The sole consists of at least one upper layer, which is directed towards the upper of the item of footwear, and at least one lower layer, which is directed away from said upper, wherein the upper layer and the lower layer consist of materials of different levels of elasticity, density or hardness. Interior of thermal processing apparatus is set to oxygen atmosphere and raised to predetermined temperature. The magnetized magnetic pattern includes N poles and S poles arranged in alternate fashion. RFOptical converters located along the electrical transmission lines are used to convert the RF signals into optical signals. The driverless data transfer device includes, inter alia, a data downloading unit configured to download the item data, an interface unit for transferring the downloaded data to an item checking unit via a communications bus, and a decoder configured to decode said stored data to conform to data processing requirements of the item checking unit.