We all know how ubiquitous mobile phones have become. In poorer countries, where communication technologies have been slow to arrive, the take up of mobile telephony is nothing less than breathtaking. But, the future brilliance of mobile phones lies not in their communication ability, but in the add ons that can be made to these little computers we all carry around with us. A decade from now, mobile phones will be personal digital devices hooked up with tens and hundreds of functions.

I recently blogged about the ability of MP3 players to replace stethoscopes - of course, any MP3 and microphone enbaled mobile phone could do the same. I also recently read about mobile phones being used by diabetics - they have a little needle embedded in them. A click of a button, the needle pops out of the phone and is inserted into the skin, the insulin reading is done by the phone and displayed, and the diabetic knows immediately what has to be done (sorry, I am not diabetic and don’t know exactly how it works - but the key is that the technology to do the test diabetics must do daily is embedded in the cellphone).

But, now graduate students have found a way to turn their cellphones into microscopes.

It all began when Dan Fletcher, a professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, gave his students an assignment to try and get their mobile phone cameras to enlarge images. They were able to create microscopes! Now, they’ve developed a really cheap add on to a mobile phone called the CellScope. Watch a YouTube video here.

The bottom line is that this thing is so good it can differentiate red and white blood cells in a blood stain. The first medical use the students put it to was to diagnose malaria. So, with a simple add on to a standard cellphone, a rural medical officer can take a blood sample, take a magnified picture of it, MMS that picture to any lab in the world, get an instant diagnosis of the disease and get details sent back via the mobile phone. The cost is miniscule, the advance in medicine for those communities magnificent.

And, the pictures can be stored digitally, creating a client database that is entirely mobile.

Other applications are obvious - and almost endless. It gives a new meaning to having a doctor on call!

The future most certainly belongs to the mobile phone, and the clever people who will continue to find ways to make it more useful than simply calling home.