Dana Blankenhorn's been talking about the single chip mobile for a little while. Now it turns out that Texas Instruments and Nokia are to build phones based on TI's new single chip cellular solution.

Apart from being damn cheap - and being able, as a result to market to high growth markets like india and china there are other interesting things about single chip cellular:

But there's something else involved here. When cellular telephony is reduced to a simple chip, it can become an ingredient in anything else.

For instance. Let's say you have a golf course. You use a lot of water, but you waste a lot, too. Now, throw some moisture sensors out there and link them via one-chip cellular. The bandwidth needs are modest -- the sensor says "water me" or "turn off the water" as needed. Your hardware costs just dropped to the floor, and the system probably pays for itself on just a few months' water bills.

Anything that needs to be monitored, over a long distance, can now be monitored, and results transmitted, over a cellular link, because remember (in most cities) cellular is ubiquitous.

Imagine what this can do for farmers? They can monitor conditions in their fields in real-time, addressing concerns immediately.

Interesting stuff - can i have a cell phone in my mp3 sunglasses please?