Home (and military) robot maker iRobot has just acquired Evolution Robotics, the makers of the Mint floor-cleaning robot with an R&D shop focused on navigational tools. The Mint cleaner will join iRobot’s Roomba line.

In a press release that touts the move as an expansion of iRobot’s “position as global robotic floor care market-leader,” the company announced that it paid cash for Evolution out of its own reserves.

ER was founded in 2001 and launched the Mint floor cleaner in 2010. Because Mint is designed for hardwood floors, the essentially non-competing products will target different markets. The Roombas, in other words, will take the rugs while the Mints will take the parquet.

Evolution also offers the Northstar navigation platform that helps Mint return to its base station as well as the delightfully named vSLAM mapping system, which uses a small camera and dead reckoning to asses a robot’s position in space.

The CEO of Evolution Robotics, Paolo Pirjanian, will become iRobot CTO. The acquisition will close in Q4 2012.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Earlier today, online banking startup Simple unveiled new reporting features that will allow users to see how much — and where — they’re spending money in their bank accounts. Those features seemed aimed squarely at Intuit-owned Mint.com, which has been one of the leading online budgeting and data visualization tools.

One advantage that Simple has over Mint and other online budgeting tools is that is linked directly to a user’s bank account, meaning all of the data and reporting that it generates is directly actionable. And it can do that because users have their own Simple-branded debit cards and checking accounts. Well, it might not have that advantage for very long, as it appears that Mint will soon introduce its own debit card, called the Mint Control Card.

An advertisement for the card was spotted hidden in Mint’s code and sent in by a tipster earlier today. TechCrunch developer Vineet Thanedar has confirmed that yes, the code is there — but of course, we’re not sure how long it’s been there or how soon before Mint.com’s debit card will officially be launched and advertised to the public. [Full text of the ad is below.]

While it’s unclear exactly how the debit card will connect with Mint’s service, the pitch seems strikingly similar to what Simple is trying to accomplish with its service. In particular, Mint’s promise to let users “know exactly where [they] stand” sounds a heck of a lot like Simple’s “Safe To Spend” feature, which takes into account a user’s income and regularly scheduled expenses to determine how much discretionary spending money they have. Also, the ability to “reach savings goals faster” is similar to Simple’s recently released “Goals” feature, which lets users designate a certain amount of money they’d like to save and have it automatically deducted from their “Safe To Spend” amount.

Both Simple and Mint.com are seeking to provide data visualization tools to allow users to see exactly where their money is going and provide advice on how they can make better spending decisions. But while Simple is slowly rolling out debit cards as part of its public beta, Mint already has a very large and engaged user base tracking their finances through its platform. That could be a huge advantage, if it can convert existing users to use the card. It also is advertising a 2 percent cash back bonus for purchases made using the card, which is another competitive advantage.

All that said, getting users to switch is a huge pain, even for existing banks. It will be interesting to see how both Simple and Mint fare as they seek to convert online users to their services.

Introducing Mint Control Card: control your finances.

Now there’s a debit card that helps you control your financial life and make smarter spending decisions.

Know exactly where you stand.

You’ll instantly know what’s left on your card and where you stand with your budget, in real-time, so you’ll always know what’s left to spend.

Stay on-track with your spending.

You can set spending limits in any category you choose, so you’ll never have a negative balance or pay an overdraft fee again.

Make better decisions and save more.

Reach your savings goals faster with controlled spending — plus 2 percent cash back on everyday purchases — so you can get to where you want to go.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Scott Cook started Intuit in 1983, and since then he and the company have overcome quite a few obstacles. He watched as mobile became a dominant channel in people’s lives, found ways to penetrate emerging markets, and leveraged Intuit’s excellent reputation to pick up the hot new kid on the block, Mint.com.

The acquisition went down in 2009, two years after Mint launched on the TechCrunch 40 stage. Cook says that by taking its rival and nurturing it under Intuit’s (much larger) wing, Mint has grown to be four times larger than it was at the time of acquisition. This is a classic case of two competitors coming together in a mutually beneficial way. Intuit provides an excellent distribution platform for Mint, and in turn, Mint pushes users into Intuit’s portfolio of various financial tools, including TurboTax.

We also took the opportunity to ask Cook about mobile payments, and where he sees the space going. Intuit recently launched a QuickBooks point-of-sale card reader and an app to help SMBs track their books and perform transactions all in one place. “I think the space will shake out,” said Cook. “Square is a great company, but they’re not direct competition. Each company will find their own separate ecosystem.”

