After Alberto Herrera , chief executive of fledgling wireless-sensor network company Medida , pitched his firm to a panel of four top-tier Silicon Valley venture capitalists--in front of a standing-room-only crowd of some 350 people-- Josh Stein of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson was so impressed that he asked Herrera to set up a meeting.

FORBES: Magazine Article

That means 500 million GPS phones walking around in cities and towns, creating a powerful two-way sensor network that Nokia and others can tap for selling targeted advertising, friend-finder services and city guides.

FORBES: Nokia Redraws The Map

These "environmental sensor stations" would use the phone network to offer real-time and hyper-local records of the city's rain levels, pollution and other environmental conditions.

BBC: New York's phone boxes get new lease of life

Each node contained a small processor, a sensor and a low-powered radio with just enough power to talk to adjacent nodes and the network was just smart enough to reconfigure itself to reroute data whenever one node got damaged.

FORBES: How Sensor Networks Add to Context

The material uses what the researchers are calling 'shape-memory' polymers and have a fiber optic network embedded within them which acts as the damage sensor as well as the heat delivery system.

ENGADGET: Shape-memory polymer knows when it's hurt, fixes itself

In fact, Mitsumi says these can be integrated into the RF sensor network of large air conditioning facilities, as an RF transmitter can run on very little power these days -- even less than a calculator.

ENGADGET: Mitsumi exhibits micro-vibration power generator and batteryless RF switch (video)