The Arduino mini takes the extremely successful Arduino NG open-source physical computing platform and shrinks right down!
As with the Arduino NG, the Arduino mini is a simple to use i/o board and development environment that implements the Processing/Wiring language.

Besides the Arduino mini’s smaller size, the Arduino mini uses the ATmega168 (which doubles the memory size of the standard Arduino NG ATmega8).

Because of the Arduino mini’s compact size it requires an external serial connection for programming.

Like the Arduino NG the Arduino mini can be used to develop stand-alone interactive projects, taking various inputs or sensors and controlling a
variety of lights, motors and other actuators. The projects can be stand-alone or can be connected to software on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).

The open-source IDE can be downloaded for free (currently for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux). This simple to use software has drivers and installers provided with
an environment that makes it easy to write code and upload it to the i/o board.

The Arduino Mini comes fully assembled and tested with ATMega168 pre-loaded with boot-loader.