Pinboard

NIKE UNLEASHES THE FUELBAND

Nike announced its newest piece of equipment at an event last Thursday hosted by Jimmy Fallon: the Nike+ FuelBand. Featuring a sleek, black band busting out with futuristic LED lights, the FuelBand effectively levels the playing field when it comes to tracking sporting (or everyday) activity.

Rather than just track your standard pace, distance, time and calories, what Nike has done here is potentially change the data tracking and quantified self game. Again. What the FuelBand measures is no coup. The kicker here is the introduction of NikeFuel – a new, universal unit of measurement that now means that regardless of what sport or activity you do, you can now compare your statistics with every other person out there using the FuelBand. Are you a runner? You can now compete and compare with a UFC fighter. Or a b-boy. Or a snooker player.

The whole concept is brilliantly simple (as the best ideas often are), making the idea of tracking data not only more socially dynamic, but also more, quite frankly, fun. Equipped with USB, the FuelBand also syncs wirelessly with your iPhone for instant sharing on your social networks. It’s still early days (the band isn’t available worldwide until May), but Nike has pretty much brought data tracking to the masses.

And, in true Nike style, the promo videos knock it out the park (especially the bottom one) – check them out below.