AllThingsD » Iceland

U.S. Court Orders Twitter Account Opened in WikiLeaks Investigation

Drake Martinet — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 16:14:54 +0000

A U.S. district court decided Thursday to grant the Justice Department access to the Twitter account of Birgitta Jonsdottir, Icelandic Minister of Parliament and WikiLeaks volunteer. Federal Judge Liam O’Grady ruled that Twitter users gave up privacy rights, including those to IP address information, when signing up for accounts on the popular microblogging service.

Goalkeeping Gets Easier at Mint.com

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:47:27 +0000

When most people hear the word “budget,” they groan about all the numbers and spreadsheets involved in setting financial goals. Instead they procrastinate and continue spending without any specific savings goals. Case in point: I recently postponed a meeting with my financial planner because I didn’t have the energy after a long business trip to work through my finances.

[ See post to watch video ]

Now Mint.com, a website that already offers user-friendly options for studying how one’s money is spent, has introduced an easy way to set budget objectives, link them to accounts and learn specific steps on how to reach those goals. The goals can even be personalized with digital photos, like an image of the car you’re saving up to buy. And this service, which launched Tuesday, doesn’t cost a cent.

I’ve been testing Intuit Inc.’s free, updated Mint.com service, specifically focusing on its new Mint Goals feature. The idea of adding goals that tie into real accounts has been a long time coming for the finance-management website. Mint previously offered a Planning section on its site, but it required too much manual input, including setting up personal budget categories, and guesswork about how much one should spend.

The Goals feature uses pop-up windows where users can quickly input data, like annual salary, to get estimates on how much they can afford to spend on things like a vacation, as well as how much they need to save for that vacation. Monthly savings estimates can be set to aggressive savings plans or conservative ones with just a mouse click.

Finances in One Place

Mint.com has been around for almost three years and is already used by millions of people. Its proprietary algorithms encrypt data so people will feel confident enough to input their usernames and passwords for their online financial accounts, allowing them to see all of their financial activity in one place. These accounts include those tied to credit cards, banks, retirement savings and others. Mint is known for displaying colorful visuals like pie charts and graphs, so it’s easy for people to see where they’re spending their money or how it’s being invested.

Mint.com’s new Goals tab (top right) offers users a choice of eight popular goals and one to customize. Colorful thermometers (top left) show how much progress was made toward a goal. Details of a particular goal (above) and a “Next Steps” checklist of tasks to complete.

Mint Goals is a new tab on the Mint.com site, and clicking on it directs users to a group of eight popular goals and one that can be customized (more will be added over time). The preset list includes goals to get out of debt, buy a home, buy a car, save for college, take a trip or save for retirement. A digital checklist in each goal called “Next Steps” gives people serious, doable tasks to complete, so they can actually make progress toward a goal in ways other than just putting money aside. This instant gratification saved me from doing a lot of calculating.

The Best Account

When you set up a goal for the first time, Mint suggests what type of account would work best for saving toward it. Examples include a 529 savings plan for people who are saving to put their kids through college or a Roth IRA for retirement savings. Mint will also tell you the provider with the best interest rate.

Unlike some other websites that encourage saving, like SmartyPig.com, Mint isn’t a bank, so you’ll have to leave the Mint site to create accounts and manage money transfers rather than starting them right on the site. Aaron Patzer, the company’s founder and CEO, expects the site will enable setting up savings accounts and money transfers by the end of this year.

Each goal includes the overall amount of money intended to be saved, today’s balance, planned and projected dates for reaching the goal and how much has been saved this month (like $200 of $750). I liked looking at Mint’s colorful thermometers, which quickly showed me how I was progressing in a particular goal.

For example, the Buy a Home goal checklist includes steps like finding a Realtor, getting homeowner’s insurance and getting prequalified for a loan. A panel beside each of these items also offers an educational explanation of what these steps really mean. Many explanations include links to a blog called MintLife, where blog posts from Mint employees and some freelancers offer deep explanations about financial questions.

Ads With Context

The Goals feature comes with contextual ads, which help it remain free. One checklist item suggests opening a high-yield savings account and also offers links to the Discover and American Express websites, which offer the accounts. If you’ve started a Mint Goal to save for a trip to Iceland, travel insurance is suggested, along with Web links to sites that sell trip insurance.

While these links might allow people to get started right away on a particular task, they also beg the question of whether these are the best options for users—or just the biggest advertisers on Mint. Mr. Patzer explained that companies for these ads are chosen according to what’s best for the user and are selected from a list of savings options ranked by the site’s editors.

Goals can be linked to several of your accounts on Mint so they’re updated with real-time data. A long-term retirement goal can link to a 401(k), brokerage account and retirement account. If the stock market takes a dive and money is lost in an account, that loss is automatically reflected in the overall goal’s balance. If you tie a savings account to a goal to save for a house, every dollar added to that account (on the bank’s end) is automatically reflected in the goal.

Mint already gave people a visually engaging way to know more about what their money is doing, but Mint Goals give people a real reason to come back to the site more often.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Here to Save Iceland, Start-Ups: Björk

Peter Kafka — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:27:39 +0000

The econalypse is about to crush a slew of start-ups. Which could make it an excellent time to invest in start-ups. If this logic makes sense to you, you may be:

A very successful angel investor, who conveyed this logic to me this morning from the confines of a very, very nice Manhattan apartment (I’ve only seen views of Central Park like that from an airplane).
Or Björk, the Icelandic sort-of popstar.

More info on the latter: Björk has announced the creation of a new venture fund, named…BJÖRK.

It is “intended for investors seeking investment opportunities in new venture creation and the business development of small companies with the objective of catalyzing the recovery of the Icelandic economy,” and will invest in companies “that create value through the uniqueness of Iceland’s nature and culture,” according to Audur Capital, an Icelandic financial services company that will manage the fund.

It’s not clear whether Björk has contributed anything to the fund beyond her name. Audur is putting up the initial seed investment of 100 million Icelandic kronur, which these days is the equivalent of $826,000. Audur describes itself thusly: “We are aware of risk and social responsibility, and we are unafraid to put feminine values into finance…. If you are looking for an investor or an advisor who can bring not just financial capital, but also emotional capital, we may be just your partner.”

[Image Credit: The TripWireNYC]

Coming Soon: Relatively Fast Broadband With "Unnecessary Superlative Boost"™

John Paczkowski — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:31:00 +0000

With U.S. broadband speeds lagging far behind European and Asian countries, Comcast is finally doing its part to bring the country’s lousy broadband Internet services into parity with those of other industrialized nations. You know, like Iceland. Or South Korea.

Comcast (CMCSA) plans to aggressively deploy its next-generation wideband service to 10 million homes by the end of the year, the company said Wednesday. Based on the ultrafast Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS), the service should provide download speeds far in excess of those currently offered by the company. It’s to be offered in two tiers. The fastest, Extreme 50, will provide up to 50 megabits per second downstream and up to 10Mbps of upstream speed. Price: $139.95/month. Ultra will get you up to 22Mbps downstream and up to 5Mbps of upstream for $62.95/month.

And what about the 150Mbps service Comcast CEO Brian Roberts demonstrated at the Cable Show last year? The one fast enough to download the entire “Encyclopedia Britannica” and “Merriam-Webster Visual Dictionary” in less than four minutes? Still a ways off, apparently.

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The Median U.S. Broadband Speed? Finland’s Divided by 10

Coming Soon: Relatively Fast Broadband With "Unnecessary Superlative Boost"™

John Paczkowski — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:31:00 +0000

PREVIOUSLY:

The Median U.S. Broadband Speed? Finland’s Divided by 10