Sci-Fi Today, Sci-Fact Tomorrow

In the future of Stephen Spielberg’s Minority Report, televisions and computers have been replaced by transparent screens on which life-size images appear to be floating in thin air. Watching Tom Cruise operate this fictional technology, David Lauren, Vice President of Ralph Lauren, was inspired to develop similar screens, but with a retail spin — his version would be implanted behind a store’s glass window and would be touch sensitive, allowing window shoppers to interactively browse through Lauren merchandise and purchase what they saw using a built in credit-card swiper.

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Balloon ‘not capable of lifting off’ with the boy, Colorado police say

As authorities confirmed the “balloon boy” saga was a hoax, they checked the vessel created by Richard Heene to see whether it could have actually carried his 6-year-old son Falcon. During the incident Thursday, when Heene said his 37-pound son may have been inside the flying-saucer-shaped balloon, the sheriff’s department contacted a specialist at Colorado State University to determine whether it could carry the child.

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