart running shoes. These futuristic slippers track the number of steps you take and help you navigate a path between two points in a city by buzzing left or right to indicate the direction to turn (as directed by Google Maps).

“The shoes are a natural extension of the human body,” said Krispian Lawrence, 30, co-founder and chief executive officer of the company, reported on WSJ.com. “You will leave your house without your watch or wristband, but you will never leave your house without your shoes.”

It’s an exciting idea that could go either way depending on its sensitivity. If the vibration is subtle it could be a cool tool but if my feet feel like they’ve been continually vibrating for 20 miles, I’m pretty sure I’ll trash them like much of the other runner tech gear I’ve disposed of in the past. The video is a bit much as well. Pretty sure these vibrating shoes aren’t gonna get you a date. But nonetheless, it’s a neat concept.

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Image: Vince Alongi

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Types of running shoes have gone from skinny to fat. Barefoot runners, your time in the sun seems to have passed. The newest types of running shoes are called “maximal cushioning” and according to The Washington Post, “The shoes look like modern, colorful versions of your grandmother’s orthopedic footwear.”

Hoka One One is the leader of the fat-soled running gear trend but other brands including New Balance, Brooks, Vasque, and Altra have also come out with their own versions. The shoes first started to be manufactured in 2010 but they’ve recently become popular amongst marathoners and the like.

“Runners get hurt just as much as they ever did, and take just as much time off to recover… One could make the argument that [in the past 30 years] we really haven’t moved the ball down the road at all,” Jim Van Dine, the company’s president said to The Washington Post.

Barefoot running shoes caught some slack last year when some of their claims were called into question. In fact, the trendsetting barefoot running shoe, Vibram had to pay $3.75 million in refunds to customers for making claims that they couldn’t back up.

According to the Boston Globe, “Vibram says it didn’t do anything wrong, but that it settled to nip the suit in the bud rather than watch it drag on and grow more expensive. Take that as you may; at the end of the day, Vibram is paying up and stripping mention of those health benefits from its advertising, at least for now.”

But either way, barefoot running shoes seemed to have deflated a bit, replaced by soles so big it would seem difficult to lift your foot. But they do look comfortable.

Jon Teipen, Brooks senior product line manager, said to The Washington Post, “the reality is that most people weren’t going to try to run barefoot… The majority of the market still likes cushion, still likes support, still likes a more substantial shoe. But the industry wasn’t talking to them.”

What types of running shoes work best for you?

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Image: Martin Criminale

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Infused with a snarky personality and advanced mobile technology, these talking sneakers could put your personal trainer out of a job.

Humans were built for exercise. We’ve got massive muscles, a strong skeleton, and a metabolism that just begs to be used. In our hunter-gatherer years, the daily struggle for survival was all the workout we needed, but decades of inventing for convenience has left us stationary and fat. Now, we run on treadmills and take high-intensity aerobics classes just to force ourselves to break a sweat.

Even in our sedentary world, opportunities for exercise are everywhere–it’s the motivation that’s lacking. We sign up for high price gym memberships and personal training sessions only to come up with lame excuses for why don’t show up.

Being lazy used to be a secret between us and the couch, but a new collaboration between Google and Adidas could guilt us into action.

During the recent SXSW festival in Austin, the two companies revealed a “talking shoe” concept that delivers a running critique of your activity levels. Spend too much time in the seated position, and the shoe is guaranteed to have something to say about it.

“Using an accelerometer, a gyroscope, Bluetooth and some other off the shelf technologies, the Talking Shoe translates the wearer’s movements into funny, motivating and timely commentary,” explains designer Zach Lieberman of YesYesNo. “The things it says can be posted to Google+ by the user, sent to real-time ad units, if the user chooses to, and broadcast via onboard speakers. It can talk to the world and to the web,” if the wearer so chooses.

Stay stationary too long, for instance, it will say things like, “This is super-boring” or “Quick, someone check my pulse”, reports Ecouterre. “It might even start offering suggestions, such as a run or a game of basketball. Start getting physical, however, and the shoe will change its tune, noting “That’s more like it,” or “I love the feel of the wind in my laces.”

It’s not hard to see that this humor-based technology could actually be effective. We use all kinds of tricks and apps to hold ourselves accountable to our own fitness goals. The problem with these technologies is that they require our input to be of use. If you skip a workout or fail to reach a goal, they do nothing. These shoes, however, would intrude on our inner excuse-making process, make us laugh, and hopefully, be the push we need to finally get up and move.

“By bringing the personalization and intelligence of the Web to everyday things, we can make them more useful and entertaining,” the designers say. These connected and smart objects are sharing relevant information with us, turning chores into games and making us healthier.”

Unlike the Google Glass, however, neither company has plans of bringing the show to market just yet. But I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else seized the utility of this idea, and ran with it. Literally.

Image: Art, Copy & Code

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An exclusive EcoSalon playlist to fuel your next run.

