With a Wi-Fi aquarium, you can always find Nemo

(Credit: Pixar)

Ever wish you didn't have to get your hands anywhere near those icky-smelling flakes of fish food? Well, here's an answer to your problem. An Egyptian professor, Mohamad Abou El-Nasr, won third prize at last week's Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, Calif. for creating a home aquarium that allows the owner to remotely control it from anywhere in the world. With the Wi-Quarium, you can adjust the heat, water filter, and lights in the tank, as well as feed the fish on command. You can also watch them on a webcam and obtain e-mail reports of how the aquarium's doing.

Unfortunately, no snapshots of the prize-winning piscatorial product were available.

Now, I think that's a little much--although it's a better idea than the "pat the fish" aquarium. Wi-Fi control is good for things like garage doors and lawn sprinklers. I suppose wireless fish tank control would be a plus for when you go on vacation or a business trip, but I could see people easily getting lazy and choosing to feed their fish at the push of a button all the time. Fish are pets. They're alive. C'mon, spend some time with the little guys!