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Less than a week after the government announced the penny’s impending death, the Mint quietly unveiled its digital currency called MintChip.

Still in the research and development phase, MintChip will ultimately let people pay each other directly using smartphones, USB sticks, computers, tablets and clouds. The digital currency will be anonymous and good for small transactions — just like cash, the Mint says.

To make sure its technology meets the gold standard in a world where digital transactions are gaining steam, the Mint is holding a contest for software developers to create applications using the MintChip.

The old-fashioned prize? Solid gold wafers and coins worth about $50,000.

It’s such an unusual move from the crown corporation, which has been in the coin-making business for more than 100 years, that Hacker News questioned whether it was an “elaborate hoax.”

It’s not, the Mint’s chief financial officer Marc Brûlé said Tuesday.

Commerce is changing and the Mint has always been innovative, Brûlé said. (For instance, it did an initial public offering of exchange traded receipts of its gold holdings last year.)

“There’s been a very huge growing digital economy that is really going to be fueled by smartphones and mobile being the next big thing,” he said.

Nicholas Merrill is planning to revolutionize online privacy with a concept as simple as it is ingenious: a telecommunications provider designed from its inception to shield its customers from surveillance.

Merrill, 39, who previously ran a New York-based Internet provider, told CNET that he’s raising funds to launch a national “non-profit telecommunications provider dedicated to privacy, using ubiquitous encryption” that will sell mobile phone service and, for as little as $20 a month, Internet connectivity.

The farmers, on their own behalf and for their injured children, sued Altria Group fka Philip Morris Cos., Philip Morris USA, Carolina Leaf Tobacco, Universal Corporation fka Universal Leaf Tobacco Company, Monsanto, and their affiliates and Argentine subsidiaries, in New Castle County Court.

The farmers grow tobacco on small family-owned farms in Misiones Province and sell it to U.S. tobacco distributors. Most of Argentina’s tobacco is grown in Misiones, a rural northeastern province.

The farmers claim the tobacco companies asked them to use herbicides, pesticides and other toxic products made and distributed by Monsanto, and assured them the products were safe.

They say the defendants “wrongfully caused the parental and infant plaintiffs to be exposed to those chemicals and substances which they both knew, or should have known, would cause the infant offspring of the parental plaintiffs to be born with devastating birth defects.”

Birth defects cited in the 55-page complaint include cerebral palsy, psychomotor retardation, epilepsy, spina bifida, intellectual disabilities, metabolic disorders, congenital heart defects, Down syndrome, missing fingers and blindness.

The farmers claim Philip Morris and Carolina Leaf used a tobacco brokerage company, Tabacos Norte, to buy tobacco from the farmers and sell them crop production supplies, including herbicides and pesticides.

Tabacos Norte, based in Misiones, was created by Carolina Leaf and Philip Morris’ Argentine subsidiary in 1984, to produce tobacco fit for the North and South American markets, according to the complaint.

The farmers say the tobacco companies that bought their crops asked them to replace the native tobacco with a new type, used in Philip Morris cigarettes, which required more pesticides.

The conspiracy has caused e-book consumers to pay “tens of millions of dollars more for e-books than they otherwise would have paid,” the Justice Department said in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday.

The department alleged that Apple and the publishers had a common interest in fighting Amazon.Com Inc’s practice of selling e-books for as little as $9.99, and decided to work together to raise prices.

Three of the publishers – News Corp’s HarperCollins Publishers Inc, CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster Inc and Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group – agreed to settle with the Justice Department. The settlement terms were not immediately disclosed.

“To effectuate their conspiracy, the publisher defendants teamed up with defendant Apple, which shared the same goal of restraining retail price competition in the sale of e-books,” the Justice Department complaint said.

• GOAL: The goal of the new program is to “develop ground robotic capabilities to execute complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments.” Key robotic technologies the program aims to advance include “supervised autonomy, mounted mobility, dismounted mobility, dexterity, strength, and platform endurance.”

• SCHEDULE: The program will consist of two phases, each ending with a competitive challenge. Phase 1 will last 15 months from October 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013. Phase 2 will last 12 months from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. (DARPA says all dates are approximate and subject to change.)

• PRIZE: DARPA is putting up a $2 million cash prize to be awarded to a single team at the end of the second challenge. The incentive for doing well in the first challenge is funding by DARPA for the top scorers to go on to the second challenge. There is no other prize for the first challenge.

