Nike unveils Marty Mcfly’s iconic power-lace shoes

FOR those not familiar with the Back to the Future trilogy, in Back to the Future II, the film’s protagonists Marty McFly and Doctor Brown travel 30 years into the future to the fictional city of Hill Valley, CA, to save McFly’s yet-to-be born children.

The date of their arrival, October 21st, 2015, was eagerly awaited by fans all over the world.

And to celebrate the event, Nike released a fully-functional model of the famous Nike Mag sneakers that McFly wore in the movie. This means that all a user has to do is wear the sneaker and sit back as the shoe goes about tying its own laces as it senses the foot. What’s even cooler is that the Nike logo and the heel light up just like McFly’s did. There is no wire connected to a battery pack as the technology is all built into the shoe.

The first pair of Nike Mags were delivered to Michael J. Fox, the actor who played the movie character. Nike plans to release additional pairs in 2016, but they will be a limited edition launch and only available via auction.

OVER the years, there have been numerous attempts to create a cloak that can make one invisible just like the one worn by Harry Potter. But none has come even close to the original ‘created’ by J.K. Rowling.

That’s because they have all focused on redirecting the light around the object being concealed. While the concept works theoretically, it is not practical given that one would have to carry around large heavy cloaks to hide single objects.

Now researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, believe they may have solved the issue with a cloak that does not redirect the light. Made of a very thin metamaterial (materials engineered to have properties not found in nature), it instead scatters the incoming light. Since it is not as bulky as previous invisibility cloak concepts, the researchers think it will be easier to drag around.

The science behind it is quite simple. As you may already know when light is reflected off a three-dimensional object, it gets scattered, distorting the wavelength. This enables the human eye to discern the object’s angles and curves and see it clearly.