Two of the more popular personal finance sites made major announcements Tuesday.

Mint.com (see our coverage), the free investment tool, opened to the public Tuesday after a successful private-beta. To go along with the release, a host of new features were added, including comprehensive views of all investment accounts, portfolio-level asset allocation information, and a IRA Advice Center.

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The U.S. Army has awarded researchers a $4-million grant to develop synthetic telepathy, which would allow soldiers to communicate with each other via brainwaves. The technology could also aid patients with degenerative muscle diseases communicate.

The research, undertaken by the Universities of California-Irvine and Maryland, as well as Carnegie Mellon, would allow people to compose messages with their brain waves and then transmit them.

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The Federal Communications Commission approval of the sale of spectrum in the AWS-3 band means another step has been taken toward a nationwide wireless Internet network.  An exhaustive report released by the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology on Friday, “Advanced Wireless Interference Test Results and Analysis,” determined that “AWS-3 devices could operate… without a significant risk of harmful interference.”

This debunks the earlier claim by mobile carrier T-Mobile that utilizing AWS-3 would interfere with its own service on the neighboring AWS-1 band. The company previously submitted test results that interference would occur which were controversial previous to the FCC report release and completely invalidated in September. The unrealistic parameters given by T-Mobile’s study showed that not only would AWS-3 interfere with service, so would Bluetooth headsets and microwave ovens.

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There’s not a lot to be written that hasn’t already been said last week. The Dow had its worst week in history, Silicon Valley’s vulnerabilities were revealed, and the Blue Angels have been practicing over San Francisco since Thursday, their constant flyovers making the city seem like war zone.

The major epiphenomena of tech’s market crash were layoffs at prominent Valley companies, proclamations of 2.0 failure by prominent Valley voices, and viral symbol-making. As much as anything, this was the week The Proclamations Were Made:

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As mud continues to sling during the closing weeks of election season, there should not be any slung at the bipartisan National Association of Secretaries of States, which has launched a starting platform that is very useful to possible new and uninformed American voters. Come November 4th, don’t be among the forlorn disenfranchised.

Concerned that you are not registered to vote? Want to get involved with polling centers on Election Day? What if you wanted to vote right now? CanIVote.org has these answers and other good information to prevent voter problems on Election Day.

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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued a warning that phishers are preying on bank customers confused by their change in banks forced by the numerous recent acquisitions.

“Online scammers are taking advantage of tough economic times. While e-mails phishing for sensitive data are nothing new, scammers are taking advantage of upheavals in the financial marketplace to confuse consumers into parting with valuable personal information,” says the warning.

Phishing attacks on customers of Citi, Chase, Wachovia, and Wamu have increased since the bank shakeups began.

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Technology stocks have been shaky due to the credit crisis and other financial woes that Wall Street has been facing. Many have been asking just how vulnerable the tech industry is to what will become a global economical development. Even the largest technology stocks have been hit, with the Nasdaq dipping nearly fourteen percent in the last thirty days. The CNET Technology Index , which tracks 66 publicly traded tech companies, saw huge stock selling from the bigger companies, including Google.

Technology projects are “normally more resistant to credit problems,” says Iain Cockburn, a professor of finance and economics at Boston University. “Tech tends to be less reliant on short-term credit.” Different types of companies will suffer different effects, according to ABC News. In the short term, smaller companies will be able to weather this economic downturn. But projects involving new technology, heavy capital and equipment will all be in trouble.

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New data was released Tuesday reveals that most people will sit through a fair amount of advertising in order to visit Web sites. Including pop-ups, out-of-frame ads, floating ads, etc., 61 percent of US adults using the Internet would watch between one and five online ads for free Web content per hour in 2007 with a median response of 2 per hour.

66 percent of those polled thought that the amount of over-content ads on the sites they visited had increased over the last six months, up from 57 percent in 2005. The Center for Media Research said Internet users thought they were seeing more interruptive ads because they visited a wider array of sites, which exposed them to a greater variety of ads and ad types.

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Blackberry releases soon its first touchscreen phone, Storm, which should please corporate CrackBerryheads as well as a more consumer market.

Storm is one of the first phones to use haptic technology to make the touchscreen more tactile. “RIM has listened to users who find the iPhone’s glass screen awkward to type on because its virtual buttons provide no tactile feedback. The Storm’s whole screen is backed by springs, and when pressed, it gives under the finger,” said the Associated Press.

Storm has better GPS than the iPhone, but no Wi-Fi. Its camera is also better than iPhone’s, but the multimedia screen is a little smaller at 3.25 inches. You can read and edit Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files, as well as cut and past between programs, even when using the speakerphone. The phone has one gigabyte of memory, and is expandable to 16GBs with microSD cards. The battery provides six hours of talk time, fifteen hours of standby time.

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The British government is considering a £12 billion ($20 billion) database to monitor and store Internet records, e-mails, and phone records, according to an article in Britain’s Sunday Times.

This would be the biggest surveillance system ever created in Britain – possibly the West – reports the Times. The measure, headed by the GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters – Britain’s eavesdropping agency) would put a “live tap” on every electronic communication device in Britain. The network is envisioned as a way to monitor terrorist activity, but will also be used to monitor other criminal behavior as well.

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