When will your cellphone replace your wallet? The question of how and when commerce will go wireless came up repeatedly at
Fortune's tech conference, as players ranging from Visa to eBay's PayPal to Verizon and AT&T vie to provide platforms that consumers will use for their mobile transactions. Keith Rabois, chief operating officer of Square, a mobile payments company, isn't convinced that consumers will embrace the big players' model, which often involves specially tricked-out phones and newfangled cash registers. But at least one tech executive confessed to already using his cellphone as a wallet -- in a way. In the course of commenting on how Google aims to use technology to transform the world, including the way we pay for things, Google CFO Patrick Pichette (right) called traditional leather billfolds "medieval," adding, "I spend my weekends with my Android phone and an elastic band that has, tied to my Android phone, my driver's license and my credit cards."
--S.M.
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