These microchip press-on nails will ease your subway commute
LONDON -- When it comes to commuting, the struggle is so very real.
And even in our desperation to escape the sardine tin conditions of the Tube, our blasted travel cards are always nowhere to be found.
Thankfully, one British student has come up with a piece of wearable tech that could end all our commuting woes, and it's pretty damn stylish.
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Lucie Davis invented a set of press-on nails that double as an Oyster card --Transport for London's (TfL) official travel card -- which enable you to quite literally touch in an out of the Tube.
The 22-year-old designed the nails as part of her degree in jewellery design at Central Saint Martins, London.
The nails carry the same radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that allows you to enter and exit the London transport network and top up. Naturally, the nails are also colour coordinated to match the iconic Oyster card design.
“Transport for London says you’re not supposed to take apart Oyster cards, so I checked with them first, and they let me do it," Davis told the Evening Standard. It worked perfectly."
Davis has also been in touch with TfL about potentially rolling out her design to the public.
“It’s early days and it’s just a conversation but it’s exciting. And people keep telling me what a great idea this is and that they’re always losing their cards,” Davis continued.
Davis isn't alone in experimenting with microchips. One Swedish company recently implanted chips in employees' hands, enabling staff members to open doors and operate the photocopier without using traditional passes.
And Barclays' new wearable payment device, bPay, allows you to turn just about anything into a contactless card using a sticker containing a near field communication (NFC) chip.
Here's hoping Davis' plan gets TfL's approval.
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Rachel Thompson is the Features Editor at Mashable. Rachel's second non-fiction book The Love Fix: Reclaiming Intimacy in a Disconnected World is out now, published by Penguin Random House in Jan. 2025. The Love Fix explores why dating feels so hard right now, why we experience difficult emotions in the realm of love, and how we can change our dating culture for the better.
A leading sex and dating writer in the UK, Rachel has written for GQ, The Guardian, The Sunday Times Style, The Telegraph, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Stylist, ELLE, The i Paper, Refinery29, and many more.
Rachel's first book Rough: How Violence Has Found Its Way Into the Bedroom And What We Can Do About It, a non-fiction investigation into sexual violence was published by Penguin Random House in 2021.
