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]