HP Labs has announced a project that aims to be a "Central Nervous System for the Earth" (CeNSE): a R&D program to build a planetwide sensing network, using billions of tiny accelerometers that detect motion and vibrations, and later, ones for light, temperature, barometric pressure, airflow and humidity.

Researchers are exploring ways to turn cell phones into distributed sensors for detecting earthquakes, predicting traffic patterns, and other possibilities for a planet-wide network of these miniature travelling computers.

Researchers are looking into using cell phones to measure the temperature and humidity or pick up unseen environmental contaminants like air pollution, UV levels, and pollen count in our immediate surroundings.

NASA and Cisco Systems are developing "Planetary Skin" -- a marriage of satellites, land sensors and the Internet in an online collaborative platform -- to capture, analyze and interpret global environmental data.

Intel is developing self-powered microchips that could be implanted in the human body, a mobile phone, a building, or anyplace else where people wish to gather information.

Researchers at Purdue University are finding that expensive radiation detectors may not be as effective as widely distributed chips in cell phones.

The U.S. government is researching whether the best defense against a chemical, biological or radiological attack might one day be right in everyone's hands - or on their ears.

The U.S. is developing a set of palm-sized, networked sensors that can be scattered around, and work together to "detect, classify, localize, and track dismounted combatants under foliage and in urban environments." It's part of a larger Defense Department effort to establish "military omniscience" and "ubiquitous monitoring."

Sensor networks promise a mammoth extension of the Internet. Within five years, these sensor computers could be shrunk to the size of a grain of sand and deployed over much of the globe, resulting in thousands of new networks.

Military researchers are developing what could be the next internet -- a network of millions of tiny but intelligent embedded sensors.