- Visa has just published its annual “Retail Spend Monitor” report on holiday shopping data. To share the positive news, we’re joined by Visa’s Principal U.S. Economist, Michael Brown
- Continuing the legacy of the late, great Jane Goodall, I sit down with the Jane Goodall Institute’s Chief Scientist, Dr Lilian Pintea, on all the ways technology is sed in Jane’s 6 decades of work – and going forward. This interview was recorded at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas.
- Are you always running out of storage on your iPhone or Android? You’re not alone. Christina Garza, Director of Consumer Product Marketing at SANDISK, talks about its affordable new Phone Drive USB-C
- Thank you to Visa, Norton, and SANDISK for your incredible support. Get a huge discount on Norton anti-malware at norton.com/techitout
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the ever changing world
of technology? Can check it out? Can help make some
sense of it all, Breaking down geeksbeak into street speak.
Technology columnist, author, and TV personality Mark Saltzman covers consumer
technology each week for every listener. Mark tackles the latest news, reviews,
and how toos to help you understand what's hot, what's
(00:21):
not and why.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey everyone, welcome to teck it out. This is episode
four twenty six. Happy holidays everyone. I hope you all
enjoyed your Christmas if you celebrated, or perhaps Honukkah the
week before that, or maybe Kwansa, whatever you celebrated. If anything,
I hope you enjoyed some quality time with family and friends.
(00:45):
By the time you hear this episode, actually it could
be just after New Year's In fact, some stations will
air this show this episode as late as January the second,
and so all the best to you in twenty twenty
six as well. I'm getting ready to go to the
Consumer Electronics Show on January the fifth for four days,
which is where all the big tech products make its
(01:06):
initial debut. So looking forward to that, even though it's
a crazy busy show and I look forward to reporting
on all of the highlights to you and an upcoming
teck it Out. Oh before I tell you what's on
top for today, a huge thank you for all your
support on the show. It was a huge year for
tech it Out and I hope the momentum continues well
into the new year. And thank you to my sponsors Norton,
(01:27):
Visa and sand Disk. Speaking of Visa, actually, we're going
to kick off today's tech it Out by learning about
holiday sales data in this country. With all the doom
and gloom that we keep hearing about tied to the economy,
you just might be surprised to learn how healthy the
economy may be, after all, if shopping data is any indication.
After that, we're going to talk about the late Jane
(01:48):
Goodall and the tech used by her institute. When I
interview the Jane Goodall Institute's chief scientist, I had the
pleasure of sitting down with him at the recent AWS
Reinvent convention in Las Vegas, and so I'm going to
play that on all the ways tech can help capture
and analyze chimpanzee behavior, but also how the Jane Goodall
(02:08):
Institute leverages tech to tell its stories to fans around
the world. Also on today's tech it Out, how to
back up your important photos and videos from your iPhone,
you know those irreplaceable photos and home movies, perhaps without
needing to pay for iCloud storage. It's a small device
that you plug in underneath. We're going to get to
all of that and more on a new tech it Out,
(02:29):
and so let's officially kick off the new episode with
our first interview. Visa has just published its annual Retail
Spend Monitor Report, providing a comprehensive view of consumer holidays
spending across the US, Canada, and other countries. The data
analyzes seven weeks of transactions from November first through December
twenty first, including a look at year over year growth
(02:51):
both online and in store receipts, and it also examines
the top categories of spend like consumer electronics, apparel, and
so on. To give us highlights, we're joined by Visa's
principal US economists Michael Brown. Welcome to the show, Michael,
Hope you enjoyed the holidays.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I did, Thank you very much. Great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Before we hear about the latest results. What exactly is
the report? I think it's officially called Visa Consulting and
Analytics Retail Spend Monitor. Can you give us like a
high level understanding of what this data is all about.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Absolutely, it's certainly about ful. So essentially what we do
is we start, obviously with our underlying Visa net data,
and then we have to plus that up a little
bit to make sure that we're capturing all forms of payment,
not just the cardible payments that we see on our rails.
So we aggregate that data up to make sure that
it's representative of the US as a whole. And this
(03:43):
is obviously done by our season data scientists, economist and
our consultants all working together to kind of produce this
snapshot of what happened this holiday season.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Thank you for that. I can understand for retailers why
this is really important coming out of the holidays. For example,
in the age of same day or one day shipping,
is there still interest in mall shopping? Apparently retail shopping
like brick and mortar is still significantly higher than online,
even in twenty twenty five. Can you tell us about
some of the highlights from this year.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Absolutely, so you're spot on in terms of the in
person shopping. It still dominates. Seventy three percent of our
payment volume that we saw this holiday season was face
to face in the store and so e commerce. It's
small but mighty, right, so twenty seven percent but still
growing at a decent clip. If you just take a
(04:34):
look at last year and this year, it's about eight
percent both years in terms of year on year spending growth.
So small but growing, but face to face still dominates
when it comes to holiday.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Shop That's really fascinating because I would think it would
be the other way around that maybe only twenty five
percent of shoppers are still hitting the malls and buying
in person. Would it be fair to say, then, Michael,
that the main takeaway is that holiday spending stays strong
despite I can headwinds. What did you find in terms
of volume or purchasing behavior this year with all the
(05:05):
negative economic news we keep hearing about, Well.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
You're absolutely right, we see a story of resilience. Holiday
shopping for this seven week period that we looked at
agan back on November the first was up four point
two percent on a year on your basis, and that's
on all forms of payment. If you compare that for
historic context, last year we grew about four point eight percent,
so it was a better year last year. But on
(05:31):
average over the last three years, sales were up about
four point three percent, So this is an average holiday
shopping season. Despite lower consumer confidence, despite concerns about higher prices,
we still see the consumer out there spending and engaging
this holiday season.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That's promising. I read I think about a month ago
that there was some survey that said shoppers are pulling
back significantly on gift giving this year. So isn't exactly
the case. Can I ask you, Mike, how AI may
be shaping shopping behaviors. We hear about AI every day.
What about when it comes to buying gifts around this
time of year.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Well, that's an interesting story. So before the holiday shopping
season began, we actually deployed a nationally representative survey here
in the US to judge this very trend of AI
use this holiday season, and we found that nearly half
of shoppers were willing to start engaging with AI. Now,
this isn't all going to purchases at this point. A
(06:29):
lot of it is price comparisons, trying to find that
best deal or best bargain out there. But we are
in fact seeing quite a few users adopt AI as
a tool in the shopping experience, and probably not surprising
to you, it's gen z that kind of leads the
way on that front.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, not too surprising. I mean AI's been around in
online shopping for a while, I know what twenty years ago.
Amazon for example. You know, if you bought this, then
other customers also bought that kind of thing trying to
sell you, you know, with maybe an accessory to a
phone that you may be buying, buying a case or
cables or whatnot. But then we've seen the evolution of
that with generative AI, JENAI, with tools like Rufus, which
(07:11):
again just sticking with Amazon as an example, where you
can interact with a chatbot to get more information at
the point of checkout or just before. So really interesting.
We are joined by Michael Brown, Visa's principal US economist,
who is sharing results of Visa's annual Retail Spend Monitor report.
We're diving into data tied to pre holiday shopping in
particular in the US, Canada and elsewhere, backed by Visa
(07:34):
Net's unmatched scale representing three hundred and twenty nine billion
transactions a year. That's about nine hundred million transactions every day.
By the way, these insights help retailers and financial institutions
anticipate consumer behavior and make data driven decisions. Super important
to get that data right from the horse's mouth, so
to speak. Michael, what categories are you seeing the biggest
(07:56):
changes in spending? I would think tech is very hot,
but maybe that's not the case.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, you're right, tech is hot this season. When we
look at electronics and impliance store sales, those are up
almost six percent on a year on year basis, up
from about four percent last year, so that category is
doing well. Other categories that are performing well this season
clothing and accessory stores and then that one stop shop
(08:21):
of general merchandise stores all doing reasonably well. If you
look at the other side, we're not spending much on
the home this season. You look at home improvement stores
for example, building materials not doing quite as well this season.
