Tech It Out

The future of payments with Visa! Also, the ‘Radio Retropolis’ podcast, JobSnap app, and more

How we’re paying for things is changing – fast! We’re joined by Visa’s Mark Nelsen, Head of Consumer Payment Products, to share today’s (and tomorrow’s) transaction trends
Those awesome radio plays popularized between the 1940s and 1960s are kept alive today with podcasts like Radio Retropolis. We’re joined by host Jim Romanovich, a radio/television historian
Need stuff done around the home? We catch up with James Albis, Founder & CEO of an app called JobSnap
Thank you to Intel, Visa, and Western Digital

Duration:: 39m
Broadcast on:: 28 Jun 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the ever-changing world of technology? Tech It Out can help make some sense of it all. Breaking down GeekSpeak into StreetSpeak. Technology columnist, author and TV personality Mark Saltzman covers consumer technology each week for every listener. Mark tackles the latest news, reviews, and how-tos to help you understand what's hot, what's not, and why. Hey everyone, welcome to Tech It Out, Episode 352. Hope you're all doing great on these remaining few days of June. Any big plans for the 4th of July? And for our Canadian friends, July 1st, Canada Day? Well, I hope you're at least enjoying this start to this summer. I'm recording this week's show in a hotel room in New York, so I had a great week here. It was for business, but my wife Kelly came with me as I had a lot of downtime as well. It was really fun. Alright, so hey, we have a great show planned for you today. We're going to kick things off with a look at keeping those awesome radio plays alive. The Theatre of the Mind with podcasts like Radio Retropolis. If you didn't grow up listening to these radio shows that were popular, well, truthfully before I was born, you are missing out as their awesome stories. Well-acted and with sound effects are fully, as they call it, and they're great to listen to on your smartphone or tablet because you can multitask, you can be walking around an airport listening to these shows and you conjure up the image in your mind, you know, or at night you can turn the lights off or close your eyes in bed and listen to an awesome story. So we're going to chat with Jim Ramonovich from Radio Retropolis. After that, Job Snap is an app that pairs homeowners with those who can do some work for you around the home like painting or renovating, organizing or moving your stuff and so on and so forth. It's a peer-to-peer marketplace that we'll hear all about that's Job Snap. And finally, we'll have Visa on this show this hour to talk about the changing landscape when it comes to payments and how we pay for products and services is changing and what the future holds as well. Transacting is something that we all do and so no doubt this will be a fascinating discussion into the near future. All of this and more on an all-new Tech It Out, powered by Intel Core Ultra PCs, which I'll tell you more about shortly, but let's officially kick off this week's new show with our first interview. Listeners of my show may know that while I'm a techie who writes articles and gives keynote speeches about the future, ironically, I'm also a huge fan of old-time radio shows or OTR for short. Those wonderful radio plays that were popularized in the 1940s and 50s before TV became the dominant entertainment medium in the home. Well, one of my favorite podcasts that's keeping OTR alive today is Radio Retropolis, and I'm thrilled to be joined by Jim Romanovich. He is the creator and host of Radio Retropolis. Welcome back to the show, Jim. It's been a couple of years. It has, Mark. Thank you so much for having me back. I appreciate it. And congrats on wrapping up season nine of Radio Retropolis. I just heard your last podcast. I know you typically take a bit of a reprieve in the summer. So thank you so much for carving out some time to chat with us here. Oh, no problem. Now, before we talk about your work with Radio Retropolis, please remind our listeners what OTR is exactly, old-time radio place. Yeah. I'm glad. Now you and I, we've talked about this in the past, and I have a real aversion to the acronym of OTR because I think it has sort of the same connotation as calling Bon Jovi a hairband. People do. But, you know, they're more than just that. Sure. And when people put hairband in it, and I get OTR and it's, it's, it's what it's known to be for old-time radio and that era from the '30s to 1962 is considered the old-time radio era. But when you're trying to address new audiences with that, when they hear words like old time, it's like they start thinking that they're going to be watching, you know, moving pictures on a Kinetis scope with a Calliope or something. Right. And that, that's what I'm trying to avoid with a lot. Fair enough. And I, and, and I did call it classic radio for a period of time. And I found kind of the same thing with that that people kind of