Got running on the brain? Here’s the perfect playlist for you.

Check out the music videos below, or instead of clicking play every time one music video ends and you need to start the next, go even further ahead and listen to all of them nonstop on our 10 Songs To Run To playlist on 8tracks.

1. Goin’ Against Your Mind – Built To Spill

2. Bright Lit Blue Skies – Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

3. LOVEBURN xtra – AyGeeTee

4. Sexx Laws – Beck

5. Runaway – Bon Jovi

6. Jail La La – Dum Dum Girls

7. Heaven’s On Fire – The Radio Dept.

8. No Pause – Girl Talk

9. Keep It Coming Love – KC & The Sunshine Band

10. Home – LCD Soundsystem

ALSO CHECK OUT:

Image: joshjanssen

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I’m not married to an SUV and don’t recognize the sound of a garbage disposal any longer. Still, there are some impure, clumsy little things that are hard to totally relinquish in my quest to qualify as a steward of the planet.  You might recognize some of these attachments as ones you are struggling to let go of, as well.

1. Paper Files

Guilty! It’s tough to break the tactile filing habit when it comes to bills, work, pets, life. Sure, many have adapted to online banking but still feel the need to keep hard copies of tax-related documents, invoices, receipts (you can turn them down, now) and other proof we disorganized, overwhelmed consumers paid up, signed up, renewed and gave.

2. Non-recycled Tissues

Your ass is not grass and your nose knows. Sand paper won’t go there, happily. It’s too bad they cannot make a softer, gentler toilet paper or Kleenex, and until they do, I pick the less prickly of the varieties – paper products that don’t give me a rash and turn an already bumpy nose into a Rudolph shiner.

3. Leather Goods

While we have increasing evidence that it isn’t good to eat anything with a face, it is the year of the boots – thigh high, equestrian, chunky heeled, wedged. And leather jackets are cool, way more cool than fleece and hemp but perhaps not as functional and certainly more destructible. It seems easier to say no to fur than to the hide. Sorry. I like belts that are wide.

4. Camera Wizard

Are you a walking, breathing Kodak ad? I seem to go through my HP ink too fast for comfort – and it costs a bundle. But it is very tempting to print out images that connect us to memories, photographs and scanned artwork. Digital photography and Microsoft technology has made all of us little Annie Liebovitzes. Download off Facebook or your camera, crop, re-size, print and frame. Oh, and don’t forget the holiday cards you customize.

5. Gas in the Tank

Commuters are on bikes, everywhere, risking life and limb to save on gas and stay in shape, while others hop on public transit. Even so, we can’t stop filling the tank in our own machines for those times when it is simply too complicated to ride: Carpooling to school, late night parties, camping or other sporting trips, and places where we shouldn’t drive but are just too tired or lazy to opt for the alternative.

6. Buying Books

No pulp is just too cold for many of us. This, despite the fact Kindle ereaders are a mega hit with users who enjoy being able to download dozens of reads for that commute to work or time off on the beach. Authors and publishers make money, either way, but we cannot let go of that romantic attachment to the hard cover or paperback in its classic form.

7.  Flying

Yes, the commercial airline industry has taken a hit but we continue to fly business and first class as write-offs when just about any meetings and conferences can be done via telecommuting in the year 2010. No one wants to see jets grounded for good, but there was a time when flying was a privilege, a luxury. But now, with the frequency of boarding a Greyhound bus, we round-trip it on Southwest, figuring the fuel cost outweighs a six hour drive, any day. Meanwhile, we await that cost-effective jet biofuel the Pentagon announced it is developing.

8. Non Organic Meat

Restaurants, markets and diners cite every excuse in the book for preferring Midwestern prime over free-range, grass fed beef. And surprisingly, America’s top-notch steak houses are still serving up factory cow to their discerning customers, saying it’s a matter of taste and access over health and humane conditions. Sorry, Temple Grandin and Michael Pollan – but humanely raised local organic is not what’s for dinner in a majority of kitchens.

9. Replacing Worn Running Shoes

The sports shoe industry is designed like the cell phone trade; the product becomes unattractive, unhealthy and useless to us over time, so we do the all-American thing and replace it. I moan each time my tread gets worn down while the canvas and leather and rubber or whatever else makes a running shoe seems to be in great shape. Until we can just replace the treads, we keep getting new ones.

10. Using Conventional Beauty Products

It’s the other green thumb, the one that has icky smelly trendy polish glossing it. It’s not like we don’t know the dangers of nail polish exposure and other beauty products we use religiously, but we do get lazy about picking stuff up when and where we can, such as buying mascara at the drugstore and undergoing a quick and dirty mani-pedi at the hood’s micro spa. I feel pretty but my health could be worse for the wear from all the chemicals. Guess we all could use a cleaner foundation!

Images: ibjorn; Katie@!, theimpulsivebuy, Thai Chu, 365mayhem, riza, Ben+Sam, Binder.donedat, Don Hankins, Mindsay Mohan

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