They're actually down on a year on your basis. And
then furniture and home furnishings, we've seen a lot of inflation,
(08:44):
as you can imagine, in those categories. It's also fairly flat,
right around one percent growth, and that's down for seven
percent last year, so a little bit of a mixed bag,
but electronics, clothing, general merchandise all doing quite well this season.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Perhaps the pandemic, we were investing more in the home.
We weren't traveling, so spending the money on where we
were spending time in that makes sense perhaps, And why
would you say, Michael, Visa is uniquely positioned to provide
this perspective. I think you hinted earlier that it's not
just transactions when people use Visa cards, but other data
that you're analyzing. Is that fair?
Speaker 3 (09:18):
That's absolutely right. We layer data to help inform our
clients as to what is going on in the economy. Overall.
At Visa, we see roughly twenty five cents of every
dollar spent here in the United States, and so to
make sure that we're seeing the full one hundred percent,
we layer other data, such as that from the US government,
(09:39):
the Census Bureau, for an example, and we layer that
data together with our data scientists to make sure that
we're telling a representative story of what's going on here
in the US.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
A couple of times during our chat, Michael, before I
let you go, I've mentioned things like, oh, I understand that,
or you know, that's surprising. But can I ask you
if there was anything that surprised you about this year's data?
What did and what did didn't surprise you now that
you're combing through the results.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Well, I think the big storyline coming into this season
was inflation and concerns about inflation. And I think the
one thing that surprised me this season is even if
you adjusted these numbers for inflation, we're still up about
two point two percent on a year. On your basis,
that is a pretty respectable rate of growth. So I
think that is the upside surprise. What didn't surprise me, Well,
(10:27):
I just kind of mentioned it. Home improvement, home goods.
Those categories we expected to kind of be in the
dould rooms. First of all, they had a pretty good
year last year, and then of course we're all well
aware that the housing market is really not doing all
that much, so it's not too surprising that those categories
aren't performing as well this season.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Fair When we return on Tech It Out, I'm going
to ask Michael if he has any predictions for twenty
twenty six. Since the new year is here, we did
chat about AI. I expect that to still be a
significant story going forward. Even for shoppers, but would love
to get Michael's two cents on that as an economist,
So stay with us. We're going to be right back
(11:07):
with more tech it Out. I'm your host, Mark Saltzman.
This is the final show for the year, or even
though you may be hearing this on your local talk
radio station in early January or in podcast form. Either way,
grilled to have you along for the ride. We got
a lot more tech it Out coming right up after this.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Listen to check it out whenever you want to find
the Check it Out podcast, did I too, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Welcome back to check it Out everyone. Just a minute
left with Michael Brown, Visa's principal US economist. Any predictions
for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Well, I'm an economist. I love predictions, so yes, we
have plenty of those for you. If you just think
about all in spending, so not counting inflation or anything,
we're all consumer spending probably about on par with what
we saw this year, about five point two percent. If
we adjust that number for inflation, it's about two point
(12:09):
eight percent, and that's actually a little bit stronger reasoning.
We see inflation finally starting to come down a little
bit next year, and that should be positive for consumer spending.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Anything tied to tariffs or the trade wars positively or negatively.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Well with respect to tariffs, I think that in our
view at least when you look at our inflation outlook,
we believe most of the acute inflation pressures from tariffs
are now behind us, and we think over the course
of the next twelve months, we'll continue to see these
bilateral trade deals and we're expecting inflation to ease. It
is going to be a slow process. We're not going
(12:46):
to get back to sort of benign inflation like we
had pre pandemic anytime soon, but it will feel a
little bit better as we turn the page into twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
And if anybody wants to download and read this report,
by the way, simply do a web search for twenty
twenty five VISA Retail Spend Monitor and you should be
able to find it. It is freely available to download. Michael,
thank you so much for your time. Michael Brown has
been our guest, Visa's principal US economist, fascinating discussion. All
the best for a happy and healthy twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Thank you so much Mark.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
As I mentioned earlier in the show, I recently attended
the AWS Reinvent Convention in Las Vegas. I've been playing
you interviews recorded at the show, and this next one
is no exception, so have a listen. I have the
distinct pleasure of sitting down with doctor Lillian Pintia. He
is vice president of conservation Science at the Jane Goodall Institute.
(13:39):
And you yourself, doctor Pintiat. You're base in Washington, d C.
One of many chapters around the world. Pleasure to chat
with you. By the way, thank you so much for
your time today.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Thank you for your interest in our work.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I have to tell you I studied Jane's work back
in university thirty five years ago.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Boy, that's hard to say.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
And my daughter, one of my twenty three year old twins,
is at a university it's known for primatology.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Her and I were.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Devastated to hear about the passing of Jane Goodall. I
believe this October first. You know, you've worked with her
for a quarter of a century, so my condolences. I'm
sure the whole institute is reeling from this still two
months later, but thank you for being open to talk
about your very important work at the institute.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Thank you for your kind words.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
But what a legacy, right, six decades of work.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Yes, we are mourning the passing of our founder and
the same time celebrating her incredible life and vision. And
I'm really looking forward to connect with all the people
which she inspired over the years to continue her.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Mission, which is what Let's break that down before we
talk tech. What is the mission of the Jane Goodall Institute.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Well, when Jane Goodall arrived in Gonbea in ninety sixties
on July fourteen and ninety sixteen and gombe which is
now Tanzania and it's now gone National park today, the
world changed. Jane through her innovative ways to observe and
connect to chimpanzees, was able to open these new doors
(15:09):
to not only understanding chimpanzees, but also understanding ourselves and
our relationship to nature, and her early discoveries truly transformed
the way how we define what does it mean to
be a man and also how we all how everything
is connected between chimpanzees and environment and also with the
(15:32):
local communities and habitats outside the.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Park, the whole ecosystem. We're all connected interconnected.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
So a big part of the Jingle Instant mission is
to continue that legacy work we are and to understand
chimpanzees and protecttionpanzees across Africa. Another important part of the
mission is to inspire everyone from local communities to use
globally to take better care of not only the animals,
(16:02):
but also the people and the shared environment and achieved
positives change in their own communities.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So her original tools that was probably a pen and notebook.
Fast forward to today, we'll get to AI and the cloud.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
And your work here with AWS.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
We're here at AWS reinvent in Las Vegas, So obviously
you're talking a lot about tech today. But boy, have
things change when it comes to data collection and analysis,
behavioral analysis and even spreading awareness. And you've been along
for this ride for a quarter of a century as well,
have you seen a huge change?
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Absolutely, you are correct. When Jade arrived in government and
ninety six, her own the tools were just a pairable binoculars,
pen and paper. And maybe it can't but also over
the years, when we start having access to some of
the DNA technologies, when we start introducing video as a
(16:58):
tool for behavior data collection, she was very excited and
interested in combining and complimenting these tools with the traditional
ways of recording to fenzy behaviors writing it on a paper.
Jane message was very clear there is something special about
keeping up the physical writing of notes and observation of
(17:21):
champs on the paper, but also very interesting and open
of course in understanding how this incredible technologism new tools
could be used to compliment that research.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
When we return on tech it Out, we're going to
hear what those technologies are in fact, back in the
early two thousands when doctor Lillian started with the institute
and what is leveraged today. So there's a whole second
half of that interview that will play after this short break.
If you want to reach out on social media, if
you have any tech questions for me, I'll spell my
name in a moment, or maybe you've got suggestions for
(17:54):
upcoming guests or topics, you can find me on x, Instagram, Facebook,
Blue Sky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok and LinkedIn. It's Mark Saltsman,
M A R C S A L t Z M
A N and I look forward to chatting with you online.
