aquarium

Experience the most realistic coral reef you'll find without having to purchase an actual aquarium. Sim Aquarium Premium brings stunning 3D fish to your desktop against an equally fantastic 3D backdrop of coral reefs. You can watch live clams, swaying coral, lifelike sea anemones, and over 30 gorgeously detailed fish species. The advanced graphic effects and state-of-the-art movement simulation may convince you that your monitor has become a window into the tropical waters. Featuring four different reef scenes and full interaction with fish and their environments, Sim Aquarium Premium is also available for use as a live desktop wallpaper.… Read more

Sometimes static desktop backgrounds can be boring, and you feel the need to make the desktop come alive. This is when Desktop Aquarium Free steps in, transforming the desktop into an aquarium. While the video's nice, the free version ships with a couple of annoying limitations, such as 30-second-only videos and pop-up ads. The app provides two scenes in this version: a "busy coral reef" scene, with dozens of fish species, such as Banded Clownfish, Blue Tang, and other colorful varieties, and a second "Shark paradise" scene, with the protagonists being a couple sharks, Blue … Read more

MONTEREY, Calif.--It's 1:30 in the afternoon and three of the most famous residents of this coastal town are getting ready for lunch. A very large crowd has gathered to watch.

These, of course, are Joy, Mae, and Abby, the Monterey Bay Aquarium's three resident sea otters, and it's standing-room only up against the glass separating visitors from the animals as several staff members appear with small buckets full of shrimp, clams, and squid.

I've come to the aquarium as part of Road Trip 2012, and I've been treated to a very special viewing … Read more

Animated wallpaper sounds like a good idea, but all too often, it's not; it can be a serious drag on your system's performance, slowing down critical processes all for the sake of decoration. That's definitely the case with Marine Life Aquarium Animated Wallpaper. Although we liked the idea of having sea creatures swimming about on our desktop, in practice it didn't work out very well at all.

The program installed easily, launching a configuration menu that let us select whether we wanted the wallpaper to run automatically on startup, set the execution priority at high, normal, … Read more

LONG BEACH, Calif.--The Force has never been as damp as it will be when season four of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" kicks off on Cartoon Network with two undersea storylines. So it made sense that Lucasfilm swam with the fishes at the Aquarium of the Pacific for the show's big premiere party this weekend.

The show's voice cast joined costumed characters from the 501st Legion fan group for the first screenings of "Water War" and "Gungan Attack," the undersea stories kicking off season four 8 p.m. Friday, September 16. Both adventures feature Anakin Skywalker and his Clone Troopers taking on Separatist forces to save the likes of Captain (soon to be Admiral) Ackbar and his fish-like race.

The episodes were shown in a special "4D" screening room, complete with wind, water, and lightning effects to enhance the onscreen mayhem.

Those in attendance were asked to bring along a new, unwrapped Star Wars toy to benefit the Boys and Girls Club of America. Kids from local chapters of the youth-based charity were on hand to meet their favorite characters, enjoy the aquarium attractions, and take on light saber lessons from on-hand Jedi Masters and video games from a galaxy far, far away. Even the aquarium's main tank hosted "Clone Wars" props and divers doing battle with their Jedi weapons. … Read more

Tap Fish makes you a pet owner by letting you start, grow, and maintain a digital aquarium, right on your Android device. It's fun and addicting, and best of all, it's a lot easier than taking care of a real tank full of fish.

First thing to do after downloading the app is drop some fish eggs in your tank. Choose a few species, and watch as your fish instantly materialize. From there, you must take care of your fish just as you would with an actual aquarium. Because the app functions in real time (which means it … Read more

There are a lot of fish-related screensavers out there, and we tend to like them; they're generally calming and nice to look at. So we were rather taken aback when we launched Aquarium Fantasia Screensaver, which may be the ugliest screensaver we've ever encountered. It's impressive, but for all the wrong reasons.

Frankly, Aquarium Fantasia Screensaver looks like the final project of someone taking--and failing--an introductory interactive design course. Where do we even begin? What we suppose is meant to be sand in the bottom of the aquarium looks more like beige Berber carpet. The "stones&… Read more

Turn on the TV in Japan and you're bound to see someone slicing up a tuna on a cooking show while commentators ooh and aah. It's no wonder, then, that during the current heat wave frying Tokyo, people are heading north for chills and eye candy in the form of giant fish popsicles.

The Kori no Suizokukan (Ice Aquarium) in Kesennuma, northeastern Japan, packs about 450 specimens of marine life frozen in large columns of ice bathed in blue light. Some 80 species, including saury, octopuses, crabs, and skipjack, are preserved in lifelike poses. They seem to be … Read more

SereneScreen Marine Aquarium is a realistic, high-definition screensaver that converts your computer screen into a vibrant, colorful saltwater aquarium. You can choose from 27 different exotic fish species--from the Addis Butterflyfish to the Yellow Tang--and SereneScreen can display up to 30 fish at a time, with an easy interface for creating and customizing your own sets of fish (including an option for random species). You also have settings for autopanning, framerate, iTunes playlists, and a bubble column (from a virtual aerator, with optional bubble sound).

SereneScreen has an optional "crystal" paperweight in the tank, too, which you can … Read more