Windows has had it’s share of vulnerabilities in the past, so now Microsoft is offering more than $250,000 in cash and prizes for contestants who can come up with new ways to mitigate exploits. Anonymous and LulzSec are out there after all, taking companies down.

Microsoft will pay $200,000 for the best “novel runtime mitigation technology designed to prevent the exploitation of memory safety vulnerabilities.” Two runners up will also receive $50,000 and a MSDN Universal subscription valued at $10,000. I’d say that is lots of incentive to come up with some new tricks, wouldn’t you?

Here’s a good way to carry our money around without actually having it with us. Hashy Top-In is a Japanese based company that’s come up with a device called the “E-Money Band”. It’s a silicon band that can be worn like a watch around your wrist and users can load up to $600 on it via chargers available at Japanese convenience stores and other places.

Just tap the band against a compatible reader that stores will carry to make your purchases. That’s it. You’re done. The band is priced at about $36, but it won’t even pull double duty by telling the time.

It’s about time. I can’t tell you how many times I have wished that I could grab a bar of gold from an ATM machine. But now Florida and Las Vegas residents will be able to do just that, as they are getting hundreds of these ATMs installed next year.

They will spit out smaller bars, not Fort Know sized bars. We’re talking 1 and 5 gram sizes; 10 gram and 28 gram (1 ounce) bars, and international coins from countries like South Africa, Australia and Canada, with the gold price being checked six times an hour.

The Digital Wallet concept might just change the way you look at transactions. This digital device lets you perform safe and fast money transactions wherever you happen to be, no matter what time of day or night it is. Just connect the two devices to transfer money from one account to another.

Identity verification comes from placing your thumb on the outer ring, then after confirmation, you can transfer an amount by using the screen. The LED stripe will light up to confirm a successful transfer. This probably won’t be the new thing since we have several similar ways to transfer money already, but it’s interesting.

If you know what’s happening with your energy, then you have the power to change the way you do things and save some cash. You need to know just how much energy you use and where you’re using it. The new Belkin Conserve Insight is a $30 power-outlet adapter with a small screen that tells you just how much the item plugged into it is costing you.

Knowing is half the battle. The display can tell you just how much juice is being used by any device in watts, dollars or carbon dioxide. When you see how much money is going out the window, you’ll be inspired to change things around a bit and stop leaving things running when not using them.

Last week, when the Google logo turned into a game of Pac-Man, we all took breaks and played a game or two, or five. Apparently we had to much fun. The theory is that we wasted a combined 4,819,352 hours and a whole lotta dollars.

The Rescue Time Blog made the following calculations based on observations and assumptions about the Google audience. And the numbers assume that while we were playing Google Pac-Man, we should have been doing something productive:

PayPal has released an update for its iPhone/iPod Touch app. You can now “bump” money from your PayPal account into a friend’s if they are close by. If you both have PayPal accounts, you don’t all need iPhones to “bump” your money. You can still send money the traditional way by loading up the app and entering an email address, or choosing from a recent contact.

But if you have two iPhones running PayPal, it’s easier to set a dollar amount, move them close, then confirm that the “bump” means you’re transferring that cash.

These live checking cards could change the way that people budget their money and make it easier to eliminate debt. It shows you very clearly what you’re spending and what you owe. The concept was created by several designers at Yanko Design.

In addition to being a credit card, it would also track bank transactions through RFID. Amounts would be displayed on the card every time it is swiped, allowing you to have your account balance at your fingertips. The card uses E-Ink technology combined with RFID technology.

Rupert Murdoch isn’t very happy with Google making News Corp content available to everybody, but word is that Microsoft is offering to pay News Corp to de-index its news sites from Google, which would probably drive those searching for News Corp sites to Bing.

If that happens, UK folks would probably see The Times and The Sun no longer on Google News. Murdoch has previously threatened to remove News Corp content from Google, so this could prove an added incentive for him to do so.

Nokia just introduced us to their new payment system, which is simply called Nokia Money. The new payment system is set to offer banking to the poor and those in developing countries who don’t have the kind of banking choices that we have.

It’s based on Obopay’s existing cellphone payment system in North America and Europe and will use current cell phone features to pay for items in stores. You can also use it to pay bills, other people etc. Nokia Money will be formally unveiled at Nokia World on September 2nd and will be available early next year.

This bank is like a game of Connect Four. Except, that you would need to connects thousands…Of coins. I won. Where? There, diagonally. Pretty sneaky sis! This bank stands on its own and is a piece of furniture all by itself. It’s called the Coin Bank and I can only guess that when it is emptied from the bottom, it’s like winning big in Vegas as the coins pile up around you.

The design is simple. Just two pieces of glass pressed together with pegs between. Just drop your change in on top and watch it fall. All of the coins stay in place until you unlock and empty it.

This electronic change counting bank makes sure that you always have money for beer. Because in these tough times, beer money too often goes toward other frivolous things like a “mortgage”, or a “college fund”. Make sure that doesn’t happen to your beer money by making daily deposits.

It will count and tally up your total savings, but sadly doesn’t translate that into number of beers saved. It also won’t convert the change into cash, so you’ll be known as “that guy who always pays in pennies”.

It makes sense to switch from the classic piggy bank to a robot, where guarding your money is concerned. Piggy banks can fall easily to any hammer and spill out their nickel and penny stuffed guts. A robot on the other hand won’t give up the dough so easy, but one downside is that it’s smart enough that it may even spend your dough on stuff it wants.

This cute looking but money-hungry robot money box can even talk to you, tell you the time and let you know how much money he is guarding inside his body. One cool feature is that you can set a target amount you want to save and he will tell you how close you are to your goal as if taunting you.

I know what you’re thinking. That this would be large than your current wallet and make you sit all unlevel, like having George Costanza’s huge wallet. But who cares? This is an awesome geek wallet. We’ve seen a lot os SNES cartridge mods, but this is a first.

The SNES cartridge has been modded to hold a photo ID on the front, but it has also been gutted like a fish and outfitted with a hinge so that you have storage space on the inside. If that isn’t enough, it has an LED that can be turned on and off. It also plays game music and noises. Crazy, right? If you are just aching to hide your cash in one, you can build one of your very own.

Having central heating is easy and convenient, but not very cost effective. For one thing, you’re heating rooms that are not in use. Most homes do not need every single room to be the same temperature. hat’s where this device comes in handy. The Vent-Miser Programmable Energy Saving Vent saves you money by controlling individual room temperature.

Just program the temperature you would like the room to be and Vent Miser will allow or restrict airflow to keep that specific room at the desired temperature. These electronic vents replace the vents you already have to help regulate airflow, rather then replace your current heating or cooling system.