We'll be right back to hear more about the Jane
Goodall Institute. Stick with us, We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Want to follow Mark Google Mark with a C and
Saltzman with a.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Z breaking down geeks peak into street speak.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
This is check it out.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
To check it out with.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Technology columnist, author, and TV personality Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Welcome back to check it out. We are chatting with
doctor Lillian Pintia, VP of Conservation Science at the Jane
Goodall Institute. We're talking about the amazing work that Jane
and doctor Pinthia have been doing in your large teams
and various chapters around the world. Now, leveraging artificial intelligence
or generative AI, you can probably feed it all kinds
(19:00):
of data sets and interact with it in order to
extract more meaningful information.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
As you mentioned, importing video.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
And you can see the chimps by name and their
family patterns and maybe perhaps migration patterns and better understand
behaviors and actions, which was maybe possible before, but it
was probably painstaking work and time consuming. So no doubt
that technology is speeding up all of this. I'd love
to just ask you the second last question is can
(19:29):
this technology also be used to help us better appreciate
what these ecosystems including the life of Chimps and gumbay
and elsewhere. Just as regular fans of the Jingital Institute's work,
can we better appreciate it? Can that tech be used
for us just to lay people.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Absolutely Jame's vision if you look the way how she
designed and developed gone the long term research was not
the research for the cycle research we're in the isolation
from managing on the forest from the people, local people
which depend on this forest, so from every binning, from
the governments exactly. So from the beginning, the way Jain
(20:09):
set up and start doing the research with leveraging and
engaging local communities and valuing the local knowledge was already holistic.
And the education piece it's absolutely essential because only on
we start connecting these incredible brains of ours with our
(20:29):
compassion heart, we can truly unload the potential of this
technologies and knowledge. So I'm very excited that in addition
to all these incredible important tools we're developing with a
WS Leveraging Generative I for research, we are also talking
about having a platform which will enable to develop educational
(20:52):
materials to visualize and then enable people to interact with
some of these data to better expert and see the chimps,
but also see how the chimps connected to the environment
and to the amazing force.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I can see students talking with a generative AI assistant
conversationally like with another human, asking questions about Jane's work
and about the chimpanzees in their life and lifespan and ecosystem,
and interacting as if they were a real person. But
it's been all the work that the Institute has been
doing over the last six decades.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
Or an app that could.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Educate people about the delicate ecosystem in which the chimpanzees live,
or even a virtual reality experience donning a headset and
seemingly going with Jane on a mission in Gombey in
the forest and studying chimps from a first person perspective.
I can see how powerful that could be, all leveraging technology,
(21:47):
and I think Jane actually side note, I think she
did do something in virtual reality a couple of years
ago that I remember reporting on. So this is this
is amazing, like that it's not just used by the
Institute to better under stand and study and document chimpanzee's life,
but also sharing and understanding the ecosystem and sharing it
with local governments. But also fans around the world. Last question,
(22:09):
doctor Pinthia, I know you've been with the Institute for
a quarter of the century. What would you like to
achieve before you step down? Is there one thing that
you whether it's technology related or not. I mean, you
are obviously the chief scientist at the organization.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Working with Jane. Having this privilege to work with Jane
for twenty five years, this is more than work for me,
and now it's a life mission.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
What's your legacy? Perhaps I already achieved it.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I'm just wondering if there's one stone that's left unturned
at this point.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Yeah, it's an emotional question because this is more than
a job. Clearly, once you join Jji Jane with the
US into family, there's many colleagues on mine. Cool sure,
like myself spend even more than twenty five years, and
as somebody who worked with Jane very closely on a
(23:05):
daily basis, talking about science, application of science, supporting using
science and technology to support our research, conservation, animal welfare,
community led development, and our roots and shoots programs. I
feel privileged. In the same time, lots of obligation, this
(23:26):
is the word. I feel an obligation to engage and
listen and work with as many people as possible globally
to understand how Jane's vision changed their lives and better
understand how we can work together to continue Jane's mission
(23:47):
moving forward. And we wanted to see gone belong to
their research going on for another sixty five years with
many more incredible discoveries ahead less.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, no doubt your work is helping to contribute to that,
Doctor Pintiat's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Continued success,
keep up the great work.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Thank you, Thank you so much, and thank you for
your interest in our work and for this opportunity to
share it.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
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out when we return on tech it out. If you're
an iPhone user, you're definitely going to want to tune
into this. Did you know that there is a small
memory stick that you can plug into the bottom of
your iPhone that will automatically back up your irreplaceable photos
and videos, because otherwise you're going to need to pay
for a monthly cloud service for backup, which can really
(26:06):
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So this is a great solution, so keychain size gadget.
So we're going to learn about that with sand Disk.
When we return on teck it out. Stick with us.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
We'll be right back breaking down geek speaking into street speak.
Check it out Holosted by Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Welcome back everyone, you're listening to check it out. One
of my favorite tech companies, sand Disk, has just launched
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Drive with USB C. To find out what it can do,
who it's for, and how it works, we're joined on
the line by Christina Garza, director of consumer product Marketing
at sand Disk. Welcome back to the show, Christina, good
(26:57):
to chat with you again.
Speaker 7 (26:58):
Hi, Mark, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Great Before we talked about this new drive, Let's just
take a step back and tell us a bit about
sand Disc. The company is now separate from Western Digital.
Is that right it's parent company at one point.
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I was going to ask you why sand disc when
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(28:19):
so some people call them micro SD cards.
Speaker 8 (28:21):
Why sand Disc, Yeah, we really try and have focused
on learning what consumers need so that we can respond
with the right product to fit those needs.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
You know.
Speaker 7 (28:31):
Our mission here at sand Disc is to enable people to.
Speaker 8 (28:34):
Create, experience and really preserve more amazing things that really
matter to them from a data perspective and a digital
content perspective, whether that's the right memory card for the
camera you use, or a really robust USB portfolio with
a variety of flash drives that you can choose what's
right for you, all the way through a range of
portable SSDs for every kind of use case, you know.
(28:57):
And we even deliver fun collaborations like with Nintendo, PlayStation,
Xbox and other industry leaders within the consumer space because
we really want to make sure consumers are getting what's
right for them and what makes them feel good at the.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
End of the day, even the Smurfs. Sorry, I saw
a video on YouTube and I know the Nintendo flashcards
for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch too, that's great,
and yeah, some of your solutions for inside the console
like PS five or Xbox, so all great stuff all around.
So without further Ado. Let's now hear about the new
sand Disc phone drive with USB C. What's it all about.
Speaker 8 (29:31):
Yeah, we're so excited about this because when I look
back at just a few years ago technology and storage tools,
they always felt like they were four pros or for
tech gurus, or required a little bit more technical know how.
And what we're so excited about with these new SanDisk
phone Drive with USBC is that it's for everyone, and
we've really focused on making it simple, easy for anyone
(29:54):
to use.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
That concept of it just works.
Speaker 8 (29:58):
And you know, with the addition of you BC ports
on iPhones and Android phones, I think it's been around
a little bit longer on Android phones, but the addition
on iPhones has really opened up a whole new world
for every phone owner out there. Cameras are capturing incredible
photos and video, higher resolution four K video, and all
(30:18):
of this means larger file sizes, and you fill.
Speaker 7 (30:22):
Up your phone so quickly with everything.
Speaker 8 (30:24):
You want to capture every single moment, even the bad ones,
and you don't want to spend too much time deleting,
but you do have this constant worry of what if
my phone fills up, do I have to spend more
on iCloud is that the only way and what really
trying to deliver with this product is another way to
complement what you may do today, but give you another
(30:44):
way of preserving your content on your phone, whether it
be backing up your photos and videos.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
You can even back up your.