pigeonholed classic into about 50s, 60s sort of sitcom kind of thing, like monsters and Gilligan's Island classic television. So I, I try to make these as relatable as possible to people of, of all ages. And so what do you call it, golden age of radio or just radio plays? Well, you know, I just call mine, you know, the, it's, if I'm, if I'm doing Superman, I call it the Superman radio podcast. If it's the shadow, it's the shadow radio podcast. I don't, I don't like, I don't say old time anywhere. Okay. Fair enough. Unless, look, people use it. I'm not going to climb up a wall or anything, but I mean, it's, I try to, to bring it to new people by not using the word time radio. Okay. So you totally cringed up my introduction to the topic. No, I knew it was coming because you and I had talked about it before. And I heard you on another interview that you had done. I think it was with a KFI group and you, you played something or you mentioned something about radio or tropolis, which I greatly appreciate. And you said, I purposely don't use OTR. I call them classic radio. Yeah. Right. And that was, that was the reason why. So just to bring our listeners up to speed, we're not talking audio books here where it's narrated by someone, but these are multiple actors and sound effects that help you conjure up the scene in your head. So this is why these radio plays are often referred to as theater of the mind. Exactly. So it's ultimately more personal, in my opinion. Some of them are amazing. Like you mentioned, the shadow, as you know, Jim, I'm, I'm more partial to murder mystery or sci-fi or horror, you know, lights out, suspense. So that's interesting to them. All those, yes. Yeah. Love it. And you're right. That's some date back to the thirties as well. Like weird circles. Also another other one, but there's also comedy plays. Like, I mean, there's also like the skits like Abbott and Costello and Jack Benny had a successful radio show for a while. Sure. So before he migrated over to TV, like many of the other stars at the time. But I try, I try to avoid those. And they're, they're all great to listen to, but to do commentary on them, it gets, it's hard to do that because you start repeating yourself quite a bit because, you know, most of the stuff that routines they do in the movies and so forth. Some of the humor is, is a little difficult at times, like with Jack Benny and a lot of it is, you know, the visual takes that he had as well. Yeah. Some of it's a little dated. I agree with you. Like, you know, sticking with Jack Benny, for example, it was the cliche, you know, the black butler. Yeah. Rochester. Cop or calling women names, which is horribly outdated. Right. You know, there were some other things that we would deem as politically incorrect today. Other stereotypes. And I do talk about that because it's interesting how, you know, those, those are addressed because that's, I, I, I, I talk about that these radio dramas and some comedies, but mostly the radio dramas reflect the time, the historical, a moment in time, much, much more than a news reel or a newscast or whatever, because news reels and newscasts are all from somebody's vantage point of, hey, this is what's happening here and they're telling you what's happening. So they're kind of giving you the surface. What dramas do at that time, if you're listening, even to the Superman dramas or to the shadow or whatever, they are giving you behavior. And in the behavior, you get a real sense of the time and how they addressed people and what they thought of people and of the times, especially with Superman in the era I just covered with 1946, which was the post war and everything was post Nazi and it was all about anti-Semitism at that time, which was, of course, still a very topical today and unfortunate. Yeah. Unfortunately, 100%. Right. Okay. So that's a great segue to talk about radio retropolis. This is a podcast you created and host and you sort of pick your favorite series of radio like Superman or interesting Tim or suspense, but take us from there. What is it exactly you do with radio retropolis? Well, with radio retropolis, what I do, as opposed to what I see, and there's a ton of other podcasts and I don't mean to be derogatory there because I appreciate each and every one of them that puts this stuff out there because I want anybody and everybody to hear it no matter where they hear it from. But in order to make what I do valid for my time and for what I think would be a great experience is to really talk about every single episode and it could be gossipy stuff like what happened behind the scenes with the actors that they used at that time, why a certain actor wasn't used, talking about the products that were in there as well too, the historical reference of that time is also... The cheesy commercials. The cheesy commercials. Yeah, I'll play those, but not every time. For the same reason that people don't like commercials today, it's just you hear it