cross-product transformation

Let’s do this in the opposite order of how you asked. i.e. first:
How can I think of the cross-product transformation in general?

For me a cross-product comes from linear algebra, and it is a different transformation. Therefore let’s start by not confusing both. The cross-product in the equation above is a transformation alright but is not related to what most of us call a cross product.

With that out of the way let’s look at the formula. Since both the index on the product and components of $\vec{x}$ and $\vec{c}$ are the same (they’re all $i$), we can be rather confident that $d$ is the number of dimensions/features we are working with. Therefore to make things a little easier to see let’s work with $d=4$:

ϕ k ( x ⃗ ) = ∏ i = 1 4 x i c k i c k i ∈ { 0 , 1 } \phi_{k}(\vec{x})=\prod_{i=1}^{4} x_{i}^{c_{k i}} \quad c_{k i} \in\{0,1\} ϕk​(x )=i=1∏4​xicki​​cki​∈{ 0,1}

Now we can write an example vector to which we apply the transformation, say:

$$\vec{x}=[7,5,-0.5,0.2]$$

And an example vector which parametrizes the transformation:

$$\vec{c}=[0,1,1,0]$$

And for a start let’s evaluate the transformation:

ϕ k ( x ⃗ ) = 7 0 ⋅ 5 1 ⋅ − 0. 5 1 ⋅ 0. 2 0 = 5 ⋅ − 0.5 = − 2.5 \phi_k(\vec{x}) = 7^0 \cdot 5^1 \cdot -0.5^1 \cdot 0.2^0 = 5 \cdot -0.5 = -2.5