Scott Thompson, President of PayPal, envisions a future where you can buy your milk by using a touch-screen on your fridge or buy movie tickets simply by touching a movie poster display.  At this week's Web 2.0 Summit the company will be opening its APIs to developers in two weeks.  PayPal will become the first global online payment service to open its platform to third-party developers.  The platform has been named "PayPal X",  which is a reference to PayPal's x.com--their first development platform from 1999.  

"Developer innovation has been stifled until now because it`s so hard to make money," said Osama Bedier, VP of PayPal Platform and Emerging Technology.  "It's not about technology, it's about solving fundamental challenges people face when trying to pay or get paid."

Details about the APIs will be released November 3rd at PayPal's first developers conference which has already sold out.  Conference attendees will get a preview of PayPal X's plans for 2010 and they will also have a chance to work on their ideas with PayPal engineers.  The event is one hot ticket because attendees will also receive early access to PayPal's new APIs.  The rest of us will not gain access until 2010.

"By opening up its payments platform, PayPal is essentially giving developers
the tools to easily monetize their ideas, which has been a long-time challenge,"
added Dana Stalder, general partner, Matrix Partners.

PayPal also has a new page for developers on its website.  You can follow the PayPal X Innovate 2009 conference here.