Speaker 8 (30:51):
Contacts because you just never know what's going to happen,
and peace of mind really goes a long way, especially
with that device you carry with you wear every day.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So you've touched on two interesting trends here. One is
that Apple is smart and they know that you're going
to run out of storage, so you think you have
to pay for more iCloud storage per month to hold
all those photos and videos as a backup solution. It's
smart because when you buy an iPhone, it's limited in
how much local storage there is and you can't expand it.
And Android has followed suit too with the inability to
(31:24):
add more storage with a micro SD card. But you've
figured out a solution there, which we're going to get to.
And then the second trend is that I think when
people think of USB drives and all that, they think
of computers, but we're increasingly becoming a mobile society where
a lot of the computing that we're doing is on
our phone or maybe a tablet, and not just a
laptop or desktop. Maybe for the work world, sure, but
(31:44):
we're increasingly using our mobile devices, and so you've also
changed with the times. Your USB solution, as the name suggests,
USB C fits all modern iPhones and Android devices. So
can you walk us through how it works. It looks
like a thumb drive, but it snaps into the bottom
of your smartphone exactly.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
It looks like a thumb drive, same concept as flash drive,
which is why we call it phone drive, to be
honest with you, is that we don't want to imply
that it's really different than how people are used to
using flash drives with their computer. But as you said,
your phone has become your computer in many cases, and
so now with a sand disk phone drive small, it's portable.
It has a key ring holder so you can snap
(32:26):
it onto your keychain. It's got a really great slider
so that you can protect the connector if you're not
using it, you can just slide it away so that
it stays intact.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
So it's really simple to take with you everywhere. But
whether you're.
Speaker 8 (32:38):
Trying to move content or you're trying to back up content.
We're doing it all through the sand Disk Memory Zone app.
That's truly the backbone of this product. We build hardware,
We've been famous for our hardware, and now our software
is really coming into play to deliver that incredible experience.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
That again is very simple. You plug it into your phone,
it pops open.
Speaker 8 (32:59):
The sand Disk app and it automatically will back up
if that's.
Speaker 7 (33:02):
What you set up.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Love it more with Christina Garza from sand Disc when
we return on check it out, stay with us.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Follow Mark Saltzman on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, listen
to check it out whenever you want.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
We are chatting with Christina Garza, director of Consumer Product
Marketing at sand Disk. We're learning all about the apply
named sand Disc Phone drive with USB C. No more
lightning connectors at the bottom of the iPhone. It's all
one standard universal port USBC. So this drive works with
all modern smartphones. And let's say you do want to
transfer a bunch of photos or videos following a vacation
(33:51):
onto your laptop. You can then unplug the drive and
then also plug it into a USB sport on the
side of your laptop.
Speaker 8 (33:59):
Yes, so you can sim unplug from your phone, plug
into the USBC port on your computer, access it like
a normal drive and move content however you need to.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And it does work with tablets too, right like iPads
and Android tablets it.
Speaker 8 (34:14):
Will and I know on iPad it'll recognize it as
a normal external drive. You can use the SanDisk Memory
Zone app on a tablet today, but it will only
show up in mobile mode. We're working through updates for
better tablet experience. Current state is it'll show up on
mobile mode, but if you don't want to use the
app on a tablet, it'll show up as an external
(34:34):
drive really easily in your files.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Would you say this drive is primarily for content creators,
those who are shooting video, maybe they're podcasters or streamers
or you know TikTokers that kind of thing, or really
for anyone who wants to back up, and again it's
not just media like photos and videos, but as you said,
your contacts as well.
Speaker 7 (34:51):
It's a truly made for everyone's solution.
Speaker 8 (34:54):
Whether you're taking a lot of family photos of your
children or a family reunion, or if you are a
content creator, this is a perfect tool so that you
can easily back up all your content, move it to
your laptop to do editing upload from there.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
It's a tool for everyone.
Speaker 8 (35:12):
Content creators definitely are the core content generators and so
there's a capacity need.
Speaker 7 (35:18):
This product will really enable them to do quick backup.
Speaker 8 (35:21):
But really this is finally a tool for everyone who
has an iPhone or an Android with type C to
do what they need to do with their phone to
preserve their content, to do backups, to move files without
the hassle of only having the cloud as an option.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
So you first download the app, you simply do a
search for the word sand disk. Then you insert the
drive and it'll scan your phone for your photos.
Speaker 8 (35:44):
With the sand Disco Memory Zone app. Once it's downloaded,
you plug in the drive. It'll launch the app and
it'll walk you through setup. You can name your drive,
it'll show you the name of your phone. It'll show
you how much capacity you have remaining on your phone,
and then you can walk through a setup to select
whether you want automatic backup turned on, and in that
(36:05):
case it'll run. If you choose yes, it'll run your
first backup. It'll give you an indicator bar that says
how much more time you have left in your backup,
how many images, videos, and files. It's actually backing up
and once that's set up from an auto backup perspective,
from that point forward, every time you plug the drive in,
it'll auto launch the app and begin the auto backup
(36:26):
for anything that's new. If you don't want auto backup,
no problem, leave that toggle to the left, and then
you can manually move content. You can manually go and
select files, photos, videos that you'd like to move, either
copy them from your phone to the drive, or literally
move them from the phone to the drive to free
up more space. So there's a lot of different ways
(36:48):
that you can manage your content through this easy to
use app.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Cool. Yeah, I was going to ask you if it
does that complete backup every time, but it only looks
for what's new or changed. Probably that's correct. Yeah, that's awesome,
And this would be I think a good back to
school gift for a student heading back to the classroom.
Speaker 8 (37:05):
Absolutely, who better to back up their phone than students
that are out capturing a ton of content every day
with their friends.
Speaker 7 (37:14):
It's a very cool tool for your kids to.
Speaker 8 (37:16):
Have on their backpack or on their keychain for back
to school.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Great It's called the sand disc Memory zone app to
free download. How much does the drive itself start at?
And I guess there are different capacities you can choose from.
Speaker 8 (37:30):
There are We start with the sixty four gig capacity
and we go up to one terabyte of capacity, so
it's incredible. That's a full backup of a one terabyte phone.
So you can double your capacity with a one terabyte
drive for a one time fee of one hundred and
forty five dollars in ninety nine cents. The price starts
with the sixty four gig at thirty six ninety nine,
(37:50):
so it ranges from thirty six ninety nine up to
one forty five ninety nine. With the one terabyte it
starts with sixty four goes up to one hundred and
twenty eight, two fifty six, five twelve and one terabyte offering,
so really want to give people a choice. And also
we offer it in multiple colors so that it fits
your style as well.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
SanDisk dot com has more or you can look for
the sand disk phone drive with USBC, your favorite tech retailer, Christina.
Great to chat with you as always, Thank you so
much for carving up some time to talk.
Speaker 7 (38:22):
Thank you, Mark, I really appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
And thank you again to sand Disk for being an
awesome partner on tech it Out, as well as Visa
and Norton. Yes, I know there's a tea in Norton,
but it just sounds funny to say Norton. I don't know,
Maybe it's just me. I'm thinking of the old Honeymooner's
show Norton. All right, I'll just stick to my tech
and forget the comedy, all right. So hey, I hope
(38:45):
you all have a fantastic rest of your day. Wishing
you once again a happy, healthy new year. All the
best for twenty twenty six. Thank you for your continued
support on tech it Out, and I can't wait to
report from the twenty twenty six Consumer Electronics Show in
Las Vegas on the next couple of episodes, So looking
forward to that. All the best, everyone, be well, chout
for now,
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the ever changing world
of technology? Can check it out? Can help make some
sense of it all, Breaking down geeksbeak into street speak.