He explained that, as with anything, the solution has to fit the problem rather than being a one-size-fits-all type fix. That said, he sees Intuit as a company that offers a wide range of products for however you may conduct business, whereas Square is doing something a bit more uniform with its single card reader and various accompanying apps.

Cook also recalled the transition to mobile in 2008. The company went from four mobile apps to over 30 now, with user ratings jumping from an average of three stars to four and a half stars. “It wasn’t that dramatic, it was just natural,” he says of the push into mobile. “We’re all users, and it is the best thing we’ve ever done.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

San Francisco has had an awesome few weeks of 75th anniversary celebrations. The Golden Gate bridge celebration was pretty obvious, as there was a lot of fanfare with fireworks etc., but another celebration went on rather quietly and TechCrunch was fortunate enough to be part of it.

The 75th anniversary of the Herman Street US San Francisco Mint.

One of the most mysterious buildings in San Francisco, The Mint is located behind a Safeway on Market Street, nestled between the Mission, Castro and Lower Haight communities. I pass by the ominous building all the time and I see the guards, but I’ve never seen anyone go in or out. I guess I just haven’t been there at the right time, because there are well over 300 employees that work there creating limited edition uncirculated collector sets, proof coins and will soon launch quarters you could (but shouldn’t, they are valuable) circulate with the famous S stamp.

Tours at the Mint are incredibly rare. They have family days where employees can bring their children and a few one off affairs, but they haven’t allowed press in for quite some time.

In order for TCTV producer Ashley Pagán and I to tour the Mint, we had to hand over a bunch of personal information, presumably for a quick background check to make sure we weren’t known bandits. We were sent some documents to read about what we were allowed to do and not do, and admittedly, I was so excited and just didn’t read them and broke two of pieces of advice. I wore open toe shoes and I brought coins. Ashley was smarter than I was and had safe footwear and zero coins, but she drove a vehicle, so we both got to experience what it was like to not sail smoothly into a government building. While digging the coins out of my mess of a purse, I watched Ashley driving into the lot and having her car checked completely by a man who inspected it with a mirror on a stick. He was very thorough.

We were told that the security going in wasn’t as bad as the security going out. It was like the TSA going in where they looked for large pieces of metal, but going out we’d have to go through a whole different set of machines that could pick up the tiniest pieces of metal, so they knew we weren’t trying to jack anything.

Once inside, the fun began. There was a really serious ceremony that actually made me well up a bit. Any time I see someone in uniform giving reverence to our flag ceremoniously, I turn to mush. There were plaques handed out and then our tours began. We were broken up into a few groups and we got paired with a news man who blew our minds. He was his own camera guy and everything. Like a genuine TV news guy. It was fascinating watching him and the benefit of him doing his own TV segments is that he slowed us all down and we got to get a lot of extra pictures and footage. Thanks TV dude!

We were allowed to pretty much record and take photographs of anything but the windows and security systems. I’m guessing they don’t want people learning how to get in or out of that place.

So, what does this have to do with tech? I admit, when I first found out about the Mint, I was dying to go and I would do anything to turn it into a tech story, but as it turns out, there’s a whole lot of tech in the Mint. Also, there’s an incredible employee culture that prides itself on being startup-like. I kid you not.

The San Francisco Mint is one of the few government institutions in the United States that is profitable. That’s right – profitable. That means they don’t take any of our tax dollars and they actually give back to all of us here in the US. Every single employee, when asked, attributes it to their incredible robotic efficiency. I asked employees how many technical people they had and the standard response was that they were all technical in one area or another and many have trained themselves on the job to operate, program and fix much of the robotic equipment there. They obviously have their hard core engineers and we got to interview one of them, but I was blown away by the numbers and wasn’t expecting what I saw.

The Mint had to be one of the most diverse working environments I’ve ever seen, with women, men, and people of different ethnic backgrounds and levels of ability working up and down the chain of command. I know it was game face day and they don’t normally have visitors, but you could tell, genuinely tell, that people absolutely loved working there. They all took such great pride in everything they did and made sure every coin was perfect for their customers. It was almost like walking into Zappos for the government. I felt happiness even after I left, a feeling I never get when going to the post office, Social Security office or DMV.

