Daily Dispatch: Mint Data gives view into spending habits; Google Place Search streamlines local search

In today's Digital Dispatch:

Mint Data Delivers A View Into The Spending Habits Of Its 4 Million Users (TechCrunch)

...Mint Data aggregates anonymous spending data from Mint's users to give you realtime insight on what people are spending on across the country. For example, the platform lists the most popular restaurants in San Francisco (by visits), the top shopping spots in New York City (by highest average spend), and the highest spending cities in the U.S.

Apple making custom, built-in SIM for future iPhone? (TiPb)

...Sources inside European carriers have reported that Apple has been working with SIM-card manufacturer Gemalto to create a special SIM card that would allow consumers in Europe to buy a phone via the web or at the Apple Store and get the phones working using Apple's App Store.

Connect Your Car to the Web With AutoBot (ReadWriteWeb)

...Features include locking and unlocking doors, controlling window settings, locating your car if you forget where you parked or it gets stolen, doing diagnostic checks on your car, and messaging friends and family when the driver has been in an accident.

Place Search: a faster, easier way to find local information (Official Google Blog)

... Today we're introducing Place Search, a new kind of local search result that organizes the world's information around places. We've clustered search results around specific locations so you can more easily make comparisons and decide where to go.

Time-travelling alien? Mystery woman in Chaplin movie clip (The Star)

...The clip is from the six-minute sequence of the opening of Charlie Chaplin's The Circus at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. A stocky woman in a hat and coat walks into the frame, talking into what looks like a cellphone.

Jacksonville mom shakes baby for interrupting FarmVille, pleads guilty to murder (Florida Times-Union)

...She told investigators she became angry because the baby was crying while she was playing a computer game called FarmVille on the Facebook social-networking website.

This Movie Was Shot Using a Mobile Phone (digital inspiration)

...The groundbreaking film, directed by the McHenry Brothers, was shot in just four days with the Nokia N8 using no back up cameras, with the streets of London and St Albans providing the backdrop to Nokia's story about one commuter's eventful journey to work.

About Digital Dirk's Dispatches
Dirk Klingner, our technology-trend watcher, sifts through hundreds of blog posts and news articles daily to bring you the Digital Dispatch—a compilation of the most important and interesting tech news for consumers. If you have a tip on a story you want to share, leave a comment below.