once and you're kind of done, you want to get back to the story, but if I'm making a reference about it or if I'm planning to talk about it, especially if it's a new sponsor like Chesterfield for Dragnet was, then, yeah, I'll play the spot and then I'll talk about it as to how it was incorporated within that and the how Jack Webb was used within that and how and so forth. But yeah, I try to do some real in-depth commentary so people that listen feel like they're getting something for their time. And there's, I think, one other person that I know that is doing this and he does it in a different way. I think he gets more into the mythology of it a little bit more and it's interesting to listen to, but for what the way I do it is I'm going back 40 years, I've been doing this for 40 years, I did it for television and I did what I did for television, I brought it to the podcast, I did the I Love Lucy official 50th anniversary with Desi Liu going back and interviewing all of those actors and producers at that time. And she had her start on the radio, too, by the way. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why I chose my favorite husband because of I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best because of the TV series. Those are the only two comedies I chose. There's another podcast, Jim. I'm not sure if you're familiar with them, they're called the Mysterious Old Time Radio Listening Society where they like you, they play the episode first and then they dissect it. And they're writers and they're performers, they actually perform their own radio plays on stage in front of an audience or, "Oh wow, great for that." Or they'll take a classic episode and do it. Yeah, they're really nice guys, I had them on this show once before. I'll have to check that out, I have not heard that. But today we are learning all about Radio Retropolis with Jim Romanovitch, our guest. So when we return on "Tack It Out," more about what this podcast does, the kinds of things you can learn about these shows, not just be entertained by an episode and a lot more so. Stick with us more "Tack It Out" coming right up after this short break. Welcome back to "Tack It Out," a huge thank you to Intel for your awesome partnership. Last week on "Tack It Out," I promoted the Facebook live chat that ran last Sunday. And we had amazing turnout, over 4 million total views between the different platforms. It wasn't just Facebook, but also YouTube and others, where I answered your questions about what to look for in a new PC. We focused on the AI PC. That Intel is spearheading with its Intel Core Ultra processor family, which includes a CPU, the brains or the engine that drives the computer's performance, a GPU for graphics, and now an NPU or neuro processing unit to handle AI tasks on the device itself. And all the benefits around that is what we covered on the Facebook chat. And we gave away a laptop to a lucky winner, an Acer Swift Go laptop. So we'll do more of those throughout the year. I'll keep you up to date on those if you want to be part of that Facebook live chat and be eligible for that giveaway. But a huge thank you to Intel, intel.com/AIPC. For more info, that's intel.com/AIPC. We are chatting with Jim Romanovich from Radio Retropolis, a podcast that's keeping these radio plays alive in the 21st century. This wonderful entertainment medium that was popularized in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and so on, but very much have listed the test of time. And I am going to ask you about monetizing this, by the way, Jim. But this is a free podcast that you can subscribe to on your favorite platforms, like Spotify or Apple podcasts or iHeart and so on and so forth, Amazon Audible. And you produce a lot of content when you do have your seasons, you're taking a bit of a break. But there's like almost like one a day or every other day, right? Well, yeah, that's true. Boy, I just did Pat Novak for hire. I loved it because it's such a great drama, but it's of its time. I don't know that one. Yeah. Oh, it's yeah. Jack Webb right before he did "Dragonit" plays kind of like a shady character, but it's written so well and biting as well with Jack Webb's sort of satirical sort of biting humor with that, and Raymond Burr was in it as well. So yeah, he plays a con guy. So it's a different role than the Joe Friday, but I only had 19 episodes, and that's all they did in the second run of that, which led right up to "Dragonit." So I did that. But what I did, I'm going back to "Isla Blucy" for a second here, which I just released, there were interviews that I did in, yeah, going back to 1999, 2000, 2000 because it was for the 50th anniversary of "Isla Blucy." I did interviews with Steve Allen, with the writers, the original writers of "Isla Blucy" with Little Ricky himself, Keith Thibodeau with Desi Jr., Bob all the way down the road. And in that special, you're talking nanoseconds were used, you know, 40 seconds, maybe at most 