#midsole-innovation

#midsole-innovation

The supportive high drop Cloudnova 2s are down from $170 to $115, making them an excellent choice for serious runners looking for quality at a discount.

Amazon's Big Spring Sale is a made-up event designed to take your money, but it offers genuinely great deals for those willing to search for them.

Tarvas started out about as far from that as possible, in a small basement workshop in Helsinki, Finland. It was there that the founders tinkered with prototypes until, in 2017, they were ready to launch a line of footwear that blended outdoors functionality with streamlined Nordic design.

The Nimbus has a midsole made of FF Blast+, which provides a soft ride but lacks energy return, making it best suited for slow, relaxed runs where pace doesn't matter.

Patel's bespoke shoes were black, white, and yellow, and featured a number 9 on the side to signify that he is the bureau's ninth director. A "K$H" logo on the tongue is Patel's personal logo (FBI directors have personal logos now), and a skull from the Marvel character Punisher appeared across the back of the shoe, along with the FBI's slogan "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity."

Tuning frictional behavior on the fly has been a long-standing engineering dream. This new insight into how surface geometry governs slip pulses paves the way for tunable frictional metamaterials that can transition from low-friction to high-grip states on demand.

The results showed that the squeaking sound is produced by wave-like patterns across the rubber surface, contacting and then releasing from the glass, allowing the sliding between the surfaces. The waves move across the interface between the two materials at a speed of nearly 300 kilometers per hour.

Now, returning in 2.0 trim, it's been treated to a New York-inspired update thanks to the folks at HSDT. Proportions and comfort have been elevated, while the sneakers' visual language has taken shape through features inspired by NYC's everyday structures. This continues the brand's "The Architecture of Everyday Life" ideology, focusing on scaffolding and steel beams, stairwells and sidewalks, mesh fences, utility grates and metals.

Squeaking occurs across various contexts including shoes, bike brakes, rubber tires, and biomedical implants when soft and hard surfaces contact each other. Researchers used high-speed photography to study a rubber block sliding across hard acrylic to identify the source of these sounds. The investigation revealed that pulses similar to earthquake dynamics drive the squeaking phenomenon.

We were not expecting to find so much richness and depth from a physics point of view underneath the sole of a shoe, says Adel Djellouli, a scientist at Harvard University and co-lead of the study. In a new study, scientists explore the physics that give rise to the familiar squeak of basketball shoes sliding on a hard surface.

The system, tested in prototype form by NPR at the company's headquarters, consists of fairly standard-looking sneakers with a carbon fiber plate running through the soles. These sneakers are attached at the back to close-fitting, 3D-printed titanium leg shells that cinch to the calves. The battery-powered contraptions, containing complex motors, sensors and circuitry, weigh a couple of pounds and look like something out of Terminator or RoboCop.

That new foam is now a proprietary Norda x Arnitel thermoplastic polyester elastomer blend that aims to deliver 30 percent more rebound than the original 001. It weighs 10 percent less and still delivers that signature durability that lasts beyond 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).

There are certain suitcase staples worth having in your travel wardrobe. An effortless pair of wrinkle-free travel pants is one of them. A comfy pair of shoes is the other. While clogs and flats make a stylish choice, sneakers are our top travel shoe pick, especially when they're known to endure 13-hours on your feet or 15,000 steps without blisters, like two of our editors' favorite Adidas styles.

New Balance has turned its "dad shoe" image into a driver of growth. According to a recent CNBC report, New Balance sales were up 19% to $9.2 billion in 2025. The sneaker giant grabbed market share from rivals like Nike, per the report. New Balance told CNBC that it could reach its target of $10 billion in annual revenue by the end of 2026.

The midsole of the Nimbus 28 is slightly softer than the 27 but it's not very noticeable. The 28 midsole is also more sculpted and more streamlined which is how they managed to reduce the weight. The 28 is 7% lighter than the 27.

I was able to take the Sidekick for a spin around the CES showfloor and it was a truly surprising sensation. The best way I can describe walking with the Sidekick powered on is that with every step forward there's a noticeable upward push from under your heel. It wasn't enough to throw me off balance, but it did feel a bit strange.

A tennis match usually starts with rituals you can set your watch by. A towel tug, a ball bounce, a glance at the strings. This year, a different ritual stole the first spotlight, because officials asked top players to take off a wrist wearable before they played, and the moment landed like a plot twist you did not order. This piece walks you through what happened, why it happened, and what it says about where tennis sits with athlete data right now.

The Swiss brand's new LightSpray Cloudmonster 3 Hyper doesn't have a traditional upper. Instead, a robotic arm sprays a single continuous filament onto a foot-shaped mold, and in about three minutes, the entire upper is formed. No seams. No laces. No glue. The result bonds directly to the midsole through thermal fusing, and the whole shoe is made from just eight components.

Specifically, the company is focusing on the production of its newest, weirdest shoe-a giant soled laceless running shoe with a single-piece toe box made of "hyper-foam" plastics sprayed on by robot arms. The plastics are 40 percent biofoam, and the shoe is made of just eight pieces; On says its minimalist approach saves on the shoe's carbon footprint.

Puma PUMA MagMax Nitro 2 Verdict The PUMA MagMax 2 is a good max-stack daily trainer with deep cushioning and a moderately bouncy ride. Version 2 gets rid of the annoying poking arch and has a tweaked midsole that's more energetic. I was impressed with the updates made to the MagMax 2; however, there are similarly priced competitors with even more energetic rides. Daily training

The Brooks Adrenaline GTS reaches a major milestone in 2025 with the release of its 25th edition. Outside of the ASICS Kayano, it's hard to think of another stability trainer that has remained in production for this long. That longevity speaks to a shoe built on a strong foundation, one that has continued to evolve over the years while maintaining its place as one of the best-selling stability shoes on the market.

The On Cloudlfow 5 is a versatile daily trainer that is heavily focused on fast training runs, intervals, and speed workouts. They are part of On's lineup of performance-oriented footwear;they are not just an "everyday" sneaker. It is packed with numerous great technologies from On. Some of the new features include a top layer of Helion HF supercritical foam, a nylon-blended Speedboard, a rockered midsole geometry, and an upper made from engineered mesh.

The Hyperion Elite 5 has a midsole made entirely of DNA Gold, a PEBA foam. It's the foam with the highest level of energy return of all the Brooks midsole foams. The Hyperion Max 3 has a dual-density midsole with a top layer of DNA Gold and a bottom layer of DNA Flash, an EVA foam. The firmer DNA Flash provides a stable, durable base. Both shoes have plates in their midsoles but the Hyperion Elite 5 has a stiff carbon plate while the Hyperion Max 3 has a flexible nylon plate.