Google shoe does it all

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AUSTIN, Texas, March 10 (UPI) -- U.S. Internet giant Google has got it all over Maxwell Smart, the 1960s TV secret agent who had a phone in his shoe -- its sneaker has a computer.

Google's high-tech footwear isn't ready for mass production yet, but its marketing folks showed up at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, with a few pairs just to get people thinking, ABC News reported Sunday. Other bells and whistles jammed into the sneakers include an accelerometer, a pressure sensor, a gyroscope , Bluetooth and a speaker so it can talk to you.

"The Talking Shoe is an experiment in how you can use connected objects to tell stories on the Web today," Aman Govil, who heads up the Google advertising arts team, told ABC.

Just what might this mean in the future? Well, a couch potato who sits around too long might get yelled at to get moving. Or a marathon runner could have speeds posted to social media in real time.

And don't think your sneaker's voice would necessarily be the placid and calming one routinely heard on GPS software.

"If you put what the shoe knows through an algorithmic logic engine, it can translate it into copy," Govil said. "Now if you give that copy to an interesting copy writer, you could give the shoe personality. One shoe could be the trash-talking shoe."