You may already know that Nike created the shoes for the U.S. Olympians (and also China’s Olympic team). A visit to the part of the Nike Web site about these shoes is a veritable encyclopedia/laboratory of custom shoe-making. They offer close-up views and detailed explanations of the design process for every sport’s footwear. Not just running and basketball, but field hockey, BMX, archery, wrestling, badminton, weightlifting and all 28 sports in the summer games.  They first show off their “flywire” technology, which uses cable to function as “synthetic tendons” that wrap around the foot. The development has reduced the shoe’s weight by 50 percent, they say.  A click over to their “lab” profiles the way every shoe was made for each sport. The Ballestra, for example, is for fencers. It has a traction pattern on a flat sole for balance, and extra foam because fencers put seven times their weight onto their front foot with every lunge.  The Grigorios for kayakers are sleek water shoes with split toes that are as close to being barefoot as possible. Equestrians wear the Ippeas, black boots modernized with zippers , lighter heels and a small titanium spur. You can even watch a video conversation with the designer of each shoe. But the best part is that you can buy some. Even if you don’t play badminton, you can check out the shoe and get a pair for $90, or grab a pair of the wildly patterned BMX shoes for $220 (pictured). You can’t buy the custom footwear for every sport, but there are plenty to pick from.

Ever heard of Zara? Good, then you heard it here first. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re probably not much of a world traveler. Zara is a hot brand that has just become the world’s largest clothing retailer. That honor was given to Gap until this week. A slumping U.S. consumer sales market has dropped Gap’s revenues by 10 percent in the first quarter of their fiscal year. For your edification: Zara clothing is trendy , chic, inexpensive, you can’t buy it online and there are 3,900 Zara stores in the world, compared to 3,100 Gap outlets. There are five Zara stores in New York City and surrounding areas. The retail giant was born in Spain (in the bedroom of 72-year-old founder and chairman Amancio Ortega, who made bathrobes) and the first store opened in 1975. Now you can shop in Zara stores in Bahrain, Croatia and Iceland. British Vogue says the Zara philosophy is fast fashion: they quickly take designer runway looks and turn them into mass audience items, like the one pictured. They aren’t interested in any celebrity designers coming into their fold. Owned by Inditex, they proudly state it takes only two weeks to get an item from drawing board to store shelf. But guess what? You can buy online from their home and bedding line, although you’ll have to translate Euros to dollars. That’s not so hard: here, use this to do it. Gap, on the other hand, has an aging and eroding customer base, according to The Guardian of Britain, and they’ve not been successful enough at appealing to younger customers. The Zara brand does have 24 U.S. stores, in big cities (Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Miami and more) and some small (Canoga Park, Garden City, Wayne). You can find all their U.S. locations on their Web site.

Your badminton is probably suitable for the suburbs: You and a buddy running around with a beer in one hand and a flimsy racquet in the other until the plastic shuttlecock gets stuck in a tree. In Asia, especially China, badminton is serious business, and you can see it in the Olympic competition. Even Bill Gates has been watching the action in Beijing. The birdie (or shuttlecock) can travel 200 mph, and pros can cover 4 miles at high speeds in a single game. If you want to try some serious badminton, start with serious equipment.  Yonex is the premiere manufacturer of pro badminton goods, and Badminton Alley is a good place to start. At the top of the heap is the Yonex Arc-Saber 10 racquet for $230 (on sale!) which weighs about 85 grams and is made of graphite, carbon and has custom strings. At a lower price point is the Muscle Power 99 racquet for $175, used by lots of pros and several world champions. Ditch the plastic and get a real goose-feather shuttlecock (16 feathers glued to a cork base), such as the Yonex AS Professional for $26. A less expensive but still fancy Black Knight 6600 yellow shuttlecock is $17 (it should be humidified before use - don’t ask us why). You can pay around $180 for carbon nano-fiber strings and a professional-level net will run $65. Perhaps you didn’t know there are badminton shoes that look like lightweight flat running shoes with curved toes, as well as grip tape for $3.50 and grip powder spray. To really bring the heat to the back yard, put it all in a pro bag for $65. And, yes, you can buy a whole badminton set at lower prices if you must. Now, just toss in some badminton lingo, like “flick,” “push shot” and “kill” and you’re ready to roll.