50 seconds, because you only have 45 minutes to fill with everything. So you have all of these interviews, and you're only going to use pieces of it. So I had all of this great content. I've been talking hours of content never heard before and I created 10 to 12 podcasts of the "Isla Blucy" interviews that had never been heard in 30 years now. So, yeah, so that's what I released last year. So is this a labor of love for you, Jim? Oh, for sure. So you're not monetizing radio metropolis. Well, I have, I did set up a Patreon page right recently, and that will be for previously run content. And if I do something special or unique, but no, I don't monetize radio metropolis. It's very, very tough to do that unless you're getting donations, and which I think most people do in my line of work here, they work off of donations, I think for the most part. I don't ask for those. I just want people to hear it, and if they want to go to my Patreon page, it's a buck of month, you know, to listen to everything they want, they can listen for a month and quit. I don't care. I'm not, I don't make money. I don't. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, so not only are you a historian of sorts, but an archivist. Yeah. You know, it's when I went, when I started doing the show back in 2015, season one, just finished the ninth season, I said, I started Superman. I used to notice, wow, there's like 1,300 episodes here, and I jokingly said, you know, we're going to be talking to our grandkids before this is all said and done. And lo and behold, I've got two grandsons now. Yeah. Congrats. The suspense ran that many shows over the years. The only other series I can think of with 1,300 or so episodes is the CBS Radio Mystery Theater. It was in the '70s, and in the early '80s, it was kind of like the renaissance of a rebirth of old-time radio shows, which I really liked, and they're a lot more obviously contemporary than some of these other ones from the '40s and '50s. But they also had, I think, almost 1,400 episodes before they folded in the early '80s. That's true. I remember the gentleman's name that created Intersanctum, but I believe that he was producing that show in the '70s as well, too. Yeah. Is it Hyman Brown? Hyman Brown. Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah. Hyman produced that. Before we wrap up, Jim, as I mentioned, you're taking a bit of a breather in the summer. Well deserved. After your summer hiatus, what's on top for the fall? Well, for the fall, I'm going to, look, I still have suspense to go. I'm only in 1947 now. You know, they started in '43. So our listeners simply have to go to radioretropolis.com, or better yet, just go to your favorite podcast platform and type in "radioretropolis," just the way it sounds. And subscribe, hit that subscribe button, and you're going to get a ton of amazing content to enjoy. And I love being able to multitask. I travel a lot, Jim, as a tech journalist, and I love listening to your podcast while I'm walking through airports, and you can close your eyes and still be entertained on a flight. It's amazing. And that's a great thing about audio, you know? Because as you mentioned, theater of the mind is so powerful. And I appreciate that. All right, Jim, thank you so much again, radioretropolis.com, or just again, hit that subscribe button at your favorite podcast platform. That's right. And also if you want to go to and get all the archival, all the past podcasts, it's on our Patreon page. So just go to Patreon and type in "radioretropolis," and you'll be able to sample stuff. Patreon.com and just type in "radioretropolis." That's it. Jim, great to chat with you, Jim. Monovich Sipanargas. Thank you so much for carving out some time to chat and enjoy your summer, and I look forward to hearing new episodes in the fall. Thank you, Mark. Appreciate it. Have a great summer. We'll talk to you soon. When we return on Tech Get Out, we're going to learn about an app called JobSnap to help you get some things done around the home. Stick with us. We'll be right back with more Tech Get Out. Want to follow Mark? Google it. Mark with a C and Salzman with a Z. Breaking down GeekSpeak in the street speak. This is Tech Get Out, Tech Get Out with technology columnist, author, and TV personality, Mark Salzman. Welcome back to Tech Get Out. Need some work done around the home? Well, an app called JobSnap may be able to help. As we hear from James Albus, he is the founder and CEO of JobSnap. Thanks for your time today, James. Good to chat with you. Yes, Mark. Thanks for having me today. Why don't we dive right in at a high level? Tell us what JobSnap is all about. Sure. JobSnap is a simple mobile application that allows two sides of the market to connect. So from the homeowner's side, it's very simple. You simply snap a photo of what you need to get done. You describe some context around that photo, then you post it using that app or that post quickly goes out to local service