To celebrate the 75th anniversary, we got to see the pressing of a commemorative coin. Not only did we get to see it, but we personally, with our own hands pressed one of the first 20. I wish we got to keep one so we could give it away, but alas, we could not. If the Mint ever opens up its doors again to tours, we highly suggest you go, as there is major geek factor going on in there and despite what a lot of people think, there’s a lot happening in that mysterious building.

Here’s a short video of our tour with some gratuitous robot action and an interview with an incredibly awesome Mint employee:

SF Mint exterior photo by Seth Golub

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Moving everyday transactions into the digital realm seems an inevitability, but as yet there have been no breakout successes. Sure, there are fringe efforts like Square (which relies on existing card and bank infrastructure) and Google Wallet (which is a bit early to the NFC party), but there’s nothing that the average consumer would see and think “yes, that is as simple as handing the merchant a five-dollar bill.”

The Royal Canadian Mint is hoping to create such a system: a multi-platform, simple, and secure alternative to cash. Others around the net have likened it to Bitcoin, but that’s really an inapt comparison. MintChip isn’t a virtual currency, it’s a virtual wallet, something which has been tried before. But, naturally enough, they hope to succeed where others have failed. But are they writing a check they can’t cash?

Briefly, it must be explained why MintChip is nothing like Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a fundamentally different style of currency: a regulated “resource” that uses a totally different method of exchange than cash. It’s very secure in a way, but the aspects that give it that security also make it foreign to existing and familiar payment methods, and by extention, users. Furthermore, its value fluctuates wildly, making it unsuitable for everyday purchases like coffee and cab fare.

MintChip, named after the Mint, the chip enabling the system, and perhaps inadvertently the ice cream flavor, is just a way of securely exchanging Canadian dollars (or at some point, they would hope, other currencies) by means of trusted hardware and straightforward accounting. The actual chip can be fitted into a number of devices, from micro SD cards to POS systems. MintChip value is transferred onto a chip by a MintChip broker, and can then be transferred independently between chips, online or off.

They claim the system is secure and anonymous, though any system that relies on trusted hardware and intermediaries is vulnerable to spoofing and duplication. And anonymity is not an easy promise either: as long as amounts and transfers are tied to account numbers, and account numbers are tied to identities and cards used to purchase funds, anonymity is far from assured. It’s not clear from the spec when and how long account and transaction information is stored. The litmus test is, realistically speaking, is it anonymous enough that someone could buy drugs with it without thinking twice?

The reliance on trusted, independent hardware seems like the weak link here, and all it will take is a few hackers (on their own or backed by bank and credit interests) to make public a tool that fools either brokers or merchants into thinking a transaction has taken place. Not a trivial task, but far from impossible. This gives the whole system a bad smell for anyone looking to adopt it. Credit card fraud is rampant, admittedly, but that’s more a function of the system’s widespread use and acceptance. MintChip doesn’t have the advantage of being accepted everywhere.

It’s an admirable effort and the Mint should be praised for the project, but this is likely to end up a dead end. But it’s a necessary dead end to explore, and the shortcomings of this system will inform the next version, and so on.

Lastly, since the most exciting part of a story must always come last, the Mint is holding a contest, giving away thousands of dollars in pure gold as prizes. Grand prize, for best overall application, gets one 10-ounce wafer of pure gold, with an enduring value of around $17,000. Judges include representatives from the Mint, Google, eBay, and the CBC. If you’re a developer interested in payments, and you love gold, check it out.

[via Hacker News]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Mint.com, the financial service we first mentioned at TechCrunch40 in 2007 (wow, that seems like a long time ago), announced that they have launched a new native app specifically for 9 and 10 inch Android tablets running Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich.

This new app, available in the Android Market, will join the previously available versions for iPhone, iPad and Android mobile phones. Curiously, there is no mobile web version (that I have been able to find).

7 inch tablets should work, but this new app is not specifically optimized for them. No word as of yet, when this new version will be available for the very popular Kindle Fire since there is already a version of Mint in the Amazon app store.

For the unfamiliar, Mint is an app/web system for aggregating and managing all your disparate financial accounts and then graphically expressing that data for easy, “at a glance” understanding of your expenditures.

With the exception of some slight usability tweaks (like reordering some modules) and a few subtle font changes, this latest version offers no new functionality. What it does do, however, is make the service available as a native app for the growing number of Android tablets out there.

