What's in Store (Cont.) | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Gear >> What's in Store (Cont.)

View the entire 300-plus collection of must-have gear items tailor-made for your adventurous lifestyle. PLUS: A special section on womens gear.

Today's Question
Who makes the best three-season one-person condensation-free tent? answer

What’s the best boot for a Denali summit? answer

Today's Question
What’s the best hybrid bike under $1,000? answer

What is the best cold-weather, full-length parka? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Online

Page:

What's in Store (Cont.)


	(Illustration by Alex Ostroy)

2007
SMART PACKS
YOUR EXPEDITION—and its 35 duffel bags and packs—has arrived at base camp. But who has the stove? Paul Saffo, 47, a technology expert and backpacker based in Menlo Park, California, predicts that within five years, built-in computer chips will help you find essential items. Data-transmitting gear tags, in development from Alien Technology in Morgan Hill, California, will beam inventory lists (sleeping bag...check; camp cooker...check) to a weatherproof screen on top of your pack. The postage-stamp-size tags will cost just pennies each.

2008
JACKET, HEAL THYSELF
LEAVE DUCT TAPE to the dirtbags. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are working on material that, once torn or cut, fixes itself. The secret is a plastic compound embedded with a chemical catalyst and tiny capsules of a resealing agent. Snag your expedition jackets or tent fly on a broken branch and the capsules break open to react with the catalyst, creating a plastic goo.



	(Illustration by Alex Ostroy)

Just press the torn pieces together, wait half an hour, and voilà!—a repair that's almost 90 percent as strong as virgin material.

2010
A HIDE THAT HIDES
NOW ENTERING Jetsons territory. Exhibit A: a digital suit that makes divers, safarigoers, and birders virtually invisible to animals and fish. In a study published last May in Nature, a team from Philips Electronics described a video display that could be "painted" onto clothing—from jackets to wetsuits —by spreading a mixture of liquid crystal and plastic-building molecules over an electrode-studded Lycra surface. The suit's surface could match anything from the sea fans on a Micronesian reef to the grassland of an African veldt. Here, kitty, kitty.

2012

(Illustration by Alex Ostroy)

ONE RIDE FITS ALL
MOUNTAIN BIKE pioneer Gary Fisher believes the rig of the future will be programmable like your PC. Button- or voice-activated motorized valves will automatically set bike geometry and your suspension to best handle the day's terrain. (Don't scoff: Specialized will introduce an auto-adjusting rear shock next year.) On long climbs, your bike will shift to a steeper frame angle and stiffer shock. "On the downhill, the bike would become a 69-degree sled with a lot of plush travel," gushes the 51-year-old Fisher, "so you'd just fly."

Page: