Giving 'window shopping' a whole new meaning

In "Minority Report," a 2002 science-fiction thriller starring Tom Cruise, futuristic technology allows the characters to control enormous glass computer screens with sweeping motions of their arms. It's a technology that's still restricted to fiction, but that didn't stop David Lauren, a senior vice president at Polo Ralph Lauren (and, yes, Ralph's son), from using the Tom Cruise flick as the chief inspiration for "Virtual Window Shop," a new marketing tie-in for the clothing brand's sponsorship of the 2006 U.S. Open tennis tournament in Queens, N.Y.

Until Sept. 10, visitors to the Polo store at 888 Madison Ave. (near 71st Street, on Manhattan's Upper East Side), can take advantage of 24-hour window shopping via a 67-inch touch screen that is projected onto the store's main display window. After that, the Virtual Window Shop will be taken down, but three kiosks using similar technology will be set up at the U.S. Open event itself.