Thank goodness for the Web. How else would you be able to score handmade home goods from around the world? (Unless of course you’re going to pull a Phileas Fogg?) Enter Poppytalk Handmade, an online “street market” showcasing handmade goods from artisans worldwide. The key differentiator from other craft sites like Etsy.com is that Poppytalk Handmade features a monthly theme. July’s market is themed “Home Sweet Home!” and features goods to make a house a home. August’s theme is “School Days!” appropriately enough. Much like an antiques emporium, the site features a limited number of screened “sellers,” who rent their space by the month. We were drawn to artist Michelle Brusegaard’s unique take on formalwear, which includes striking, signed digital prints of gowns hanging on clotheslines ($15 each). Also nifty: Domestic Construction’s pendant lighting made entirely of tea cups ($58). Beehive Kitchenware’s bird measuring spoons ($88; pictured) and other kitchen goods are the antithesis of standard issue culinary wares. The same can be said for Flappergirl Creations’ sexy aprons and coffee cup cozys ($28, $12).

James Brown’s relatives may have tried to stop it, but like the sweat-drenched singer known for pretending to be near collapse on stage, it went right ahead: This week Christie’s auctioned off a motherlode of memorabilia owned by the Godfather of Soul himself. Scrolling through the auction results, fans may be surprised that not all the mementos were astronomically priced. For just a few hundred dollars, devotees snagged a “best wishes” note on hotel stationery ($313) or even one of his jumpsuits ($375). The latter’s lowball price may have been due to the large amount of clothing available: When you can get a flashy red number with “Sex” emblazoned on it ($7,500), a silver fox coat ($2,500), or the very GFOS suit worn onstage at the famous Ali/Forman bout in Zaire ($25,000; pictured), why waste your auction dollars on a plain white outfit? Other noteworthy items included a personal passport ($7,500), Brown’s Hammond organ ($10,000), and an old-fashioned dome/chair hair dryer, complete with a small arsenal of styling products ($10,625). A suite of red-leather furniture came close to being the star of the show, fetching $40,000, but it was upstaged by a comparatively plain black cape ($47,500) that the new owner should definitely wear every Halloween from now on. Those of us who missed the sale would do better to invest our cash in on James Brown: The Singles, a series of $30 two-disc sets that aim to collect every single the singer put out — currently up to Volume 5, the series still hasn’t reached the funky ’70s.

It’s no news that everyone from retailers to movie studios and electronics manufacturers wants you to buy a Blu-ray DVD player. They hit early adopters with “be the first on your block” ad campaigns, and now that the format war is over they’re still offering the kind of incentives usually seen when a technology is new: Just recently, Amazon started offering buyers of select Blu-ray players an $80 add-on bundle that would get their movie collection jump-started. (The titles included are a mixed bag, pictured, but $10 per film is quite a price.) Some of the incentives are a bit more thoughtful than usual. Martin Scorsese lovers who already own the standard DVD version of Gangs of New York, for instance, can ease the pain of buying a second version for Blu-ray by mailing in a coupon for a $10 rebate (other titles are eligible as well). A better development — financially and practically — is the new trend of “digital copy” bundling. Some movie studios are bundling second discs with certain Blu-ray titles that contain a digital file users can install on iPods for mobile viewing. Fox’s Juno was a prominent early example, but other companies — like Warner Brothers, with 10,000 B.C. and Lionsgate with the latest Rambo flick — are getting into the game. Hopefully, it will soon become an industry standard to let buyers own portable digital versions of the DVD movies they buy.