• COMPETITORS: The program is open to international teams, and there are no requirements to have ties to a U.S. company or lab. Competitors will be able to enter the challenge via one of the following four distinct tracks: Track A is for teams proposing to develop their own robot and software, and if selected, they’ll receive funding from DARPA. Track B is for teams proposing to develop control software (no hardware) to compete in a computer simulation, and selected teams will be funded by DARPA. Track C is for teams developing, at their own expense, control software (no hardware) to compete in the simulation part of the challenge. Track D is for teams developing, at their own expense, both a robot and software to enter in the competition.

• FUNDING: DARPA plans to select at most five teams for Track A, each receiving up to $3 million in the first phase of the program. For Track B, DARPA will fund up to 12 teams for the first nine months with up to $375,000. After nine months, following a virtual challenge on a government-provided simulator, the agency will select up to six teams (from Tracks B and C), each funded at up to $750,000 and provided a government-funded equipment platform (a robot built by a DARPA contractor). In the second phase, DARPA will select up to eight teams from Tracks A, B, and C, funding each with up to $1 million, with ongoing use of the government-funded robots for the Track B and C teams still in the competition.

• GFE PLATFORM: DARPA will create its own robot—the Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) platform—to allow teams without hardware expertise or hardware capital to participate. The GFE robot is expected to have 7 DOF arms with hands with two or three fingers, 6 DOF legs, and a head with stereo vision and laser radar. Near the middle of Phase 1, a competition using the GFE simulator will determine the highest performing teams from Track B and Track C. A number of such teams will be declared winners and receive GFE robots and funding for continued work.

• SIMULATOR: DARPA will also offer an open-source virtual test-bed simulator, which will be “populated with models of robots, robot components, and field environments.” The simulator supplier will manage an open-source effort where the simulator, robot models, and environment models are developed and improved by the supplier as well as by contributors throughout the world. (Details about the simulation effort will be announced later.)

Now, the part everyone is curious about: the challenge itself. DARPA says robots will compete with each other performing disaster response operations in a scenario that will likely include the following sequence of events:

1. Drive a utility vehicle at the site
In this event, the robot has to enter the vehicle, drive it on a travel course, and exit the vehicle. The robot has to operate the vehicle controls, including steering, throttle, brakes, and ignition. The vehicle is expected to be an unmodified utility vehicle such as a John Deere Gator or Polaris Ranger.

2. Travel dismounted across rubble
Now the robot has to cross terrain ranging from smooth and level to rough and sloped, with some loose soil and rocks. A human would easily traverse the terrain. In addition, the terrain will include discrete obstacles such as rocks, bushes, trees, and ditches that the robot must avoid.

3. Remove debris blocking an entryway
Here the robot has to move an object blocking an entryway. The object will have size, weight, and other properties to be movable either by a person or by the GFE Platform. The object is expected not to exceed 5 kilograms and be solid like a rock or a cinder block, and may have an irregular shape.

4. Open a door and enter a building
In this event, the robot has to operate a door handle and have the strength to push the door open. The door and door handle are expected to be standard, commercially available items.

5. Climb an industrial ladder and traverse an industrial walkway
The robot has to traverse an industrial elevated walkway (also known as a catwalk) with a grated surface and handrails. As part of this task, the robot has to climb an industrial ladder. It is expected that a person would need to use both arms and legs to climb the ladder.

6. Use a tool to break through a concrete panel
Next the robot has to use a power tool to perform “forceful manipulation.” The power tool will likely be an air or electric impact hammer and chisel, or an electric reciprocating saw. The task is to break through a concrete panel (with no rebar) or through a framed wall. (Pictured above, robot on the right.)

7. Locate and close a valve near a leaking pipe
In this event, the robot has to find a leaking pipe and a nearby valve, which it needs to close. The facility will contain multiple pipes, but only one will be leaking, visible as smoke and audible as the hiss of escaping gas. It is expected that a person would need to use two hands to close the valve. (Pictured above, robot on the left.)

Fueling of the rocket, which North Korea says will put a satellite in orbit, is under way and will be completed at the “appropriate time,” said Paek Chang Ho, head of the North Korean General Satellite Control and Command Center.

Researchers from McAfee have shown they can take control of insulin pumps implanted inside diabetes patients, while scientists at the University of Massachussetts have shown they can use radio attacks to turn off defibrillators inside heart patients.

Implants such as pacemakers and insulin pumps, sit within patients and keep them alive. They are increasingly being given radio communications so they can be remotely controlled and updated, minimising the number of times they need to be accessed through surgery, and allowing information to be sent and received.

A group of three large academic publishers has sued the start-up Boundless Learning in federal court, alleging that the young company, which produces open-education alternatives to printed textbooks, has stolen the creative expression of their authors and editors, violating their intellectual-property rights. The publishers Pearson, Cengage Learning, and Macmillan Higher Education filed their joint complaint last month in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.