providers or gig workers and I'm characterizing those people who have the skills, the time, the equipment, and the motivation to actually get those jobs done. And the best thing about the app is that it connects you directly with the two sides. So what we don't do is we don't get in the middle of the job, meaning the conversation, the job itself, the payment gateway, or any of that. And then on the flip side, if you're a service provider who has the skills, who has the time, who has the equipment, and the motivation, you can build your profile within the app, showcase your equipment, your reviews, and everything about you to be that brand hero. So then you, in turn, can connect directly with those people who need your jobs done. Got it. So you're a matchmaking service between homeowners and those who can provide services. I'm assuming everything like painting, fixing a toilet to a small renovation jobs, that kind of thing. Yeah. Okay. But actually we're a little bit more than that, Mark. I mean, we, the app has a lot of flexibility that dovetails on the periphery of services that even are adjacent to jobs within the home or the apartment. For example, let's say, you know, you're a great guitar, you know, teacher or a ballroom dancer teach, or you potentially could take someone to the airport. The app has flexibility to theoretically use those skills that fall outside of the home. So it has a lot more legs to it than within the home services category. Thanks for that. Yeah. I thought it was tied exclusively to home improvement kind of thing. Yeah. No, no. So where is job snap available today? And can you walk us through how it works as a homeowner from start to finish? Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. The app is available in the Google Play store or in the Apple store. So you know, it is an app that two people decided to connect provided that the information is there that they can do that and use the app anywhere in the country, you know, to kind of take you through how this works. As I said, so the first thing that you do, as I said, you'll find yourself navigating through the app, which as I said, you can find in the Apple store or in the Google Play store, and then you would set up your profile, right, you know, and then from there, you'd post a job snap. So you would, you know, as I said, type a title of like what you need to get done. Let's say, for example, paint my kitchen. And then within there that you would select the skill sets, right, of the type of skills, right, that the people need to have, right, to perform that job. You type your address and then that geo pin it. You type a budget. So let's say, for example, you had a budget of $1,000 to paint your bathroom. And then you describe, as I said, you know, a little bit more context around the photos. And then then as I said, you'd be able to snap a few photos around that. And then you'd simply post that and then the local service providers or gig workers, someone who has an an act for painting, for example, over just using that as an example, would be able to connect directly with you to get the job done. Got it. So how would you say then job snap differs from like home stars as an example or jiffy on demand? Is it that anyone with the skill who wants to earn some money can sign up to do the work through job snap and you don't need to be a certified technician? Yeah. I mean, we do have layers of security and one of those being like an identity check. So we verify that you, you know, if you're on the service provider side, you are in fact who you really are. And then we are using another piece of software called checker, which is the same background checking information that large companies such as Uber uses for background checks information. So you have the peace of mind knowing that validity, that that person, as I said, is who they are and that they've gone through a background check. And again, how we're different, let me emphasize this, as I said, we don't get in the middle of the job and we don't charge people to post the job, okay, there is another platform that actually does do that. They actually charge people 22% of the job. So let's say, as it says, $1,000, you as a homeowner would end up paying 22% on top of the job itself, which we would incur. We don't charge the homeowners or people posting the job snaps anything. So it's zero cost on that side. And then on the flip side, if you're a service provider or a gig worker, number one, we don't charge a lead fee, okay, which we know a lot of the people that are in the field of trying to get jobs done are very dissatisfied. So we don't charge a dollar for a lead fee, nor do we take a heavy commission of the job itself, which could be up to 20, 30 or even 40%. The way we monetize and make money is we charge a simple, lat monthly fee, $89 per month. And that's only to the service provider. And the first month is free for them, so they give it a shot. So as I said, it's very