For Athletes Who Can’t Let Go of Twitter: Adidas’s Barricade Shoes Have Built-in Twitter Feed

Sometimes you need that extra motivational message to help get you across the finish line. “Free beer” usually helps me. Thanks to Adidas and designer/hacker Nash Money, you might not get that message in the crowd or from friends, but you will get it right in your shoe. The two companies got together (not in that way, I don’t think) and embedded a Twitter feed inside the Adidas Barricade shoe. The sneakers have an Arduino processor in them (also used in the Copenhagen morse code Twitter experiment), a USB port, and a small screen that acts as your Twitter feed (via Crave).

Tweets sent to @adidasbarricade will be displayed on the shoes, so be nice. Adidas also had a custom-made smartphone case made from their own shoe, to complete the social media product. These shoes aren’t for sale to the public, but you can check out a cool Making Of video below. I’m pretty sure that the extra weight wouldn’t be worth someone tweeting “You suck, lolz” to me at the starting line.