'You will download your sneakers within 20 years. Yarr'

This was the week when Microsoft filed a lawsuit against a Russian man who allegedly created and operated the Kelihos botnet before it got taken down in September last year. RIM co-chiefs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis stepped down as joint CEOs of the beleaguered BlackBerry-maker, a move investors have been howling about for …

[Peter2]

You'll download your trainers within 20 years!

You'll have nanobot construction/replicators in 30 years! (First said about uh, 30 years ago)

. . . Yeah, right.

Anybody who thinks that's going to happen is off their nut, unless they want a completely plastic shoe. Shoes are made from leather, and you can't extrude leather.

The process required for making your own shoe is possible today with a sewing machine and sufficient leather/rubber. However, it requires more skills than most people have, and even if you DO have the skills it's easier to go and buy a pair than spend the time building a substandard pair yourself. I can't see this changing in the foreseeable future.

[johnnytruant]

A completely plastic shoe?

That'll never catch on.

Oh wait. http://www.crocs.com/

[TeeCee]

Actually, many trainers these days are made entirely from plastics of one type or another. That's why yer average teenager's feet smell like a decaying corpse liberally coated in fresh dog faeces.

I'll happily stick with the leather or canvas variety that mean I can remove them without stunning everyone within a 40' radius, even if it does mark me as being terribly old and square.

[SiempreTuna]

Momentum is SO strong ..

.. they had to bung their new CEO $300 million to stay for the next 2 years

.. and the rest of their senior team a billion or more

Clearly these guys REALLY believe in the company's post-Jobs future

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten years

[NoneSuch]

Apple Quote

"Time is a violent torrent; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place." ~ Marcus Aurelius

[edge_e]

You will download your TRAINERS within 20 years

And Nike will still expect you to pay £100 a pair despite having reduced the labour, material, distribution and retailer costs to 0 (ok the distribution costs won't be quite 0 but damn close).

A new ass. of America will be born,(Trainer Wholesalers Against Theft ) lobbying against the piracy of shoes.

[Mr Young]

Ye man - you could have a police line up.

With sniffer dogs included!

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

the 5 grand question

Knowing that the MPAA and RIAA are using the "they steal the artists' lunch" angle to pass drastic laws against piracy (stealing the artists's lunch being, no doubt, an exclusive right of the *AA leeches), what will be Nike's angle? "they steal honduras slavekids' lunch"?

[DrXym]

Not bloody likely

Think what is in a pair of trainers - rubber, nylon fiber, foam, cotton, leather, metal, all bonded with glue and stitching. All presented in a variety of textures, colours, glosses and the rest.

It is unlikely to the point of absurdity to think anyone would print out shoes in this way for any foreseeable amount of time. More likely 3D printers of the future will be more sophisticated (e.g. able to inkjet colours onto plastic, higher resolution) and more affordable but essentially just a progression of what exists today. i.e. you could print out an ornament or perhaps even some kinds of toys, or some plastic flange for your washing machine. But not a pair of shoes.

Of course perhaps it will be trendy in 20 years for people to walk around wearing rock hard plastic clogs, in which case, yes I suppose they could be printed out at home.

[Wish You Were Here]

It is unlikely to the point of absurdity to...

... think anyone would print out shoes in this way for any foreseeable amount of time and heavier than air machines shall never fly.

Seriously though, I want to download and print a car, if only to thumb my nose at those pontificating anti piracy ads in front of the DVD I PAID FOR!

[jai]

re: It is unlikely to the point of absurdity

You, sir, have no sense of wonder or imagination at what the future could hold. Your reality must be dull and boring and I'm delighted to say I have no grasp of it whatsoever!

You stick with your mundane future, where to world of tomorrow is very much as it is today, and I shall stick with mine where I'm downloading and printing my own rocketboots and hover-boards and riding the space elevator to the upper atmosphere at the weekend for a picnic looking at the stars.

[Anonymous Coward]

...and you thought only hacks got the good drugs

TPB is pretty delusional.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what will happen when you can download pirated illegal plans of printable rocket launchers. Those will be fun times

[Dan 10]

Charles Stross got there first

'Rule 34', for anyone who's not read it. Think illegal 'fabbers' (fabrication printers) and the 'feedstock' that goes into them.

I can well imagine illegal downloads of the next Nike trainer designs turning up on the Pirate Bay or whatever. Print these 12 items and a swoosh or two, find yourself some glue, shoelaces and an hour or two to put it together, get them down the car boot sale and sell for £20. Maybe buy/add conventional insoles for comfort. For anyone suggesting that no-one would bother, there is enough people on here who spend time tinkering with everything from robotics to hackintosh, so why not this?

Sure, I wouldn't, but then I can't be arsed pirating media either. At the "not for personal use" end of the scale, I suspect an organised thug with a little sweatshop (outsourced to somewhere?) and a history of counterfeit profiteering might think differently.

[David Cantrell]

I most certainly will *not* be downloading "sneakers" within 20 years. I am not a fucking chav. Therefore I will be downloading decent shoes and boots.