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In the science fiction thriller Minority Report, Tom Cruise' character interacts with a computer via a three-dimensional touch screen interface. Accenture, a global technology and corporate consulting agency, has brought a similar technology to life and installed it at Terminal 3 of Chicago's O'Hare airport.

The high-definition, interactive screen, which is 10 feet wide and 7 feet tall, is aimed primarily at business travelers and allows users to access information such as stock quotes, news, lifestyle tips, and sports updates. It is operated by touch and can be accessed by two people at one time.

"Accenture has already partnered with CNN Pipeline and the Weather Channel," said Dale Herigstad, executive creative director at Schematic, the company that developed the technology for Accenture.

Accenture hopes this new technology could evolve into a network of interactive, wall-sized screens. The Accenture Interactive Network could one day link multiple screens at airports, shopping malls and other locations. And, because they are so large, the person interacting is not the only one who will view the content, as passersby will also be able to see what is going on on the screen.

"It's going in two directions," Herigstad said, "completely private, where you're doing your own thing, but public as well."

"The immersive experience fosters collaboration by allowing multiple users to simultaneously manipulate content, a feature lacking in other commercially-available, wall-sized screens," Accenture published in a press release.

"Video is wallpaper," said Herigstad, who consulted on Minority Report, "screens are getting better and cheaper."

"Accenture has been a pioneer in airport billboard advertising and we view the Interactive Network as another example of our ability to use innovation to cut through the clutter," said Teresa Poggenpohl, Executive Director, Global Advertising & Brand Management, Accenture. "It entertains travelers, while
simultaneously delivering our advertising featuring Tiger Woods. In the future, users might be able to request a brochure or white paper, or even order a product or service."

The O'Hare screen was unveiled in May and Accenture plans to install another interactive screen at New York's JFK airport, as well.

For more information, visit www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=newsroom%5Cepresskit%5Cinteractive_network%5Cinteractive_network.xml.

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The annual Fell’s Point Privateer Day is almost upon us. On August 12, the Broadway Square in Fells Point, a neighborhood of Baltimore, will fill up with privateers, pirates, sailors, wenches and more and people gather to celebrate the maritime history of Fells Point, Baltimore's original deepwater harbor and ship building Mecca.

The event begins and noon and ends at 6pm. Activities and features include:

• Living History Characters dressed in period costumes
• Ships of all sizes from toy models to the real things
• A Town Crier with the actual daily news of the War of 1812
• Sample food from local pubs, taverns, and restaurants
• Walking and guided tours
• Storytelling
• Face painting
• Grog Crawl sponsored by Miller Lite
• And more!

Costumes are welcome – encouraged, in fact – as long as it reflects “whoever you think you would have been more than 200 years ago.”

For more information, visit www.fellspointdevelopment.com/privateerday.html.

To help raise funds for the Orlando Science Center (OSC), the Barnes & Noble Booksellers at 2418 E. Colonial Drive in Orlando, Fla., will be holding a bookfair July 25 through 27, 2006.

The festivities include resident science wizard, who will create “a cavalcade of crazy chemical concoctions” on the evening of July 26. “Science of Potions” will be performed (subject to change) on this schedule:

7 - 7:15pm
7:30 - 7:45pm
8 - 8:15pm
8:30 - 8:45pm

To make sure your purchase(s) benefit the OSC, download a voucher from http://www.osc.org/membership/images/barnesandnoblevoucher.doc and present it to the clerk at the time of purchase. All sales made with this voucher will have a percent of the net sale donated to the OSC.

The Round Barn Theatre at Amish Acres Historic Farm and Heritage Resort in Nappanee, Ind., celebrates its 20th year of musical theatre this summer, Aug. 1 through Sept. 10. Camelot, the tale of King Arthur and his Knights is one of five musical to be performed this year.

“The curtain rises on Arthur as a young king awaiting the arrival of his betrothed, Guenevere,” states a press release. “He is counseled by his magical advisor, Merlyn, on how to treat his as yet unseen bride.”

The score is the classic written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, who also scored My Fair Lady and Brigadoon. Playing King Arthur will be Jason Lawergren, who is returning to the Round Barn Theatre after a six year absence. Guenevere is played by Heidi Ferris, who portrayed Princess Amneris in last summer’s Aida.

The Amish Acres Historic Farm and Heritage Resort is an historic eighty acre farm and is the home and farmstead of Indiana's first family of Amish settlers. Indiana has become the second largest Old Order Amish settlement in America and the first Amish settlers there settled on farms surrounding what is now Nappanee. The Round Barn Theatre has 400 seats and was created from a 1911 round barn. I was dismantled, reconstructed, and converted into a state-of-the-art regional theatre, home of the Joseph Stein proscenium stage, which is dedicated to the author of Plain and Fancy.

For more information, visit amishacres.com/index.html.

The 2006 Halloween season will be the last for Rocky Point Haunted House in Salt Lake City, one of the most recognized commercial haunts in the United States, with about 55,000 people visiting each year.

"To have [Rocky Point] end is almost like losing a family member," said Greg Andersen, co-owner of Solar Shock Pictures in Ogden. "I'm sad to hear that, but at the same time I can understand, too. [Cydney Neil] has been doing this for 20 years." Andersen has been involved with Rocky Point for 17 years, first as a teenage actor and later as a sound engineer for the event. His wife and daughter work in the house's concession stand during the Halloween season.

Neil, who has run the haunted house, which her brother started in Pleasant View as a neighborhood spook alley, for 20 years, works 18-hour days, seven days a week, six months of the year to keep Rocky Point going.

"The purpose of Rocky Point Haunted House was to create a place that could nurture a lot of kids who otherwise would not have had a place like it,” said Neil. “They're prepared to go out and create their own valuable lives, hopefully in ways that can benefit others. I'm just going to cherish every single second I have left here."

The house features has become a training ground for aspiring fright artists and for the past 10 years, has been run as a Boys and Girls Club program. “It was more than a haunted house,” said LeAnn Saldivar, director of the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Salt Lake, “it was a youth development program." About 300 youth participate each year as actors, and the event's profits, typically $25,000 to $50,000, are donated to the nonprofit group.

Early this week, Neil told the Salt Lake Tribune that the event had reached the end of its natural life, and that she couldn't possibly sell "her baby" to another fright master. She said that her time at the haunted house has been a "calling" that is complete.

Of course, Rocky Point Haunted House won’t go out with a whimper. Neil has big plans for giving “her progeny” a proper burial, says the Salt Lake Tribune.

New and regular attractions include:

• The "Lord of the Rings" set will be replaced by a "Pirates of the Scaribbean" attraction.
• A slasher wax museum.
• A haunted museum sharing behind-the-scenes history.
• Freddy Krueger's neighborhood.
• A ghoul filled graveyard.
• A haunted mansion.

The 26th and final season begins Sept. 1 and closes Halloween night. However Rocky Point will reopen in May for "Scream Break," a two-week run of the haunted house, and a big funeral.

For more information, visit www.rockypointhauntedhouse.com