“In the next few months, Android tablets are expected to hold more than 40 percent of the market share,” said Aaron Forth, general manager of Intuit Inc.’s (Nasdaq: INTU) Personal Finance Group. “As tablet use rises, more mobile-savvy people will look for ways to manage their lives across multiple devices, so we developed our Android tablet app to bring simple money management tools to their fingertips.”

Making the service available in as many emerging channels as possible is a credible strategy — a wise move for any financial service these days — but beyond those projections, Mint.com has some interesting statistics to back up this approach.

Ken Sun, from Mint’s parent company Intuit, revealed as much to me by noting in a quick Q&A that 40% of Mint’s registrations are completed on mobile devices. Additionally, 30% of Mint’s user base are “mobile only” users, so it makes a lot of sense to distribute the functionality where user activity is increasing.

In any event, the graphics and charts appear to look as nice as they do on other platforms. This is sure to make any XOOM or Galaxy Tab wielding Mint user a happy camper today.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Aaron Patzer, the founder of Mint, has a new project that he is spending half his time on (he continues to spend the other half as VP of Product Innovation at Intuit, which acquired Mint two years ago for $170 million). His new project is called Swift, and it is his vehicle (if you will) to exlore the feasibility of building a personal maglev vehicle transit system.

“The goal is to see if I can develop a new transportation system to displace cars in most urban and suburban settings,” he told me recently, “with the goal being 5x the speed, and bringing the cost of maglev from today’s costs of $50m / mile down to $4-5m / mile, which would be the same as adding one lane of asphalt/concrete road. Not sure if it will pan out, as I’m deep in the science and simulation phase.”

After a lot of analysis and setting up some simulations, he figures that he can built a system with two-person “pods” hanging underneath maglev rails which will operate at the equivalent of 800 miles-per-gallon, at 3 to 4 times the speed of regular cars. But even that will not be enough to displace cars. He’s concluded that the numbers don’t pan out. And he just shared his findings in an extensive blog post. It has all sorts of details on his concept and how it would work, but here is the conclusion:

While a 3-4x velocity improvement, 800+mpg energy efficiency, and 3-4x reduction in cost over light-rail systems, it’s not enough to displace cars. The future of transportation is still the concrete and asphalt road, for the simple reason that at $17 per tonne of asphalt versus $900 per tonne of steel or $10,000 per tonne of copper, roads are the only thing cheap enough to be ubiquitous in lower density areas. Not even the ultra lightweight track of Swift looks cheap enough to displace roads outside of dense urban areas where, because it uses a much smaller rolling stock (number of vehicles) and can have higher throughput, mass transit is likely a better approach.

If roads are the future, then so is the self-driving car, functioning like an on-demand taxi system, connected into a centralized traffic database to avoid congestion and minimize time, and driven by computers in a platoon formation of 5-10 cars to minimize aerodynamic drag by up to 35%.

It is quite possible the same system-level traffic engineering algorithms developed at Swift can be used in such a self-driving system. That said, Swift PRT as a maglev concept will be abandoned. No track-based system (not maglev, not light-rail or metro systems) can compete with the cost and ubiquity of roads for population densities below 5000 people / km2.

It looks like those self-driving cars Google is developing might not be such a crazy idea after all. I hope Patzer figures it out. These are exactly the kinds of big, world-changing ideas startup founders should be tackling.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Intuit’s “Quicken 2007 for the Mac” users have a problem. The personal financial accounting software is not going to work under Lion, Apple’s new OS 10.7, due to be released as early as Wednesday. Intuit suggests three solutions. But each has its own flaws, especially if you want to track investments, reconcile your financial statements or not have to buy 3 software programs or a PC. There are non-Intuit alternatives out there, each with their own fan base. None of them match Quicken 2007, a far-from-perfect but still very useful, powerful program.

Software is supposed to get better over time, but for Mac home accounting users, that’s not the case. One of the very first killer ‘apps’ for Apple computers was VisiCalc, a spreadsheet program used by some to balance checkbooks, track credit cards and determine net worth. We’ve come a long way since then, but for Mac users looking for a traditional and full featured personal accounting program, there is no easy solution.

Quicken 2005, 2006, and 2007 won’t work in Lion because Apple has dropped support for Rosetta. You can’t blame them. Rosetta was software designed so PowerPC-based programs can run on Intel-based Macs, starting with Mac OS X. It’s hard to believe but OS X was introduced 10 years ago. Rosetta was just supposed to bridge the gap until developers had time to re-write their software for Intel-based Macs. But, Quicken 2005, 2006, and 2007 weren’t updated and still require Rosetta.

