user interface

Fishbowl, the Facebook client demoed at Microsoft's introduction to Silverlight 4, is now available for download—and it adds quite a few new desktop features to the Facebook experience, including badges, a mini news feed, and more. At first glance, Fishbowl looks a lot like a reorganized, slightly better looking version of Facebook. Along the top you have the usual sections of Facebook—Home, Profile, Photos, etc.—and on the left sidebar you have options for the window you're in.  

For over two years, my article " Using the HTML embed Tag to Display a PDF on Your Web Page " has had the highest number of hits per week. I wanted to take this opportunity to update it a little and the new Acrobat.com plays a big part. In addition to using the or tags to reference a PDF file directly as mentioned in my old article, you can embed PDF files in HTML inside a Flash wrapper.  

As they say, the best tool is the one you have. I already had Photoshop installed, so giving it a shot was a no-brainer. I went into File > Automate > Photomerge as I've done several times on a smaller scale and with a lot of success.  

This week, Google released the source code for Chrome OS and promised that devices will be shipping in about a year, in time for the 2010 holiday season. Chrome OS will run only on devices specifically manufactured for it and Google is dictating to manufacturers the hardware specifications. For instance, Chrome OS devices will be netbooks, will not include a hard drive, will have only solid state disks, will rely on specified WiFi chipsets/adapters for connectivity and must have full-sized keyboards, sa  

Review TomTom's Start is essentially the satnav specialist's new low-end model. Rather than say so, though, it's not pitching the product on price but for its simplicity. It's a device designed to get you from A to B and nothing more.  

Download this image by right-clicking on the image and selecting "save link as" or "save target as" and then select the desired location on your computer to save the image. Mac users can also just click the image to open the full size view and drag that to their desktops. To set the image as your desktop wallpaper, Mac users should follow these instructions , while PC users should follow these .  

Who takes Apple's rumored touchscreen tablet seriously? Wired's parent company Condé Nast. Earlier this week, the corporation revealed its plans to work with Adobe to repurpose magazine content for upcoming digital devices, including the rumored Apple tablet (even though Apple still hasn't confirmed it's making a tablet).  

Chances are if you or anyone you know has a webcam, it's either built into your display or a cheapie one that's no better than that. Well, a new generation of webcams is coming out that support high-def video, and the first representative is Microsoft's LifeCam Cinema. It's got a nice wide angle on it, has more clarity than those pinhole webcams, and the clamp it uses is really convenient.  

The latest in self-important mobile app developer drama comes from Gameloft, but it's not the usual iPhone bashing we've come to expect. Instead, Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort declared ( via Reuters ) that the company's got beef with Android. "We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like … many others," he said at an investor conference in Barcelona.

We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like … many others   -Alexandre de Rochefort

 

Technology has always been a double-edged sword. We can communicate with each other more easily than ever these days, but our communication is now less personal, and computers – devices that have enabled so many peaceful endeavors – were originally designed and enhanced for military purposes. Revolution's Beneath a Steel Sky is a game originally released fifteen years ago that offers a warning on what happens to a society that becomes overly reliant on technology.