Technology columnist, author, and TV personality Mark Saltzman covers consumer
technology each week for every listener. Mark tackles the latest news, reviews,
and how toos to help you understand what's hot, what's
(00:21):
not and why.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey everyone, welcome to teck it out. This is episode
four twenty six. Happy holidays everyone. I hope you all
enjoyed your Christmas if you celebrated, or perhaps Honukkah the
week before that, or maybe Kwansa, whatever you celebrated. If anything,
I hope you enjoyed some quality time with family and friends.
(00:45):
By the time you hear this episode, actually it could
be just after New Year's In fact, some stations will
air this show this episode as late as January the second,
and so all the best to you in twenty twenty
six as well. I'm getting ready to go to the
Consumer Electronics Show on January the fifth for four days,
which is where all the big tech products make its
(01:06):
initial debut. So looking forward to that, even though it's
a crazy busy show and I look forward to reporting
on all of the highlights to you and an upcoming
teck it Out. Oh before I tell you what's on
top for today, a huge thank you for all your
support on the show. It was a huge year for
tech it Out and I hope the momentum continues well
into the new year. And thank you to my sponsors Norton,
(01:27):
Visa and sand Disk. Speaking of Visa, actually, we're going
to kick off today's tech it Out by learning about
holiday sales data in this country. With all the doom
and gloom that we keep hearing about tied to the economy,
you just might be surprised to learn how healthy the
economy may be, after all, if shopping data is any indication.
After that, we're going to talk about the late Jane
(01:48):
Goodall and the tech used by her institute. When I
interview the Jane Goodall Institute's chief scientist, I had the
pleasure of sitting down with him at the recent AWS
Reinvent convention in Las Vegas, and so I'm going to
play that on all the ways tech can help capture
and analyze chimpanzee behavior, but also how the Jane Goodall
(02:08):
Institute leverages tech to tell its stories to fans around
the world. Also on today's tech it Out, how to
back up your important photos and videos from your iPhone,
you know those irreplaceable photos and home movies, perhaps without
needing to pay for iCloud storage. It's a small device
that you plug in underneath. We're going to get to
all of that and more on a new tech it Out,
(02:29):
and so let's officially kick off the new episode with
our first interview. Visa has just published its annual Retail
Spend Monitor Report, providing a comprehensive view of consumer holidays
spending across the US, Canada, and other countries. The data
analyzes seven weeks of transactions from November first through December
twenty first, including a look at year over year growth
(02:51):
both online and in store receipts, and it also examines
the top categories of spend like consumer electronics, apparel, and
so on. To give us highlights, we're joined by Visa's
principal US economists Michael Brown. Welcome to the show, Michael,
Hope you enjoyed the holidays.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I did, Thank you very much. Great to be with you.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Before we hear about the latest results. What exactly is
the report? I think it's officially called Visa Consulting and
Analytics Retail Spend Monitor. Can you give us like a
high level understanding of what this data is all about.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Absolutely, it's certainly about ful. So essentially what we do
is we start, obviously with our underlying Visa net data,
and then we have to plus that up a little
bit to make sure that we're capturing all forms of payment,
not just the cardible payments that we see on our rails.
So we aggregate that data up to make sure that
it's representative of the US as a whole. And this
(03:43):
is obviously done by our season data scientists, economist and
our consultants all working together to kind of produce this
snapshot of what happened this holiday season.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Thank you for that. I can understand for retailers why
this is really important coming out of the holidays. For example,
in the age of same day or one day shipping,
is there still interest in mall shopping? Apparently retail shopping
like brick and mortar is still significantly higher than online,
even in twenty twenty five. Can you tell us about
some of the highlights from this year.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Absolutely, so you're spot on in terms of the in
person shopping. It still dominates. Seventy three percent of our
payment volume that we saw this holiday season was face
to face in the store and so e commerce. It's
small but mighty, right, so twenty seven percent but still
growing at a decent clip. If you just take a
(04:34):
look at last year and this year, it's about eight
percent both years in terms of year on year spending growth.
So small but growing, but face to face still dominates
when it comes to holiday.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Shop That's really fascinating because I would think it would
be the other way around that maybe only twenty five
percent of shoppers are still hitting the malls and buying
in person. Would it be fair to say, then, Michael,
that the main takeaway is that holiday spending stays strong
despite I can headwinds. What did you find in terms
of volume or purchasing behavior this year with all the
(05:05):
negative economic news we keep hearing about, Well.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
You're absolutely right, we see a story of resilience. Holiday
shopping for this seven week period that we looked at
agan back on November the first was up four point
two percent on a year on your basis, and that's
on all forms of payment. If you compare that for
historic context, last year we grew about four point eight percent,
so it was a better year last year. But on
(05:31):
average over the last three years, sales were up about
four point three percent, So this is an average holiday
shopping season. Despite lower consumer confidence, despite concerns about higher prices,
we still see the consumer out there spending and engaging
this holiday season.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
That's promising. I read I think about a month ago
that there was some survey that said shoppers are pulling
back significantly on gift giving this year. So isn't exactly
the case. Can I ask you, Mike, how AI may
be shaping shopping behaviors. We hear about AI every day.
What about when it comes to buying gifts around this
time of year.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Well, that's an interesting story. So before the holiday shopping
season began, we actually deployed a nationally representative survey here
in the US to judge this very trend of AI
use this holiday season, and we found that nearly half
of shoppers were willing to start engaging with AI. Now,
this isn't all going to purchases at this point. A
(06:29):
lot of it is price comparisons, trying to find that
best deal or best bargain out there. But we are
in fact seeing quite a few users adopt AI as
a tool in the shopping experience, and probably not surprising
to you, it's gen z that kind of leads the
way on that front.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Yeah, not too surprising. I mean AI's been around in
online shopping for a while, I know what twenty years ago.
Amazon for example. You know, if you bought this, then
other customers also bought that kind of thing trying to
sell you, you know, with maybe an accessory to a
phone that you may be buying, buying a case or
cables or whatnot. But then we've seen the evolution of
that with generative AI, JENAI, with tools like Rufus, which
(07:11):
again just sticking with Amazon as an example, where you
can interact with a chatbot to get more information at
the point of checkout or just before. So really interesting.
We are joined by Michael Brown, Visa's principal US economist,
who is sharing results of Visa's annual Retail Spend Monitor report.
We're diving into data tied to pre holiday shopping in
particular in the US, Canada and elsewhere, backed by Visa
(07:34):
Net's unmatched scale representing three hundred and twenty nine billion
transactions a year. That's about nine hundred million transactions every day.
By the way, these insights help retailers and financial institutions
anticipate consumer behavior and make data driven decisions. Super important
to get that data right from the horse's mouth, so
to speak. Michael, what categories are you seeing the biggest
(07:56):
changes in spending? I would think tech is very hot,
but maybe that's not the case.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, you're right, tech is hot this season. When we
look at electronics and impliance store sales, those are up
almost six percent on a year on year basis, up
from about four percent last year, so that category is
doing well. Other categories that are performing well this season
clothing and accessory stores and then that one stop shop
(08:21):
of general merchandise stores all doing reasonably well. If you
look at the other side, we're not spending much on
the home this season. You look at home improvement stores
for example, building materials not doing quite as well this season.
They're actually down on a year on your basis. And
then furniture and home furnishings, we've seen a lot of inflation,
(08:44):
as you can imagine, in those categories. It's also fairly flat,
right around one percent growth, and that's down for seven
percent last year, so a little bit of a mixed bag,
but electronics, clothing, general merchandise all doing quite well this season.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Perhaps the pandemic, we were investing more in the home.
We weren't traveling, so spending the money on where we
were spending time in that makes sense perhaps, And why
would you say, Michael, Visa is uniquely positioned to provide
this perspective. I think you hinted earlier that it's not
just transactions when people use Visa cards, but other data
that you're analyzing. Is that fair?
Speaker 3 (09:18):
That's absolutely right. We layer data to help inform our
clients as to what is going on in the economy. Overall.
At Visa, we see roughly twenty five cents of every
dollar spent here in the United States, and so to
make sure that we're seeing the full one hundred percent,
we layer other data, such as that from the US government,
(09:39):
the Census Bureau, for an example, and we layer that
data together with our data scientists to make sure that
we're telling a representative story of what's going on here
in the US.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
A couple of times during our chat, Michael, before I
let you go, I've mentioned things like, oh, I understand that,
or you know, that's surprising. But can I ask you
if there was anything that surprised you about this year's data?
What did and what did didn't surprise you now that
you're combing through the results.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Well, I think the big storyline coming into this season
was inflation and concerns about inflation. And I think the
one thing that surprised me this season is even if
you adjusted these numbers for inflation, we're still up about
two point two percent on a year. On your basis,
that is a pretty respectable rate of growth. So I
think that is the upside surprise. What didn't surprise me, Well,
(10:27):
I just kind of mentioned it. Home improvement, home goods.
Those categories we expected to kind of be in the
dould rooms. First of all, they had a pretty good
year last year, and then of course we're all well
aware that the housing market is really not doing all
that much, so it's not too surprising that those categories
aren't performing as well this season.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Fair When we return on Tech It Out, I'm going
to ask Michael if he has any predictions for twenty
twenty six. Since the new year is here, we did
chat about AI. I expect that to still be a
significant story going forward. Even for shoppers, but would love
to get Michael's two cents on that as an economist,
So stay with us. We're going to be right back
(11:07):
with more tech it Out. I'm your host, Mark Saltzman.
This is the final show for the year, or even
though you may be hearing this on your local talk
radio station in early January or in podcast form. Either way,
grilled to have you along for the ride. We got
a lot more tech it Out coming right up after this.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Listen to check it out whenever you want to find
the Check it Out podcast, did I too, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Welcome back to check it Out everyone. Just a minute
left with Michael Brown, Visa's principal US economist. Any predictions
for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Well, I'm an economist. I love predictions, so yes, we
have plenty of those for you. If you just think
about all in spending, so not counting inflation or anything,
we're all consumer spending probably about on par with what
we saw this year, about five point two percent. If
we adjust that number for inflation, it's about two point
(12:09):
eight percent, and that's actually a little bit stronger reasoning.
We see inflation finally starting to come down a little
bit next year, and that should be positive for consumer spending.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
Anything tied to tariffs or the trade wars positively or negatively.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Well with respect to tariffs, I think that in our
view at least when you look at our inflation outlook,
we believe most of the acute inflation pressures from tariffs
are now behind us, and we think over the course
of the next twelve months, we'll continue to see these
bilateral trade deals and we're expecting inflation to ease. It
is going to be a slow process. We're not going
(12:46):
to get back to sort of benign inflation like we
had pre pandemic anytime soon, but it will feel a
little bit better as we turn the page into twenty
twenty six.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
And if anybody wants to download and read this report,
by the way, simply do a web search for twenty
twenty five VISA Retail Spend Monitor and you should be
able to find it. It is freely available to download. Michael,
thank you so much for your time. Michael Brown has
been our guest, Visa's principal US economist, fascinating discussion. All
the best for a happy and healthy twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Thank you so much Mark.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
As I mentioned earlier in the show, I recently attended
the AWS Reinvent Convention in Las Vegas. I've been playing
you interviews recorded at the show, and this next one
is no exception, so have a listen. I have the
distinct pleasure of sitting down with doctor Lillian Pintia. He
is vice president of conservation Science at the Jane Goodall Institute.
(13:39):
And you yourself, doctor Pintiat. You're base in Washington, d C.
One of many chapters around the world. Pleasure to chat
with you. By the way, thank you so much for
your time today.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Thank you for your interest in our work.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I have to tell you I studied Jane's work back
in university thirty five years ago.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Boy, that's hard to say.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
And my daughter, one of my twenty three year old twins,
is at a university it's known for primatology.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Her and I were.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Devastated to hear about the passing of Jane Goodall. I
believe this October first. You know, you've worked with her
for a quarter of a century, so my condolences. I'm
sure the whole institute is reeling from this still two
months later, but thank you for being open to talk
about your very important work at the institute.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
Thank you for your kind words.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
But what a legacy, right, six decades of work.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Yes, we are mourning the passing of our founder and
the same time celebrating her incredible life and vision. And
I'm really looking forward to connect with all the people
which she inspired over the years to continue her.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Mission, which is what Let's break that down before we
talk tech. What is the mission of the Jane Goodall Institute.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
Well, when Jane Goodall arrived in Gonbea in ninety sixties
on July fourteen and ninety sixteen and gombe which is
now Tanzania and it's now gone National park today, the
world changed. Jane through her innovative ways to observe and
connect to chimpanzees, was able to open these new doors
(15:09):
to not only understanding chimpanzees, but also understanding ourselves and
our relationship to nature, and her early discoveries truly transformed
the way how we define what does it mean to
be a man and also how we all how everything
is connected between chimpanzees and environment and also with the
(15:32):
local communities and habitats outside the.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Park, the whole ecosystem. We're all connected interconnected.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
So a big part of the Jingle Instant mission is
to continue that legacy work we are and to understand
chimpanzees and protecttionpanzees across Africa. Another important part of the
mission is to inspire everyone from local communities to use
globally to take better care of not only the animals,
(16:02):
but also the people and the shared environment and achieved
positives change in their own communities.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
So her original tools that was probably a pen and notebook.
Fast forward to today, we'll get to AI and the cloud.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
And your work here with AWS.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
We're here at AWS reinvent in Las Vegas, So obviously
you're talking a lot about tech today. But boy, have
things change when it comes to data collection and analysis,
behavioral analysis and even spreading awareness. And you've been along
for this ride for a quarter of a century as well,
have you seen a huge change?
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Absolutely, you are correct. When Jade arrived in government and
ninety six, her own the tools were just a pairable binoculars,
pen and paper. And maybe it can't but also over
the years, when we start having access to some of
the DNA technologies, when we start introducing video as a
(16:58):
tool for behavior data collection, she was very excited and
interested in combining and complimenting these tools with the traditional
ways of recording to fenzy behaviors writing it on a paper.
Jane message was very clear there is something special about
keeping up the physical writing of notes and observation of
(17:21):
champs on the paper, but also very interesting and open
of course in understanding how this incredible technologism new tools
could be used to compliment that research.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
When we return on tech it Out, we're going to
hear what those technologies are in fact, back in the
early two thousands when doctor Lillian started with the institute
and what is leveraged today. So there's a whole second
half of that interview that will play after this short break.
If you want to reach out on social media, if
you have any tech questions for me, I'll spell my
name in a moment, or maybe you've got suggestions for
(17:54):
upcoming guests or topics, you can find me on x, Instagram, Facebook,
Blue Sky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok and LinkedIn. It's Mark Saltsman,
M A R C S A L t Z M
A N and I look forward to chatting with you online.
We'll be right back to hear more about the Jane
Goodall Institute. Stick with us, We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Want to follow Mark Google Mark with a C and
Saltzman with a.
Speaker 6 (18:18):
Z breaking down geeks peak into street speak.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
This is check it out.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
To check it out with.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Technology columnist, author, and TV personality Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Welcome back to check it out. We are chatting with
doctor Lillian Pintia, VP of Conservation Science at the Jane
Goodall Institute. We're talking about the amazing work that Jane
and doctor Pinthia have been doing in your large teams
and various chapters around the world. Now, leveraging artificial intelligence
or generative AI, you can probably feed it all kinds
(19:00):
of data sets and interact with it in order to
extract more meaningful information.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
As you mentioned, importing video.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
And you can see the chimps by name and their
family patterns and maybe perhaps migration patterns and better understand
behaviors and actions, which was maybe possible before, but it
was probably painstaking work and time consuming. So no doubt
that technology is speeding up all of this. I'd love
to just ask you the second last question is can
(19:29):
this technology also be used to help us better appreciate
what these ecosystems including the life of Chimps and gumbay
and elsewhere. Just as regular fans of the Jingital Institute's work,
can we better appreciate it? Can that tech be used
for us just to lay people.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Absolutely Jame's vision if you look the way how she
designed and developed gone the long term research was not
the research for the cycle research we're in the isolation
from managing on the forest from the people, local people
which depend on this forest, so from every binning, from
the governments exactly. So from the beginning, the way Jain
(20:09):
set up and start doing the research with leveraging and
engaging local communities and valuing the local knowledge was already holistic.
