Mobile-pay trial in London; Japan laughs at the primitive cavemen

If you’ve ever been to London, you’ve taken the Tube, and if you’ve taken the Tube, you probably got yourself an Oyster Card, that convenient wireless super-ticket. Well, those crazy Britons are taking another step towards being a futuristic, Blade-Runner-esque utopia with this trial run of a mobile-phone-based payment system. Oyster and credit card functionality have been built into a set of special handsets, which a few lucky Londoners will be able to deduct money from at various locations by simply passing the phone over a reader. Of course, in Tokyo, this functionality has been in place for years, and the Japanese have moved on to such things as having the phone transform into a personal robot companion, or a flying car. I guess we’ve got a long way to go in the USA, not even having decent 3G – or even a subway system, where I am. Time to move.

Pay-by-mobile phone trial starts in London [Reuters]