What do we want? We want to build something like this:

• The motion in the video clip above suggests that pneumatics is the way to go. The tension can be regulated by an adjustable valve. The canister need not be mounted on the shoe, since we can run hosing down from a leg mount. A motor wouldn't have enough torque to lace a shoe without much gearing, and even then, it would be very slow. And the motor and gearbox would have to be mounted on the shoe somewhere. Bulky.

• I'm playing around with the idea of needing one lace or many individual laces. One lace will require a lot of tension and the upper section might cinch up. Either way, the leather holes in the shoe need to be punched out and opened up with plastic or brass holes to reduce friction.

Anyone else have any other thoughts?

The box itself has 2015 on its side, and the slide out inner chamber is patterned like Marty's hoverboard. The wrapping paper inside has the words "great scott!" on them. And the sneakers come with hoverboard pink laces with blue tips.

The sneakers themselves are standard hyperdunks with a few notable differences. The Nike logo on the back is the same font and color as the sneakers in BTTF2. The grey sides of the soles have blue paint specs on them, as in the movie. The uppers have triangular loops, deemphasized versions of the ultra high tops on the movie version. The lateral edge of the shoe is glow in the dark. The midsole has a pink and green hoverboard design, and if you lift it out, there's a flux capacitor logo underneath it on the heel. The tongue of the shoe has orange/red Back to the Future arrows, and three dates and times as they might appear on the Flux capacitor's controller: November 12 (the day the clock was struck by lightning), and two October days, partially obscured by a graphic.

They're Nike, so they're comfortable. I make no claims to their performance, but if they're good enough for Kobe Bryant, I suppose they'll work for blogging.

Michael Maloof of the McFly 2015 project had Nike send these to me for review because of the shared love we have for seeing these sneakers produced. They may not have power laces or electroluminescent Nike logos on them, but maybe that'll come in version 2.

Only 350 pairs of these Nike Hyperdunks have been produced, with the color of the Nike shoes that Marty McFly wears in Back to the Future II, with a glow in the dark soles. Apparently people were camping out for 24 hours to get these in Santa Mónica, so you can be sure that they will be big collector items. At least until Nike realizes there's a whole market segment full of dumb people wanting to buy these. You know, the kind of fried-brain guys who have watched the movie a hundred times and still walk through the streets thinking "if I only had one of those floating skateboards now" at age 35.

Yeah. That would be me. [eBay]

These limited edition Hyperdunks sport the same weird high section around the ankle that defines the originals as well as "2015" emblazoned on the tongue. They should come out at the end of the summer, but I have no clue how to buy them or how few will be made. I'm holding out for the real deal anyways. [Fubiz (translated) via NotCot]