And the education piece it's absolutely essential because only on
we start connecting these incredible brains of ours with our
(20:29):
compassion heart, we can truly unload the potential of this
technologies and knowledge. So I'm very excited that in addition
to all these incredible important tools we're developing with a
WS Leveraging Generative I for research, we are also talking
about having a platform which will enable to develop educational
(20:52):
materials to visualize and then enable people to interact with
some of these data to better expert and see the chimps,
but also see how the chimps connected to the environment
and to the amazing force.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I can see students talking with a generative AI assistant
conversationally like with another human, asking questions about Jane's work
and about the chimpanzees in their life and lifespan and ecosystem,
and interacting as if they were a real person. But
it's been all the work that the Institute has been
doing over the last six decades.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
Or an app that could.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Educate people about the delicate ecosystem in which the chimpanzees live,
or even a virtual reality experience donning a headset and
seemingly going with Jane on a mission in Gombey in
the forest and studying chimps from a first person perspective.
I can see how powerful that could be, all leveraging technology,
(21:47):
and I think Jane actually side note, I think she
did do something in virtual reality a couple of years
ago that I remember reporting on. So this is this
is amazing, like that it's not just used by the
Institute to better under stand and study and document chimpanzee's life,
but also sharing and understanding the ecosystem and sharing it
with local governments. But also fans around the world. Last question,
(22:09):
doctor Pinthia, I know you've been with the Institute for
a quarter of the century. What would you like to
achieve before you step down? Is there one thing that
you whether it's technology related or not. I mean, you
are obviously the chief scientist at the organization.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
Working with Jane. Having this privilege to work with Jane
for twenty five years, this is more than work for me,
and now it's a life mission.
Speaker 5 (22:35):
What's your legacy? Perhaps I already achieved it.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I'm just wondering if there's one stone that's left unturned
at this point.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Yeah, it's an emotional question because this is more than
a job. Clearly, once you join Jji Jane with the
US into family, there's many colleagues on mine. Cool sure,
like myself spend even more than twenty five years, and
as somebody who worked with Jane very closely on a
(23:05):
daily basis, talking about science, application of science, supporting using
science and technology to support our research, conservation, animal welfare,
community led development, and our roots and shoots programs. I
feel privileged. In the same time, lots of obligation, this
(23:26):
is the word. I feel an obligation to engage and
listen and work with as many people as possible globally
to understand how Jane's vision changed their lives and better
understand how we can work together to continue Jane's mission
(23:47):
moving forward. And we wanted to see gone belong to
their research going on for another sixty five years with
many more incredible discoveries ahead less.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, no doubt your work is helping to contribute to that,
Doctor Pintiat's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Continued success,
keep up the great work.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Thank you, Thank you so much, and thank you for
your interest in our work and for this opportunity to
share it.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Hey, I wanted to take a moment to thank Norton
and give them a shout out. They are an official
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(25:42):
out when we return on tech it out. If you're
an iPhone user, you're definitely going to want to tune
into this. Did you know that there is a small
memory stick that you can plug into the bottom of
your iPhone that will automatically back up your irreplaceable photos
and videos, because otherwise you're going to need to pay
for a monthly cloud service for backup, which can really
(26:06):
add up, and once you stop paying, your without your files.
So this is a great solution, so keychain size gadget.
So we're going to learn about that with sand Disk.
When we return on teck it out. Stick with us.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
We'll be right back breaking down geek speaking into street speak.
Check it out Holosted by Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Welcome back everyone, you're listening to check it out. One
of my favorite tech companies, sand Disk, has just launched
a new mobile storage solution, aptly named sand Disc Phone
Drive with USB C. To find out what it can do,
who it's for, and how it works, we're joined on
the line by Christina Garza, director of consumer product Marketing
at sand Disk. Welcome back to the show, Christina, good
(26:57):
to chat with you again.
Speaker 7 (26:58):
Hi, Mark, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Great Before we talked about this new drive, Let's just
take a step back and tell us a bit about
sand Disc. The company is now separate from Western Digital.
Is that right it's parent company at one point.
Speaker 7 (27:11):
Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 8 (27:11):
Sand Disk has been the pioneer in flash memory and
for almost forty years now, we've been trusted by professional photographers,
professional video makers, business pros, and everyday consumers alike. We
deliver a wide range of innovative, future ready storage solutions
for really every use case you can imagine across consumer
(27:34):
storage needs. Our solutions are focused on delivering thoughtful and
powerful products so that you can get your tasks done,
whether that be daily or monthly, or if you're a professional,
using it every single minute of your day. And we're
really focused on delivering leading combination of speed, capacity, and
data protection to make sure you get the very best
(27:56):
solution for your storage needs.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
And I'd also add reliability that is so important. I've
reviewed lots of flash storage solutions over the years, and
sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. And when it's your data,
you can't mess around. So you've kind of already answered this, Christina.
I was going to ask you why sand disc when
there's so many other companies out there, whether it's your
solid state drives or SSDs, your USB drives or thumb drives,
(28:19):
so some people call them micro SD cards.
Speaker 8 (28:21):
Why sand Disc, Yeah, we really try and have focused
on learning what consumers need so that we can respond
with the right product to fit those needs.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
You know.
Speaker 7 (28:31):
Our mission here at sand Disc is to enable people to.
Speaker 8 (28:34):
Create, experience and really preserve more amazing things that really
matter to them from a data perspective and a digital
content perspective, whether that's the right memory card for the
camera you use, or a really robust USB portfolio with
a variety of flash drives that you can choose what's
right for you, all the way through a range of
portable SSDs for every kind of use case, you know.
(28:57):
And we even deliver fun collaborations like with Nintendo, PlayStation,
Xbox and other industry leaders within the consumer space because
we really want to make sure consumers are getting what's
right for them and what makes them feel good at the.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
End of the day, even the Smurfs. Sorry, I saw
a video on YouTube and I know the Nintendo flashcards
for the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch too, that's great,
and yeah, some of your solutions for inside the console
like PS five or Xbox, so all great stuff all around.
So without further Ado. Let's now hear about the new
sand Disc phone drive with USB C. What's it all about.
Speaker 8 (29:31):
Yeah, we're so excited about this because when I look
back at just a few years ago technology and storage tools,
they always felt like they were four pros or for
tech gurus, or required a little bit more technical know how.
And what we're so excited about with these new SanDisk
phone Drive with USBC is that it's for everyone, and
we've really focused on making it simple, easy for anyone
(29:54):
to use.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
That concept of it just works.
Speaker 8 (29:58):
And you know, with the addition of you BC ports
on iPhones and Android phones, I think it's been around
a little bit longer on Android phones, but the addition
on iPhones has really opened up a whole new world
for every phone owner out there. Cameras are capturing incredible
photos and video, higher resolution four K video, and all
(30:18):
of this means larger file sizes, and you fill.
Speaker 7 (30:22):
Up your phone so quickly with everything.
Speaker 8 (30:24):
You want to capture every single moment, even the bad ones,
and you don't want to spend too much time deleting,
but you do have this constant worry of what if
my phone fills up, do I have to spend more
on iCloud is that the only way and what really
trying to deliver with this product is another way to
complement what you may do today, but give you another
(30:44):
way of preserving your content on your phone, whether it
be backing up your photos and videos.