After a gap of 3 years, Intuit came out with an Intel-based program, “Quicken Essentials for Mac.” It’s one of the options Intuit is pushing for users of the older software. There’s even a limited time 50% discount. While this might work for some, “Essentials” is really “Just The Very Basics”. Even Intuit admits on its website, “this option is ideal if you do not track investment transactions and history, use online bill pay or rely on specific reports that might not be present in Quicken Essentials.” Next. The Tuaw’s site had the best imagery, showing Quicken Essential being flushed down the toilet.

Intuit also suggests users could switch to Quicken Windows. The Windows product has always been a more robust and stable version. But few Mac users are not going to buy a PC just for Quicken. While running a PC virtualization program like Parallels or VMware Fusion on the Mac is possible, it can be a frustrating experience. And you need to buy and troubleshoot three programs: Windows, the virtualization program and Quicken. No thanks. Re-booting your Mac in Windows each time you want to use Quicken is a non-starter as well.

Intuit’s third suggestion is former TechCrunch 50 winner Mint. Intuit purchased Mint in 2009 for $170 million. Before the acquisition, it was growing like gangbusters. Last December, TechCrunch reported on concerns Mint was losing some top executives and users weren’t happy. The company responded saying there was “no glut of departures” and it was working on iPad and mobile apps. There’s still no native iPad app.

From a user perspective, Mint does offer a free and new way to manage your money. According to Mint’s website, over 5 million people use it. But for some users who liked the features of Quicken, it’s not the answer. You can’t import your old Quicken data to Mint. In fact, you can’t enter any transactions in Mint. That’s a feature not a bug.

Instead, you enter your account info and Mint pulls in your transactions automatically. This feature can be a big plus, but there is no ability to reconcile your credit card and bank statements – a pretty basic requirement for many. Because the transaction data is read-only, you can’t make your own adjustments or include a cash account. It’s also works in the cloud. While another great feature for some, others want to keep their financial data offline, despite assurances of privacy and security. (Ok, all your data is online already, but its not bundled together begin one login.)

There are several non-Intuit programs trying to take advantage of the situation. One of the most popular options, iBank, proudly advertises it’s “Ready for Lion” and fully compatible with Mac OS 10.7. I found the UI a bit awkward. While it did import my Quicken data files, the investment section is weak and the report customization is poor.

Another frequently mentioned and popular alternative is Moneydance, also “fully compatible” with Lion. It has some good features and does a lot right. But I found the interface very quirky. For example, you can’t add categories on the fly. Reports could not be customized. The budgeting setup was confusing and lacking. Moneydance is written in Java, so it will run on Windows, Mac and Linux. But a Java app might be a turnoff for some.

There are a batch of other basic programs available but they don’t match Quicken 2007′s features either. This list includes Checkbook Pro, iCash, Liquid Ledger, and SEE Finance.

Other options include Quickbooks by Intuit or AccountEdge. But they are designed for business and are missing many personal finance software features like tracking stock market investments.

Of course, Quicken 2007 users don’t have to upgrade to Lion. There is no requirement to upgrade right away. But then you won’t get to take advantage of Lion’s cool features. And sooner or later, you will need to upgrade. Hopefully by then, new developers will emerge or the current offerings will get better.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Money Dashboard, which is shooting to become the Mint.com for the UK, launched its open beta today, coming out of a period in closed Beta which, they say, was “massively over-subscribed” after its appearance in October. The site recently completed a funding round, securing £1 million of investment via a consortium of investors.

It also has a lot less competition now that main competitor, Kublax, deadpooled this February.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Personal finance site Mint.com has debuted its Android app today, which lets Mint.com users access a complete snapshot of their financial picture and manage their finances on the go. Mint.com, a TechCrunch40 company that was acquired by Intuit for $170 million last fall, initially announced the development of the free app last November.

The app includes many of the key features of Mint.com’s iPhone app, including the ability for users to see real-time account balances, check recent transactions; compare their spending against their monthly budgets, and edit transaction details. The app also includes a few features that are exclusive to the Android app, including easy search for recent transactions, a Mint.com widget that includes snapshot of overall cash flow in real-time, and Android live folders that give users financial updates on the phone’s home screen without launching the Mint.com application.

Of course, including all of your financial information in one app can pose a potential security threat if your phone is lost or stolen. But Mint.com says that the the password-protected application allows users to immediately disable access to the app from the Mint.com website.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch