When your Windows-based PC becomes infected with an assload of virii and you have no clue how to recover, what do you do? You place an overseas order for DigiWorks’ USB Virus Chaser and pray for the best. This new USB thumbdrive just plugs into a USB port and starts finding every virus that has taken over your computer. Very handy. It drops sometime this month, will be available in 2GB and 4GB versions, and is available in Korea…for now.

USB Virus Chaser by DigiWorks Korea [Akihabara News]

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An Indian telecom corp will release a $20 cellphone that’s aimed at the developing world/celphone market. The phone, nicknamed the people’s phone (much like the people’s elbow) has absolutely zero features other than being able to make and receive calls—no screen, no Web browser, no nothing. Frankly, that’s all I want in a phone, so long as it works reliably and I can hear the person on the other end clearly. Why that’s so hard a concept for the carriers/hardware devs to understand I’ll never understand.

You may remember that inexpensive car from last month, the Nano, that’s supposed to bring the gift of rapid personal transportation to the masses. This phone has similar, lofty goals.

For now, the phone is only being developed with Asia, Africa and South America in mind. Shame, since I have $20 in my wallet right now and would gladly hand it over for a working cellphone (my 1st gen LG Chocolate is on its death bed, gonna have to replace it soon).

India unveils ‘people’s phone’ for £10 [Times Online via Drudge Report]

Simple (formerly known as BankSimple), the startup with $13.1 million in funding to build a better banking experience for customers, has today introduced its first mobile application, surprisingly ahead of its public launch. Operating in private beta/invite-only mode for now, co-founder Joshua Reich says that anyone with a Simple account can now use the app, which had been limited to TestFlight distributions since its private launch last November.

With the iPhone app, Simple says the idea is to create something that’s on par with the online banking experience, not “an afterthought.” The iOS app lets you use all the tools you could on the web, and access them in a way that’s mobile-friendly. Everything is tappable, and there’s been a focus on making it quick to see the most critical info – nothing is more than a few taps away. Plus, after signing in, you don’t have to continually enter your username and password – instead, the app is protected by your 4-digit PIN code. And another nifty feature – you can deposit checks by taking a picture of them – something you can’t do on the web.

Simple has been covered by the media quite a bit, despite the fact that the service still operates behind closed doors – a testament, perhaps, to the growing desire for, as they say “a bank that doesn’t suck.” To be clear, however, Simple is not actually a bank – it’s working with FDIC-insured financial institutions to hold customers’ money, while it operates the user-friendly front-end for money management.

Reich acknowledges the demand for the service, and tells us that there are now over 100,000 folks on the waiting list, and Simple is letting people in on a first-come, first-serve basis. He says they’re not sure when they’ll finish with the invite list and open up to the U.S. public.

Any way to jump in line, we asked? “Either become an employee or marry an employee,” Reich joked. (Well, crap).

The company was co-founded by Reich (CEO), CFO Shamir Karkal and CTO Alex Payne, the latter a notable hire following his announcement that he was leaving his role as Twitter’s API lead to join the team. And, as noted above, the company has raised a good chunk of funding, too, with a $3.1 million round in September 2010 and a $10 million round in August 2011.

As for the service itself, customers can do all the usual things – make purchases, pay bills, earn interest, set up and track savings, view transaction history and more. But the big idea here is not the what, it’s the how. Simple, as you can guess by the name, wants to make things, well…simple. Transactions appear instantly, you can see your balance and “safe to spend” amount at a glance, and you can send payments to friends, too.

Simple is also different from other banks in that it doesn’t profit from fees – there are no overdraft fees, late fees, or domestic transfer fees, for example. In-network ATMs are fee-free, and there’s no extra charge for using an out-of-network ATM (although the ATM’s bank might charge you). In the few cases where there is a fee (e.g. international transfers are around $15), Simple just passes on the cost, but doesn’t add on top of it.

Reich says the startup is targeting the U.S. market for now because banking regulations vary widely from country to country, but an international rollout is on the long-term roadmap for the company. At present, the Simple customer base tracks national demographics pretty closely, he says. “We are seeing that customers earn above average incomes,” says Reich. “The median customer is 29 years old, college educated, and fully employed.”

And with this iOS app released to the wild, what comes next? “We’re hiring Android engineers right now,” says Reich.

If you’re one of the lucky few, you can grab Simple’s iPhone app here. Everyone else, sign up and wait.

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.

From the outset, online banking startup Simple has been focused on supplanting the brick-and-mortar banks in its users’ lives, but they haven’t always been equipped to handle every little transaction that comes up. Case in point — what happens when someone cuts you a check (after all, the holidays are right around the corner)?

Well, that’s no longer the case. According to a post on the official Simple blog, users are now able to deposit money from those pesky pieces of paper just by taking a photo with the company’s iOS app.

If we’re being honest, the feature itself is nothing too special — mobile applications from more established players like Chase and Bank of America have been able to do this for a little while now — but it represents a big step forward in service for users still on the fence about making the switch completely. The process is very, well, simple: users enter the amount on the check, snap a photo of the front and the (endorsed) back. That money doesn’t all appear in your account at once though — up to $200 of those funds will be deposited in a user’s account within one business day, depending on how long that person has been a Simple user and how large the check in question is. Not to worry though, as the remainder will trickle into the associated Simple account within another day.

Interestingly enough, users looking in the iOS App Store for an update will come away empty-handed — instead, it appears that the Simple team flipped a switch on their end to enable the nascent feature for all users. Prior to that, Simple spent a few weeks quietly bringing the feature to life for certain subsets of Simple customers:

“Roughly three weeks ago, we shared a preview of the feature with an initial group of nearly 300 customers,” Simple CEO Josh Reich told TechCrunch. “We expanded that group by 750 the next day and pushed to an audience of more than 4,000 last week.”

Speaking as a Simple customer myself, I still don’t know that I’m fully ready to ditch my local bank branch. That’s not a jab at the company itself (though a recent spell that left certain users unable to view some recent transactions was a bit worrying) but there’s something to be said for sticking with a process that just works in spite of its annoyances. That said, the addition of photo check deposits closes a crucial gap in the Simple service — I’m just waiting for an Android app and integration with a service like Mint before diving in completely.

Since launch, online banking provider Simple has sought to provide an alternative to traditional banking services. It’s done that with built-in data visualization and a beautiful and intuitive mobile app for iPhone. Now it’s expanding to Android, with the launch of a native app designed for Google’s mobile operating system. That will greatly expand the number of potential users for the startup’s alternative banking service.

The Simple Android app comes about eight months after the iPhone version and will have many of the same features that are available on the iPhone, including the ability to make mobile check deposits and to find the nearest no-fee ATM.

But it’s not just a carbon copy of the startup’s iOS app: On the blog post announcing the app, Simple Director of Mobile Engineering Dustin Barker says the company worked with mobile product development firm Two Toasters to build the Android experience from the ground up.

Over the past few months, Simple has been adding a number of features to its iOS app and web experience, making both a lot more useful. That includes the launch of mobile check deposits. It also includes the introduction of Goals, which is Simple’s way of helping users save up without really having to think about it.

Most banks are notoriously bad at online, and especially mobile, experiences. Some don’t have mobile apps at all, and those that do exist typically aren’t that good. That’s why the folks at Portland, Ore.-based startup Simple think they can make banking better, with new ways of keeping track of your money.

Simple isn’t actually a bank — it partners with FDIC-insured institutions to actually keep your money safe and secure — but it provides online and mobile tools to help users manage their funds. Among other things, Simple stores a ton of data about user transactions that most banks simply throw out. That provides robust search capabilities that most banks can’t match. It also has a goals feature that allows users to easily set aside money without having to think about it.

Last week, I spoke with Simple CEO and co-founder Josh Reich for TechCrunch TV, and he walked through all the cool tools that Simple offers online and on its iOS and Android apps. I’m already a user, and have been one for several months… But if you haven’t seen Simple yet, check out the video above for a demo of the service.

Simple has made some serious strides since it opened up to the public last year, but there’s one thing the service has just never been that great at: transferring money from one bank account to another. According to a post on the official Simple blog, those days are finally over — users can link their Simple accounts to existing bank accounts to move their money around.

Frankly, it’s about time.

Let’s back up a minute here first: why is this such a big deal? To answer that, we have to look at how the Simple onboarding process works. When you first set up a Simple account, you’re given the chance to make one initial funds transfer from your old bank account — that’s it. Before the external accounts feature was added, users who wanted to subsequently transfer funds from their existing bank account to a Simple account had to come up with some clever workarounds to get the job done.

My personal favorite: if you linked a Square account to a Simple bank account, you could swipe a transaction to the tune of however much money you wanted to move using your own debit card (and in case you were wondering, yes, I’ve done this a few times).

Last November, Simple made that process just a little easier by adding a mobile check deposit feature to its apps — then you could just write yourself a check and deposit it directly into your Simple account. Better, yes, but it still wasn’t as seamless as it should have been.

Now, at long last, the process is finally as simple as the company’s name implies. You’re prompted to punch in your account and routing number (you can do this for up to three accounts), after which you’ll have to keeps your eyes peeled for two small transactions to confirm that everything was copacetic. Once all that’s squared away, it’s all the fee-free fund transfers you can handle. Implementing the feature isn’t just a savvy move, it’s a downright necessary one. Simple has spent the few years trying to convince people that it’s a friendlier, more direct way for them to manage their money, and the company has so far managed to win over more than 35,000 users.

That’s not too shabby considering how carefully the team has been handling the invitation process, but if Simple really wants to win over the masses, it has to more effectively blur the line between what it can do and what more traditional banks can do. After all, Simple is still a startup — a smart, well-funded one with the support of a major bank, but a startup nonetheless. With this external accounts feature, Simple isn’t just giving a users a way an easier way to get started, it’s giving them an easier way to bail out if the service just isn’t right for them. Consider it a safety net for those wary of diving into the strange new world of app-centric banking.

For what it’s worth, this whole thing just about has me ready to take the plunge. Since launch I’ve been shunting a few bucks out of each paycheck into my Simple account for random geeky purchases, but now I’m seriously thinking of ditching my old bank entirely. Of course, this is exactly what Simple wants since it makes money in the form of interest margin — if more people get comfortable transferring all their money into their Simple accounts because the process is now so much easier, Simple may soon be laughing all the way to the bank.

Braintree, the Chicago-based payments gateway that’s now processing over $10 billion in payments annually, including those for startups like  Uber, Fab, Hailo, Airbnb, Rovio and others, is today expanding on last summer’s acquisition of payments service Venmo through a new partnership with online banking platform Simple. The banking provider will integrate with Venmo Touch, a service that allows users to store their credit card data in Braintree’s network in order to facilitate one-touch payments with Braintree partners.

Starting today, Braintree is making Venmo Touch available for the first time to banks and card issuers. The service was previously available to app makers, having initially launched with companies like HotelTonight, TaskRabbit and Wrapp.

The integration in Simple, though being announced this morning, is still a few weeks out from going live with the banking startup. But soon, customers will be about to opt-in to the service, which will then enable one-touch purchases across Braintree’s network of apps.

This one-touch service exited from a closed beta this April, offering users a better checkout flow in supported applications. Instead of having to re-enter in their credit card info every time they signed up for a new mobile app that’s Braintree-powered, Venmo Touch will allow consumers to save their credit card info on the network and then retrieve it.

For end users, the process of doing so isn’t all that different from what something like Google Wallet has introduced – you add your credit card, and then can use it again and again on services where Wallet is accepted. Google, too, is making a play for users’ payment activity on mobile – yesterday, for example, it incentivized users to “shop and save” with popular Android apps and mobile websites where “Buy With Google” is enabled.

Though Google’s and Braintree’s services are different – one is a wallet, the other a payments gateway – the end goal is essentially the same: get customers to store their credit card info with the platform. Once saved, customers will generally avoid the hassle of choosing another means of payment – like, say, PayPal, for example. They’ll continue to use whatever offers the least amount of friction and minimal typing, especially when it comes the painstaking entry process on mobile’s tiny screens and keyboards. And as the users turn to the easier way to transact, the platform holding their data continues to grow.

Though Braintree is only announcing a partnership with Simple today, what Braintree really needs now is to get bank card issuers on board, too. The major credit card issuers Visa, MasterCard, and Amex, however, have been building out their own mobile technologies and digital wallet applications, which also allow customers to store payment info in virtual online lockers of sorts, then quickly roll through checkout with supported merchants. Though not necessarily “mobile wallets,” these digital services could be housed in a mobile app interface.

For consumers, the payments landscape is still a confusing one – and in particular, it’s confusing on mobile. At the end of the day, users will adopt whichever technology is most widely available to them on the services they use most.

Braintree, whose $10 billion in annual payments is riding up close on the heels of PayPal mobile’s $14 billion in 2012, now has a horse in that race.

Things seem to have been moving rather smoothly for the folks at online banking startup Simple. They've spent the last year fleshing out their mobile apps with some much-needed features and added some 25,000 customers to their ranks since July. Now the team is looking to add yet another feature to the fold in the coming months: Simple-to-Simple fund transfers.

Yeah, fine, I'll admit the concept doesn't immediately sound like a game-changer. Just as the name implies, Simple customers will be able to quickly exchange sums of money from directly within the app, a stark contrast from some of the clunkier peer-to-peer transfer methods used by competitors like Chase or Wells Fargo. Considering the sort of oomph that recent updates have brought to Simple's mobile apps, something like this was only a matter of time.

Here's the catch, though - Simple's iOS development team (which at this point only consists of two guys, Tom Wanielista and Collin Ruffenach) has figured out a clever way to facilitate those funds transfers when you're physically near your recipient. It's called MoneyDrop, and with it Simple hopes to do away with the need for paper money entirely.

Those are bold words to be sure, but I caught a brief glimpse of the new feature in action and it seems to get the job done smoothly even in its unfinished state. The feature allows Simple customers to detect other ones nearby using Bluetooth Low Energy, and all local compatible users will be displayed in what Simple calls the Arena.

If you're the one who needs to send money, you find your recipient's avatar and name, tap on it, punch in the amount to want to send, and confirm your choice. Meanwhile, the recipient tackles a confirmation screen of their own, and voila - that money has just changed hands without the need to scrounge through pockets or find an ATM.

Now if you're anything like me, your first reaction was something akin to shock. Using Bluetooth to facilitate money transfers? There's no way that could ever go south, right? As it turns out, Simple was careful to minimize its reliance on Bluetooth from the get-go: the app assigns users a randomized ID each time they fire up MoneyDrop, and those IDs are the only things shared over that Bluetooth connection. Once that initial handshake is done, both the sender's and the recipient's temporary IDs are checked in the backend to ensure they match the permanent identifiers tied to each user's Simple account. Not too shabby for a project that was conceived and implemented within the span of about five months.

Alas, some users will be able to start playing with MoneyDrop sooner than others. It's slated to hit iOS first, though the feature's reliance on Bluetooth LE means you'll have to have an iPhone 4S or newer to actually use it. I'm told that an Android version of the feature is currently in the works, too, and it should land on supported devices not too long after iOS users get the nod. Only time will tell if MoneyDrop will be enough to tempt Simple users from handling cash entirely, but if nothing else it should help make the argument to switch banks just a little more compelling.