Credit card needed for literal window shopping

By Jeremy Simon

Your credit card allows you to window shop at the Polo Ralph Lauren store in Manhattan.  Customers do not even need to enter the Madison Avenue store to make a purchase.  

Designer Ralph Lauren's store features an interactive holographic screen on the window that enables shoppers to buy items from Lauren's U.S. Open clothing line by touching the glass.  The shopper can select an item from 5-foot-high images of clothes from Polo Ralph Lauren being projected onto the store's window by tapping on the product they want.  Customers then use a credit card reader attached to the window to swipe their plastic. 

Even when the store is closed, shoppers can still make purchases using the high-tech system.  A thin foil layer attached to the window includes a touch-sensitive keyboard, which allows shoppers to input their home address for items to be delivered.  Customers uncomfortable with entering credit card information on the street can instead provide an e-mail address and complete the transaction later via computer.

Company officials acknowledge that the interactive window display was inspired by the Steven Spielberg film "Minority Report."  In that movie, characters manipulated graphics and data in midair using a special pair of gloves.   

The display will be available 24 hours a day until the end of the U.S. Open tournament in September 2006.

Published: September 12, 2006

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