Microsoft flashes fat mobe wallet, whispers: 'Just rub our hub' Microsoft has showed off its Windows Phone Wallet - which sits in version 8 alongside the Games and People Hubs, but stores payment and loyality cards rather than games and business cards. However, the software giant would prefer not to talk about NFC - the wireless data transfer tech behind pay-by-wave - or Windows Phone for …
Not seen Oyster cards then? Because there's no printing involved at all, there, and according to the papers today, they (or something very similar) are about to be rolled out up and down the country.
I haven't seen an actual paper ticket inside London in over 10 years, except for the occasional tourist. And the guards have electronics readers to check where you got on and that you haven't forgotten to declare your journey correctly (e.g. didn't doink in at one of the gateway stations to things like National Rail etc. that cost more to use).
Paper tickets aren't necessary. In fact, they're even quite easy to fake (mag-stripe included). But faking an entry on your smartphone that will correspond with what the train guard's handheld reader says it should be is a bit more tricky.
More likely, though, the primary hassle will be bring thrown off a train because your battery has died and you can't show your ticket.
I haven't seen an actual paper ticket inside London in over 10 years, except for the occasional tourist.
How bizarre, I've seen thousands of people using paper tickets in London. If you buy a rail travelcard, you currently cannot put this on Oyster. If your travelcard includes tube travel, then this is a paper ticket you have to put in and take out of every ticket gate you pass through,
If your travelcard is an annual purchase (usually on a company loan), this means putting a paper ticket through at least 880 ticket machines (4 a day, 220 work days). The ticket will normally give out after about 100 passes through, and be no longer machine readable, and you have to go to the train station, queue up to talk to the man and get another one.
Masses of people working in the city have tickets like this. I spend as little time as possible on the tube, but get on or off anywhere City and you are guaranteed to see a paper ticket used.
Are they running out of generic terms? This ones been used already--
"Microsoft Wallet can be used to store address and payment information for online shopping. It is included with typical and full installations of Internet Explorer 4.x, the full installation of Internet Explorer 5, and it is also included in Microsoft Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition."
"But the network operators are planning to fund NFC SIMs by renting out space on the SIM to loyalty schemes [....]"
Ugh. Is anybody else out there as tired of this crap as I am? I hate how every [grocery store|gas station|video rental shop|...] has this "Do you have one of our cards? Do you want one? You would have saved $$$ if you had one!" crap ("Gee, thanks for telling me how little you value my privacy, if that's all you are willing to give me to be able to track my every purchase with you. And thanks for telling me how much you are overcharging me because I won't play along."). I purposefully do NOT shop with one of the larger grocery store chains here (Krogers a.k.a. Dillons) because of that crap (and I prefer to support the smaller independent grocers).
And now they all seem to want to make it as easy (for them!) as possible to track my purchases, even unto making it possible to track without my having to take action ("We can just scan the card in your [wallet|phone], no need for you to bother your pretty little head about it! Stay Asleep! Consume and Reproduce!")
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