Pop quiz: how many cool 2015-era product placements do you see in this picture?

Well, if you ignore the blurry stuff in the background, there's just two - a Mattel Hoverboard and a nifty pair of self-lacing Nike sneakers.

We reported a month ago about efforts to make the levitation technology behind the hoverboard a reality. Obviously it'll be a long road to the hoverboard. But is there really any reason we can't have those Nike sneakers now?

What exactly would be required? They glow and they pull their laces tight. So they would need the ability to hold a charge - a battery or a capacitor of some sort. It would be cool if the act of walking kept them charged, but that could be a version 2.0 improvement. We'd accept plugging them in for now. You'd need a small electric motor to pull the laces and a couple of LED's for lighting.

By comparison to a hoverboard, this is really low-hanging fruit.

Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so. Michael Maloof emails to inform us of his "McFLY 2015 project." Apparently he's petitioning Nike to make this happen.

If you're Nike and you're looking for ways to get aging Gen-Xer's to shell out serious cash for sneakers, this seems pretty obvious.

-Linkathon.