Hasta La Gadget!

Years from now, you will remember where you were when you first heard about Adidas’s Original Augmented Reality Pack line of sneakers. This line consists of five different pairs of shoes, each in one bold color, ranging from $64.99 (yellow) to $94.99 (red). They’re standard wearable sneakers, but with a little extra: each one has a code on its tongue. Show this code to your webcam to call up the 3D Adidas Originals Neighborhood through your browser.

At this point, your shoes are now game controllers, as your Webcam translates your shoes’ movements into the virtual world. Walk the neighborhood and choose one of three games to play. A Star Wars storm trooper game, where you use your shoes to aim and fire paintball balloons, will launch February 10. Two more games, a skateboarding game and a DJ Hero-style game, will follow this spring.

The line of shoes is available online at Eastbay.com (search “Adidas augmented reality”) or at Champs stores. Here’s a video to show you more about the augmented experience.

Today at CES 2010, iRiver joined the throngs of companies that are launching Electronic Ink-based eBook readers with the U.S. debut of the Story. Although the device has been available in Germany, the UK, and South Korea for some time, it will hit select U.S. retailers in the coming months.

The Story has 3GB of internal memory and features an SD slot so you can add 16GB more. The device comes with a 6-inch display and is .4 inches thick. It supports PDF, PPT, DOC, and XLS, but most people will just download their books from CyberRead.com, FictionWise.com, ebooks,.com, or RandomHouse.com. There is no wireless, so you will have to side-load books via USB. No word on pricing yet.

Wasn’t it just yesterday we were writing about the death of reading? Did anyone read those stories?

This was the real showstopper at tonight’s pre-show CES event. Let’s face it, it’s pretty hard to compete with a giant, hovering remote-control toy–particularly when the remote is an iPhone. (The device is still in prototype mode, so the actual control being used at the show wasn’t an iPhone.)

When it’s complete, however, users will be able to view video streamed live from two cameras on the device. An augmented reality mode will add obstacles to the video, turning it into something of a real life video game in your backyard. Pretty neat. Parrot is even set to release an SDK for the device, so people can build their own apps around the AR.Drone.

Check out two videos of the device in action, after the jump.

Tech-lovers should thank Holland America for giving us a way to avoid all that sun and water on vacation, and do something we really enjoy. The company has installed Microsoft Surface units on the ms Veendam and is currently installing them on the ms Rotterdam. Three other liners–the ms Ryndam, ms Statendam and ms Maasdam–will follow after that.

The Microsoft Surface units are being installed in the ships’ Mix lounges, which feature martini, champagne, and spirits and ales bars. The touch-screen computers let guests listen to music or play games including checkers, chess, air hockey, Tetris, cards, and skee-ball. Sports games include football and basketball.

“Microsoft Surface is an exciting focal point in the trendy Mix entertainment venue, which is designed as the ultimate place to both socialize and be entertained with the latest innovations,” says Richard D. Meadows, CTC, executive vice president, marketing, sales and guest programs.