Oyster cards could be turned into jewellery, or hidden away in a mobile phone's battery compartment, a student's project has revealed.
Chris Woebken, a design student at the Royal College of Art put an Oyster card in a poit filled with nail varnish remover to dissolve the plastic and was left with the RFID tag and the coiled wire of the antenna.
He then tried paying for his transport around London using the stripped down Oyster card and had no problems.
The wire could even be bent into shapes other than the simple rectangle it was shaped into on the card.
Now, others are experimenting with turning the small device into other shapes, such as jewellery and a magic wand which could be used to pay the fare without having to carry a card.
Some Barclaycard customers can already use their bank cards as oyster cards as well, and a system which would allow phones to be used to tap in and out are in development.
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