Mint

Crave giveaway: Mint robot floor cleaner

Attention all slobs: for this week's giveaway, we've got the Mint automatic floor cleaner that some people like to refer to as a robot. The Mint has a sophisticated NorthStar navigation system that allows it to navigate a room and get around obstacles, like chair and table legs, while picking up dust and nastier stuff. The company calls the system "indoor GPS."

CNET blogger Timothy Hornyak liked the Mint's simplicity, silent operation, and said it worked well as a light cleaner. Mint can clean hard floors with the included reusable microfiber cloths or disposable wet … Read more

Intel discloses new mobile processors, pricing

Intel has updated its processor pricing list with new Core i series chips, including the widely used Core i5 and i7.

The processor update, dated September 26, includes two Core i5 mobile chips for laptops: the i5-580M and the i5-560M. The 2.66Hz i5-580M (3M L2 cache, two cores, four threads) is priced at $266, while the i5-560M (same clock speed) is priced at $225.

Intel also newly listed the Core 1.33GHz i5-560UM (3M L2 cache, two cores, four threads, 32-nanometer), costing $250. The "UM" indicates ultralow power mobile, and these chips typically go in ultrathin laptops … Read more

Quicken Online goes offline for Mint.com

Quicken Online has officially made its way into the history books, welcoming Mint.com to replace it, as of the weekend.

But unlike other migrations from one software product to another, many of which do a lot of the heavy lifting for the user, this switch from Quicken Online to Mint is no day at the beach. Because the platforms for the two products are so vastly different--including the way transactions are handled--the migration has been less than ideal, the company acknowledged.

Specifically, Quicken Online users weren't converted to Mint.com customers automatically. Users were required to establish new … Read more

Floor fight: Cleaning robot Mint versus Scooba

It's the 21st century, and robots are supposed to be doing everything for us now. As with personal jet packs, that hasn't happened. But Evolution Robotics' Mint is one of a number of floor-cleaning robots designed to lighten the housework load.

Announced at CES earlier this year and shipping this fall, Mint is an automatic floor cleaner--not a vacuum like iRobot's Roomba. You put a wet or dry dust cloth on the removable cleaning pad, push a button, and Mint gets to work.

Mint is somewhat comparable to low-cost dusting robots like the $50 RoboMop, but at $249 it's almost in the same league as more sophisticated floor-washing machines like iRobot's Scooba. Scooba retails for $299 and up, and has been on the market for nearly five years.

I happened to have a Scooba 350 at home, so when I got my hands on a Mint, I decided to compare the bots' performance on my hardwood and tile floors. They're two very different machines, but let's see how they stack up. … Read more

GOP senators move to block FCC on Net neutrality

Seven Republican senators have announced a plan to curb the Obama administration's push to impose controversial Net neutrality regulations on the Internet.

On Wednesday, Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina and six other GOP senators introduced legislation (PDF) that would dramatically limit the Federal Communications Commission's ability to regulate broadband providers.

"The FCC's rush to takeover the Internet is just the latest example of the need for fundamental reform to protect consumers," DeMint said in a statement. Without this legislation, DeMint said, the FCC will "impose unnecessary, antiquated regulations on the Internet."

The … Read more

From metal to money: Making America's coins

PHILADELPHIA--Staring at the bin in front of me, stacked high with thousands of dollar coins, it's hard not to make like Scrooge McDuck and jump in headfirst.

Except, of course, that security would grab me and I'd have to deal with having a felony on my record for the rest of my life. Also, there's this small detail: These aren't actually dollars. Yet.

I'm at the U.S. Mint here, the largest mint in the world, and a place big enough--at around 600,000 square feet--that all the rest of the American mints could fit … Read more

Mint posts, then pulls controversial immigration chart

Intuit-owned online financial tool Mint.com posted an item entitled "The Economic Impact of Immigration" to its MintLife blog earlier this week that quickly caught attention for all the wrong reasons.

The story, which featured an "infographic" and has since been taken down by the company, detailed the monetary impact that undocumented immigrants currently have on the U.S. economy, citing such numbers as 43 percent of all food stamps and 41 percent of unemployment benefits going to these individuals.

Besides being controversial, the numbers behind the imagery turned out to be questionably sourced. The Atlantic, … Read more

Mint to give its users long-term goals

Mint.com's CEO Aaron Patzer on Tuesday is giving attendees of the Finovate spring conference in San Francisco a sneak peek at its next major enhancement. The financial planning and tracking service, which was snapped up by Intuit back in September, is getting long-term goals--a feature its software cousin Quicken has had for years, but that could be overly complicated and disjointed.

Patzer, who spoke with CNET about the upcoming service update on Monday, said the new system has been designed with the same kind of simplicity as the rest of Mint.com, and the goals themselves were decided … Read more

Monitor money from Android

Trying to stick within your budget is no easy task when you're guessing at your balance. Mint.com's free credit-card and budget tracker for Android phones may change that.

After going online and giving Mint.com access to your bank, credit card, and investment accounts, the passcode-protected Mint.com app can monitor your accounts, your budget, and even your cash flow. The app presents your money matters in summary form, with the capability to drill down to the item level of a purchase. Follow the trail to the end to edit an item's transaction details or jot … Read more

Monitor money matters on Android with Mint

Article updated 5/3/2010 at 1:28 pm with new details about operating system compatibility.

About a year and a half after releasing a mobile version of its personal-finance service for the iPhone, Mint.com is bringing its free credit-card and budget tracker to Android phones.

As with the iPhone app, passcode-protected Mint.com on Android has you monitoring credit card, bank, and investment accounts; your budget; and your cash ebb and flow. The app presents your money matters in summary form, with the ability to drill down to the item level of a purchase. Follow the trail to … Read more