O2 has teamed up with Nokia to embed the Oyster swipe card used by London commuters into a mobile phone with a trial set to start next year.
The mobile phones will include a built-in RFID chip that allows users to pay for train tickets by swiping the handset over the Oyster card reader. The cost of the ticket would either be deducted from a top-up account linked to the phone, similar to pay-as-you-go mobile phone services, or be added to the customer's monthly phone bill.
The Oyster card scheme has already been enlarged to include credit card functionality that enables small purchases in selected shops and Barclays is also working with Nokia and O2 to enable mobile phones to be used for the same purpose by integrating the swipe card functionality into the phones.
View: Independent News
The mobile phones will include a built-in RFID chip that allows users to pay for train tickets by swiping the handset over the Oyster card reader. The cost of the ticket would either be deducted from a top-up account linked to the phone, similar to pay-as-you-go mobile phone services, or be added to the customer's monthly phone bill.
The Oyster card scheme has already been enlarged to include credit card functionality that enables small purchases in selected shops and Barclays is also working with Nokia and O2 to enable mobile phones to be used for the same purpose by integrating the swipe card functionality into the phones.
View: Independent News
If you have to be afraid of muggers, I recommend you look at fixing issues in your society rather than blaming companies who want to make things easier.
Plus this won't change anything - you can easily cancel your subs and report your phone stolen. You're just as likely to be nicked now as it it will be after this.
So, in fact, for some, this makes theft less of an issue.
hmmmm.
Muggers wait outside stations for people to come out and use their mobile phones, so they can swip them. This just means that the ammount of theft will go up.
Basically a mugger may or may not end up with much by taking a wallet, however taking a mobile phone tends to get them more money than they MIGHT make by taking a wallet.
In most cases people take a wallet for the cash inside and not always the credit card. A mobile phone can be exchanged for cash quickly and easily, more so than a credit card etc, so a phone being used as an Oyster would be more valuable than a wallet in itself.
Almost NO mobile phone-based things like this work (i.e. car parking, congestion charge payments etc).
Almost NO mobile phone-based things like this work (i.e. car parking, congestion charge payments etc).
Er, what? Those are done by phoning numbers with your mobile, not swiping it over a reader...
Making things needlessly complicated for no reason puts it in a similar boat though. If it's anything to do with mobile phones, it probably isn't gonna work properly. Basically.
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