Speaker 7 (30:50):
You can even back up your.
Speaker 8 (30:51):
Contacts because you just never know what's going to happen,
and peace of mind really goes a long way, especially
with that device you carry with you wear every day.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
So you've touched on two interesting trends here. One is
that Apple is smart and they know that you're going
to run out of storage, so you think you have
to pay for more iCloud storage per month to hold
all those photos and videos as a backup solution. It's
smart because when you buy an iPhone, it's limited in
how much local storage there is and you can't expand it.
And Android has followed suit too with the inability to
(31:24):
add more storage with a micro SD card. But you've
figured out a solution there, which we're going to get to.
And then the second trend is that I think when
people think of USB drives and all that, they think
of computers, but we're increasingly becoming a mobile society where
a lot of the computing that we're doing is on
our phone or maybe a tablet, and not just a
laptop or desktop. Maybe for the work world, sure, but
(31:44):
we're increasingly using our mobile devices, and so you've also
changed with the times. Your USB solution, as the name suggests,
USB C fits all modern iPhones and Android devices. So
can you walk us through how it works. It looks
like a thumb drive, but it snaps into the bottom
of your smartphone exactly.
Speaker 8 (32:04):
It looks like a thumb drive, same concept as flash drive,
which is why we call it phone drive, to be
honest with you, is that we don't want to imply
that it's really different than how people are used to
using flash drives with their computer. But as you said,
your phone has become your computer in many cases, and
so now with a sand disk phone drive small, it's portable.
It has a key ring holder so you can snap
(32:26):
it onto your keychain. It's got a really great slider
so that you can protect the connector if you're not
using it, you can just slide it away so that
it stays intact.
Speaker 7 (32:35):
So it's really simple to take with you everywhere. But
whether you're.
Speaker 8 (32:38):
Trying to move content or you're trying to back up content.
We're doing it all through the sand Disk Memory Zone app.
That's truly the backbone of this product. We build hardware,
We've been famous for our hardware, and now our software
is really coming into play to deliver that incredible experience.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
That again is very simple. You plug it into your phone,
it pops open.
Speaker 8 (32:59):
The sand Disk app and it automatically will back up
if that's.
Speaker 7 (33:02):
What you set up.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Love it more with Christina Garza from sand Disc when
we return on check it out, stay with us.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
Follow Mark Saltzman on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, listen
to check it out whenever you want.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
We are chatting with Christina Garza, director of Consumer Product
Marketing at sand Disk. We're learning all about the apply
named sand Disc Phone drive with USB C. No more
lightning connectors at the bottom of the iPhone. It's all
one standard universal port USBC. So this drive works with
all modern smartphones. And let's say you do want to
transfer a bunch of photos or videos following a vacation
(33:51):
onto your laptop. You can then unplug the drive and
then also plug it into a USB sport on the
side of your laptop.
Speaker 8 (33:59):
Yes, so you can sim unplug from your phone, plug
into the USBC port on your computer, access it like
a normal drive and move content however you need to.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
And it does work with tablets too, right like iPads
and Android tablets it.
Speaker 8 (34:14):
Will and I know on iPad it'll recognize it as
a normal external drive. You can use the SanDisk Memory
Zone app on a tablet today, but it will only
show up in mobile mode. We're working through updates for
better tablet experience. Current state is it'll show up on
mobile mode, but if you don't want to use the
app on a tablet, it'll show up as an external
(34:34):
drive really easily in your files.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Would you say this drive is primarily for content creators,
those who are shooting video, maybe they're podcasters or streamers
or you know TikTokers that kind of thing, or really
for anyone who wants to back up, and again it's
not just media like photos and videos, but as you said,
your contacts as well.
Speaker 7 (34:51):
It's a truly made for everyone's solution.
Speaker 8 (34:54):
Whether you're taking a lot of family photos of your
children or a family reunion, or if you are a
content creator, this is a perfect tool so that you
can easily back up all your content, move it to
your laptop to do editing upload from there.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
It's a tool for everyone.
Speaker 8 (35:12):
Content creators definitely are the core content generators and so
there's a capacity need.
Speaker 7 (35:18):
This product will really enable them to do quick backup.
Speaker 8 (35:21):
But really this is finally a tool for everyone who
has an iPhone or an Android with type C to
do what they need to do with their phone to
preserve their content, to do backups, to move files without
the hassle of only having the cloud as an option.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
So you first download the app, you simply do a
search for the word sand disk. Then you insert the
drive and it'll scan your phone for your photos.
Speaker 8 (35:44):
With the sand Disco Memory Zone app. Once it's downloaded,
you plug in the drive. It'll launch the app and
it'll walk you through setup. You can name your drive,
it'll show you the name of your phone. It'll show
you how much capacity you have remaining on your phone,
and then you can walk through a setup to select
whether you want automatic backup turned on, and in that
(36:05):
case it'll run. If you choose yes, it'll run your
first backup. It'll give you an indicator bar that says
how much more time you have left in your backup,
how many images, videos, and files. It's actually backing up
and once that's set up from an auto backup perspective,
from that point forward, every time you plug the drive in,
it'll auto launch the app and begin the auto backup
(36:26):
for anything that's new. If you don't want auto backup,
no problem, leave that toggle to the left, and then
you can manually move content. You can manually go and
select files, photos, videos that you'd like to move, either
copy them from your phone to the drive, or literally
move them from the phone to the drive to free
up more space. So there's a lot of different ways
(36:48):
that you can manage your content through this easy to
use app.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Cool. Yeah, I was going to ask you if it
does that complete backup every time, but it only looks
for what's new or changed. Probably that's correct. Yeah, that's awesome,
And this would be I think a good back to
school gift for a student heading back to the classroom.
Speaker 8 (37:05):
Absolutely, who better to back up their phone than students
that are out capturing a ton of content every day
with their friends.
Speaker 7 (37:14):
It's a very cool tool for your kids to.
Speaker 8 (37:16):
Have on their backpack or on their keychain for back
to school.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Great It's called the sand disc Memory zone app to
free download. How much does the drive itself start at?
And I guess there are different capacities you can choose from.
Speaker 8 (37:30):
There are We start with the sixty four gig capacity
and we go up to one terabyte of capacity, so
it's incredible. That's a full backup of a one terabyte phone.
So you can double your capacity with a one terabyte
drive for a one time fee of one hundred and
forty five dollars in ninety nine cents. The price starts
with the sixty four gig at thirty six ninety nine,
(37:50):
so it ranges from thirty six ninety nine up to
one forty five ninety nine. With the one terabyte it
starts with sixty four goes up to one hundred and
twenty eight, two fifty six, five twelve and one terabyte offering,
so really want to give people a choice. And also
we offer it in multiple colors so that it fits
your style as well.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
SanDisk dot com has more or you can look for
the sand disk phone drive with USBC, your favorite tech retailer, Christina.
Great to chat with you as always, Thank you so
much for carving up some time to talk.
Speaker 7 (38:22):
Thank you, Mark, I really appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
And thank you again to sand Disk for being an
awesome partner on tech it Out, as well as Visa
and Norton. Yes, I know there's a tea in Norton,
but it just sounds funny to say Norton. I don't know,
Maybe it's just me. I'm thinking of the old Honeymooner's
show Norton. All right, I'll just stick to my tech
and forget the comedy, all right. So hey, I hope
(38:45):
you all have a fantastic rest of your day. Wishing
you once again a happy, healthy new year. All the
best for twenty twenty six. Thank you for your continued
support on tech it Out, and I can't wait to
report from the twenty twenty six Consumer Electronics Show in
Las Vegas on the next couple of episodes, So looking
forward to that. All the best, everyone, be well, chout
for now,
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