"With a tap of a toe, a microcomputer in the shoe transmitted a voice-synthesised message to a wireless micro-earpiece telling the user of roulette wheel's speed. This could help calculate the next number that would appear."
How would knowing the speed of the wheel help a person know what number might come up next?
It also seems to me that unless shoe power was actually changing the results or manipulating the outcomes, that it shouldn't be against the law. What am I missing?
Casinos don't permit calculating devices.
I would expect that the usefulness of knowing the wheel/ball speeds would depend in some measure aout the design of the table and how long they allow people to wait before betting. Even a fairly sloppy estimate of where the ball would end up could put the odds in a player's favor, especially if the casino was using Monte Carlo rules (Las Vegas charges a 5.3% vig on almost all roulette bets; Monte Carlo charges a 1.38% vig on even-money bets and a 2.7% vig on others).
So that the person placing the bet could choose a number before the wheel stops and have better odds of getting the right one. IIRC, in the casinos in which I've played the Roulette wheel, you have to have placed your bets before the wheel is spun. The person spinning the wheel waves his hand over the betting field to signal the time after which no more bets can be placed.
Maybe it's still done the other way in Europe.