frictionless and it's very, very value oriented for the people that are looking, as it said, to grow their business, to build business, or as I said, simply looking to create more awareness for their brand. We're chatting with James Albus, he is founder and CEO of JobSnap, an app that simplifies the way to find some help around the home. Since they may not be a professional James, like say a college student who is handy at painting and wants to earn some extra cash, what happens in the event the homeowner isn't satisfied with the job? Sure. So again, we bring people 99% down the field, but ultimately it's by our view where. So we've tried to background check the way that ultimately a consumer, just like anything, if they found someone on Facebook or even next door, that last mile is really incumbent upon them. We can't unfortunately guarantee the work in itself, because it's, you know, as I said, we're not monetizing nor are we taking a piece of the job. We're simply matching the two, but we're providing transparency and efficacy to both sides. And so understandably, the homeowner, if they do retain a college student, they might not have the same set of painting skills as one might be of like a professional painting company, just as much as like, if someone showed up at your property with a chainsaw, you know, it said, I can cut that tree down, you know? So ultimately, you know, JobSnap can't own that level of risk, but you know, hopefully that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. So how would you recommend our listeners get going? Go to HelloJobsnap.com and to download directly the app for free. It's in the Google Play Store and then the Apple Store. Thank you so much for your time today. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mark. I appreciate it. Have a good day. The future of payments with Visa when we return on Tech It Out. Breaking down GeekSpeak into StreetSpeak, Tech It Out, hosted by Mark Saltzman. Welcome back, everyone. You're listening to Tech It Out. We're going to now chat about something we all do, shop, and how we pay for things at retail and online is evolving. Who better to chat with about the future of commerce than Visa? Thrilled to have on the show, Mark Nelson, Head of Consumer Payment Products. Thanks for your time, Mark. Appreciate the time to chat with us today. It's great to be here. So hey, it's no secret that payments have evolved significantly over the past few years as I hinted at off the top, especially with the rise of new technologies. So how does this impact the way Visa views the future of commerce? Yeah, it really, it is amazing. We often say that payments has evolved more in the last five years than it did in the last 50 years. Wow. New technology, as you mentioned, such as mobile payments and digital identity and JNI, there are so many technologies we can now use that really lets us build capabilities and products that allows for more personalization, more seamless transactions, safer payments. And it just allows for consumers to have the right way to pay at the moment that they're making a payment. It's really just exciting about the, we get really excited about the future of payments in general. Obviously, not a one size fits all scenario, as long as we're not trading security for convenience game. So with that in mind, can you shed some light on any of these trends or major shifts in how consumers prefer to pay today? Yeah. And I think if you look globally, it's really quite interesting because, you know, the nice thing about Visa is we operate in nearly every country in the world. 20 years ago, there used to be one way to pay. But now just, there is so many different ways to pay around the world. In particular, some of the key trends would be there's digital wallets. So you can load your card or your bank account into a digital wallet and you can make payments. You can send money to your friends. You can tap your card. You can tap your phone to enter a transit location or to pay at the point of sale. And online shopping now in particular is just part of the normal way to pay. And so those are some of the major ways in which payments have changed over the last 10 years in general. I could tell you my three kids who are 20 and my twins are turning 22. They have a Visa card, but they often leave it on their dresser in the room because they've loaded it onto their phone or smartwatch, right? So they just tap to pay. They don't even carry the physical card with them when they're buying something at retail. It's like they take for granted that that contactless terminal is going to be available. And I guess it is or else they would carry their card with them if they had to. How would you say then Visa is innovating to address these changes? Obviously, you're supporting these trends for all the customers you have around the world. Something like a three billion customers worldwide. Yeah, I mean, one thing about these trends that you probably don't