currency

I sense something, a presence in coin collecting I have not felt since...OK, please forgive my horrifically altered Darth Vader quote.

The New Zealand Mint has unleashed an epic coin collection for "Star Wars" fans perhaps worthy of the Empire itself. In all, 48 coins featuring characters from the classic sci-fi movie series will be available to purchase this November as legal tender of Niue Island. The tiny country resides 1,500 miles northeast off the coast of New Zealand.

There are two pure-silver full-color sets of $2 coins, including a $391.62 (plus shipping) Darth Vader and Millennium Falcon collection in a limited mintage of 7,500.… Read more

USB money...now that's what we call a peripheral! While USBMoney is free software, not free money, using this personal finance manager might make you think you're finding free money if it helps you keep more of what you earn. USBMoney is a portable personal finance manager that is designed to keep all your financial details in one place, such as a USB drive, memory chip, or other devices or media. Since it's completely portable, it can run on any Windows machine. It imports and exports data as CSV/QIF files, so it's completely compatible with … Read more

You can forgive gold investors for feeling a little smug.

While stock market fans are bemoaning a lost decade--the S&P 500 index remains below where it was in 2000--gold prices have quintupled since then.

Fortunately for British gold bugs, it's now easier than ever to purchase the world's most enduring currency: the country's first gold vending machine opened today in a shopping center in London. It accepts cash and credit cards.

The company, Gold to Go, already operates ATMs in Germany, Italy, the United Arab Emirates, and (of course) the Golden Nugget casino in Las Vegas.

With the federal government running up something like $212,500 in debt per household, a total that's growing by around $1,148 per month, the logical course is for an Uncle Sam untethered to the gold standard to pay off his debts by running the printing presses. If that happens, it's a fair bet the price of gold denominated in dollars will go only up. Time to stop by your nearest ATM? … Read more

Canadians will be packing more plastic in their wallets with the launch of new polymer bills that replace paper-cotton notes.

The Canadian dollar has traded above parity with the U.S. greenback for months, and gets technologically tougher with the new plastic money designed to thwart counterfeiters.

The polypropylene substrate lasts 2.5 times longer and makes it harder to copy than the existing paper-cotton money, according to the Bank of Canada. It marks the first full-scale use of a substrate other than paper for Canada's currency.

The two-windowed $100 note enters circulation in November and celebrates Canadian contributions to science. Aside from images of DNA, an ECG, insulin, and a researcher using a microscope, it has two portraits of Prime Minister Robert Borden. One is a unique holographic likeness set in a clear plastic window that changes colors with the viewing angle.

As seen in the promo vid below, other security features include raised ink, transparent text, and hidden numbers. If you look through the frosted maple leaf emblem at a single-point light source and hold it close to your eye, you'll see a hidden circle of numbers that match the face value of the note. … Read more

Google's free Chrome browser is making a serious push in the browser wars. How do we know? We're seeing a lot more extensions for Chrome, such as Chrome Currency Converter from Phaistonian. It's a free add-on that automatically converts prices on a given browser page into your selected currency, using the latest currency exchange rates.

We opened Chrome and browsed to a well-known tech retailer's Web page, which displayed prices in U.S. dollars. Then we downloaded Chrome Currency Converter, which installed automatically when we opened it in Chrome. We opened Chrome Currency Converter's options … Read more

Facebook's Credits currency will be the official payment method in the social-gaming portfolio from games giant Electronic Arts, which consists largely of what it got when it paid $300 million for Playfish last year, according to a five-year agreement that the two companies announced yesterday. Playfish had previously been a holdout among the big social-gaming companies in that it wasn't strictly using Facebook Credits in its games; now, it promises "a simplified, more accessible experience for people who play games and purchase virtual goods on Facebook" through the exclusive use of Credits.

"Since gaming has … Read more

Google has purchased a virtual-currency software company called Jambool, adding to its social-networking stable.

Jambool's founders, Chief Executive Officer Vikas Gupta and Chief Technology Officer Reza Hussein, announced the deal Friday on the company's Web site. Terms of the deal were not revealed, but earlier reports about a possible deal were offering estimates of about $70 million.

"When the opportunity arose to join forces with Google to execute against this vision, we couldn't pass it up," their statement said. "We are thrilled to bring the Social Gold platform to Google's global users." … Read more

A report Monday on TechCrunch suggests that, complementing its purchase last week of social-app manufacturer Slide, Google has made another social-networking buy: a virtual-currency software company called Jambool. The start-up manufactures a product called Social Gold, which lets other sites build virtual-currency infrastructures.

A smaller purchase than Slide, TechCrunch put the price tag at about $70 million. Representatives from Jambool were not immediately available for comment.

Jambool's Social Gold was one of a number of virtual-currency start-ups that rose in the time in between the launch of Facebook's developer platform and its unveiling of its own transaction system, Facebook Credits. … Read more

Facebook, on the verge of 500 million members around the world, might envision a global virtual currency with its Credits system. But the way that system is handled in different parts of the world is far from universal.

Very late Wednesday, Facebook announced that it's partnered with MOL Global, a Malaysia-based payment technology company, to offer its Facebook Credits virtual currency for sale through MOL's online channel and in retail stores across South Asia and Australia. MOL's "network" consists of over 500,000 outlets, including cybercafes, convenience stores, and online banks in countries including Singapore, … Read more