To Boldly Toe: ToPo Athletic Split Foot Trainers Are More Science Than Gimmick
The man who tried to convince runners everywhere to liberate their toes in trainers that look silly is offering a new kind of digital separation. This time Tony Post, former boss of rubber-sole and barefoot-running firm, Vibram, is trading in five fingers for two toes.
His new range of ToPo Athletic trainers are less like gloves for feet and more like hooves, separating the big toe from the little ones with a rather unsightly slot. What does Post have against toe unity and what inspired his obsession?
Post first showed off an alternative approach to footwear when he ran the 1990 New York marathon wearing pair of leather dress shoes made by Rockport, where he was vice president. By then split-toe shoes were already a thing. In Japan, tabi socks and, later, jika-tabi shoes have been supported by everyone from Ninjas to builders for centuries.
Onitsuka, the Japanese trainer company now owned by running giants, Asics, made a modern tabi-inspired running shoe back in the 50s. They were worn by Shigeki Tanaka when the runner won the Boston Marathon in 1951, but then fell out of favour.
Nike, chief trainer pioneers, developed the cloven Air Rifts in the late 1990s but even its marketing might failed to elevate the shoes out of a niche. Vibram faced similar scepticism with its FiveFingers range but their modest success under Post helped create a minor boom in running barefoot or in minimal trainers.
Read more from this story HERE.
Surveillance cameras are ubiquitous, especially in the U.K.. and in the United States, Congress has already approved the use of drones for domestic surveillance. Then there’s the “Stingray” tool used by the FBI to track cell phones. It’s enough to make even those who’ve gotten nothing hide feel nervous.
A Florida man faces upwards of 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty this week to a revolting product tampering scheme in which he returned used enemas to the CVS pharmacy where he purchased the items.
A rise in static electricity below the ground could be a reliable indicator that an earthquake is imminent, say scientists who are now launching an experiment to predict quakes well in time to save thousands of lives. 
Just because you’re deaf doesn’t mean you can’t have soul. 
3D Systems, the industrial 3-D printing giant, is expanding its desktop line of printers with the oversized, multicolor-printing CubeX printers.
The average college student thinks he possesses above average intelligence, drive, and leadership qualities, according to a new study that shows narcissism among young people is at a 50-year high.
A boozed-up traveler on a Kennedy Airport-bound flight was turned into a tape mummy yesterday by fellow passengers who gagged him and bound him to his seat when they got fed up with his drunken shenanigans.
Before this one, the last year that ended in “13” turned out to be one of the unluckiest in American political history. Now comes word from astronomers that a recently discovered comet is heading our way in 2013, predicted by some to blaze ten times brighter than a full moon. If you’re afflicted with triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13), or if you believe the old myth that a comet is a bad omen, you’re already looking forward to 2014.