Mobile phones are often in the news for their connectivity. But if you’ve not heard of cell phones involved in tele-radiology and tele-dermatology, you soon will. The on-board megapixel camera ina  phone can scan a leg wound and send it off to a physician for diagnosis.

A Swiss study, comparing face-to-face evaluation of leg wounds and remote consultation found the latter to be very effective, reducing patients’ hospital stay.

Another development in Sweden, is to attach a disposable microfluidic chip to a cell phone and use it to analyze a blood sample. LG has a phone for diabetes patients that can monitor their bloood sugar! The information can be then sent to a healthcare provider via text message or email .

On a ligter note there’s something called MusicID, from Cingular. A subscriber dials #43 (which are the letters I and D preceded by the pound sign) from his handset when he hears a song the radio. He needs to hold up the phone the radio for a few seconds after that. The network then checks the song against a database of some 3 million pieces of music, identifies it and sends back a text message with the name of the song and the artist. It’s like an audio Google search! It costs $.99 per song identified.

And then it gets funky. Another service called MusiCall lets someone buy and send a song to the cellphone of someone (this service is available in the US only.)  You can send the song with a personalized message attached, too! It costs $1.50 per track.