know is that some of these take years and years of development to enable. And so if you think you mentioned contactless whereby you can just tap your card and you already don't need to bring your card with you anymore, we have been working on that for 10 years before really that sort of become really something that consumers could use day to day. We spend a lot of time working and designing what is the technology that we think is going to be relevant that we can bring to our customers. And recently, we just had our payment form and we had announced seven new products that we are going to be introducing to customers around the world. And so just to give an example of some of these innovations, we're rethinking the payment card itself. And so a lot of people don't actually use that physical plastic card anymore, but in general, that card used to only do one thing. It could be a debit card or it could be a credit card or a prepaid card, but we've introduced this flexible credential whereby a single card can be what you want it to be depending on the transaction type. We've also introduced this concept of a passkey and it's all around how do we make payments safer and easier to use online when you're shopping online? And I'll talk a little bit more about that as we go. And then we also, we talked a little bit about TAP, we're making sure that there's more and more ways in which we can introduce this TAP technology to provide better experiences for customers. We also announced a thing called a data token, which allows the customer to give a little bit more control in terms of where they want to share their data. So if they want to share data with a third party, it can enable a better shopping experience all through AI. And it's a way in which the consumers have a little bit more control over who they showed their data with. Awesome. Yeah, we'll unpack a few of those new technologies in a moment. Mark, great name, by the way. How successful has Visa's TAP services been? And how does Visa plan to expand these this year? I love, by the way, I didn't know about that flexible credential option. I don't know if that's a new kind of card that can serve as prepay, post pay and debit. Interesting. Never heard that before. Yeah, tell us about how Visa is evolving this year. Yeah, on the flex credential, we just rolled that out in Japan, but it is an interesting concept whereby the consumer can have that one card that can do a little bit of everything. It's really quite exciting. TAP services, we do realize that people love to TAP. It has just grown so much over the last decade. It's so easy and convenient to do. We've had over 6 billion mobile devices in the world that are enabled with this NST technology. That's the technology that allows for that TAP to occur. And so what we've been doing is identifying where else could you utilize that TAP kind of service? And so think about if you needed to load your card into a merchant. So you have a merchant that you shop with often, they ask you to enter your card details. Well, today you have to do that manually, but going forward, you could just tap your card to your phone and that would automatically enter that payment credential for the merchants. So you can tap at a card, you can tap to confirm your identity. So let's say you have to verify who you are, you're shopping online, they want to verify your identity. You could just tap your card against your phone and that would allow that verification to occur. You could also tap to pay a friend. So let's say you owe someone some money, you could enter them out, you owe them, tap your card, and you could go in and send money to someone that you know. And so there's multiple ways in which you'll like send this TAP service to all their use cases. Just make it easier for consumers to pay. Wow, very cool. More with Mark Nelson from Visa on the future of payments. When we return on Tech It Out, stick with us, we'll be right back. We are chatting with Visa's Mark Nelson, Head of Consumer Payment Products, to explain the shifting habits of consumers as we're buying things today and tomorrow, and where Visa fits into all of this. And why is digital identity important? And how is this passkey service that you mentioned earlier primed to address this challenge? I mean, as digital commerce has grown, online fraud has exploded in some markets, because identifying a person in the digital world has just become incredibly complex. And there are so many ways to pay in multiple, you know, different devices. So just verifying that you are actually you and on a scammer is just difficult. There's a lot of things that happen behind the scenes to help us prove that you are who you plan to be. But a lot of that actually slows down the experience and it makes it clunky. For example, you probably have at some point in time when you're buying something, you've been asked to enter a one-time code to verify that you are who you are. Yeah, like a multi-factor