This is Adidas's second venture into high-tech sneakers.

Each of the latest high-tech sneakers works differently.

This is the sort of thing fashion professionals said about shoes not long ago, to explain the profusion and popularity of styles from $500 spike heels to high-tech running sneakers to hippie-style sandals.

And just wait until China's workers get hooked on the N.B.A. and can afford to buy the high-tech sneakers they now make for the global market.

We see a dark left hand gripping a high-tech sneaker and his right hand jabbing a pistol into the back of a presumably young man in a crimson satin jacket.

Nike CEO Phil Knight started selling running shoes in the sixties, but he didn't strike it rich until high-tech sneakers became the must-have accessory of America's jogging craze.

They have swapped their 1980's high-tech sneakers for urban street machines: hefty boots for mean life in the city.

Standing tall at well under 5 feet, she sported full bangs and a waist-length braid, body-hugging Capri pants, high-tech sneakers, and New Age crystal jewelry.

Pedestrians with briefcases and tourists with video cameras stopped to gawk, vendors on the sidewalk hawked their wares, and a crowd of tall, fit young men stood by the small court in high-tech sneakers, hoping to get next.

But in the United States, brightly colored, high-tech sneakers pushed Clarks into the background, and they were the domain mostly of the computer programming set.