Smart Soles

New Scientist: A Californian company called Outland Research hopes to put high-tech intelligence into sports shoes. This is because feet often need different kinds of support, depending on whether they are walking, running or playing sport. Conventional shoes that are ideal for some activities are unsuited to others.
Inventor and company founder Louis Rosenberg hopes to change all this with reconfigurable footwear. The soles of his new shoes have several hollow bladders, connected via narrow tubes, and filled with a deformable and electrically-activated liquid – such as an ester or amide of a phosphorous-based acid.
Normally, the liquid flows freely through the tubes, letting the bladders self-adjust as the foot rocks from heel to toe and rolls from side to side. But, when current from a battery or a piezo-electric generator is fed through the tubes, the liquid hardens restricting flow and making the bladders firmer.
Smart Soles Invention [New Scientist]