authentication. Exactly. And so everyone's kind of gone through that and it works, but it can be clunky. But you know, because everyone is carrying on these devices that are enabled with biometric technology like your cell phone, that you can use Facebook recognition or a fingerprint to verify yourself. So we designed this passkey service that lets you use that technology that you have to that today you're using to unlock your phone. You can use that same technology to verify you when you make a payment. And that is what passkeys enable. So when you go and check out, you'll simply scan your face and or enter your fingerprints and the payment will be done. It's super seamless. Yeah. I know a lot of cybersecurity experts are saying that passkeys are replacing passwords, especially when you fold in biometrics. Like you said, part of your body to identify you securely. Love it. Before we wrap up, Mark, you had talked to us a bit about tokens. If I'm not mistaken, Visa recently announced the issuance of its 10 billionth token. So what are tokens and how is Visa enhancing them to give your consumers more control over their data? Yeah, tokenization, we feel it's one of the most significant payment innovations in the last decade. And it's interesting because it's something that is completely invisible for consumers. They don't know that this is happening. It's all behind the scenes. And a token, really, it just replaces your sensitive account information. Like the 16 digit account number that's found on your card, we replace that with a unique digital number. And so it allows the payment to be processed without exposing actual account information. And so it's harder for that data to be compromised and stolen and then used fraudulently. And so tokens have really helped us reduce fraud significantly in payments. It's been a foundation of a lot of our new innovations. And it's inspired us to think about new ways that we can leverage this technology as well to create even better commerce experiences, especially as AI becomes more prevalent in our lives. I had mentioned data tokens. So data tokens is an extension of what we've done with payment tokens, and it gives people more control over their data. And so if you want to opt in and say to a third party merchant or marketplace that you're willing to share your information about your preferences, where you like to shop, what's your kind of general budget, it allows you to create that ability to share that data with a merchant. And our data token then provides a consumer with transparency and visibility, and they can also then say, okay, I no longer want this third party to have access to my data so they can revoke access as well. So it starts to get the consumer a little bit more in the driver's seat over how their data is used online. And ultimately, we think that will be incredibly valuable for the consumers as we head into this world of JNI everywhere. Yeah, we didn't even talk much about AI this time around Mark, but I would love to have you back on the show. And speaking of which, I find this topic fascinating, and as I said, off the top of our interview, it's something everybody does shop, whether it's at retail or online, and it is changing. So is there a place we can learn more, Mark, about some of these technologies you've chatted with us about? Yeah, I would just go to these, the website, Visa.com, and it has information about a lot of these things, a lot of the things that we do to make payments secure and safe and convenient. And so I would just direct consumers there. Okay, Visa.com doesn't get much easier than that. All right, Mark. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Have a fantastic summer. Thank you so much. All right. For the minute we have left of this week's Tech It Out, I do like to remind listeners to properly and regularly back up your important files to an external hard drive, like one from Sandisk or Western Digital to brands that I trust, because you never know. You never know what can happen to your computer, and it's the worst feeling when you realized you were replaceable photos or precious home movies or important documents are just gone. That's it. So I set mine to automatically back up every night at about 3 a.m. I use Acronis for Western Digital. It's free software that backs it up to an external solid state drive. I highly recommend doing that. And speaking of computers, a huge thank you to Intel for your support. Intel Core Ultra PCs are ushering in this new AI PC revolution. You will believe what your next laptop can do, head on over to intel.com/aipc to check out not just all the form factors and brands that support it, but all the amazing experiences you can expect, whether it's for work, play, to create, or learn, intel.com/aipc. Have a fantastic rest of your day, everyone. A safe holiday next week, and I look forward to catching up with you next weekend for another episode of Tech It Out. Bye-bye for now. (upbeat music)