If you were wowed by former President Trump's $399 limited-edition gold lamé high-tops selling out in just hours, brace yourself. Business Insider reports on another limited-edition success story: Wilson's Airless Gen1. It's a 3D printed basketball that's covered in hundreds of hexagonal holes, meaning air passes through it, rather than it being pumped full of air. And, yes, it bounces, though soundlessly. It has a $2,500 price tag, and it has also sold out. Business Insider points out the cost is more than 10 times that of the cost of the company's official NBA game ball. The company says the Airless Gen1 nearly aligns with regulation basketball criteria when it comes to weight, size, and bounce.
Fast Company reports that fewer than 200 balls were available, and chalks the slim number up to "manufacturing challenges"—essentially, technology needs to get more advanced before these could be mass produced. If they ever will is TBD, says Nadine Lippa, Wilson's innovation manager. She notes that while the ball was tested hundreds of thousands of times in a lab setting, they have yet to see how it will perform when it's treated like any other basketball. Ditto whether the feel of it—a Wall Street Journal reporter who tried it noted it lacked the "softness of traditional leather"—turns players off. (See the ball in action here.)
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