Everybody's a designer at heart, even if the most you've designed is that Valentine's Day card you gave your teacher back in first grade. Gadget designs, on the other hand, require a very specific gadget-design-oriented mind in order for them to be noticed by the average consumer. Think iPod. RIM's Blackberry.

Sleek, sexy stuff.

If you're aspiring to be one of the people who design these uber-gadgets, you might want to take a close look at gadget blog Gizmodo's gadget designer guide (or "How to Please the Internet"). The guide asks such hard-hitting questions as "Does your gadget have a lot of buttons?", "Does it help avoid the cruelties of life?", and "Can it do more than three things?"

Kidding aside, the guide actually does have a lot of valid points, as exemplified by this right here:

Finally, is it actually useful? Sure, breasts are nice—but so is usefulness (which isn't to say that breasts are useless—just that you probably don't need to have your LCD screen covered in them). It's all good and well to make a bright, colorful gadget with 17 features and a promise to "revolutionize the world"—but you've really got to mean it.

The market is as oversaturated with useless gadgets as the Internet is oversaturated with videos of naked people—make something useful, something that helps people or impresses them, and your gadget is a guaranteed success.

Click on the "read" link below and get started on your way to designing the ultimate uber-1337 gadget. Or at least something that looks cool.

We have featured several innovations and gadgetries which involves making the lives of those who are physically blind more convenient. Some talked of seeing machines for the blind, and there is one that says robotics could cure blindness. Now to add to the list of possible solutions is a method of seeing by making use of sounds.

The technology is part of a wave of software and hardware which has evolved as laptops, mobile phones and PDAs converge into powerful handheld computers running common operating systems such as Windows Mobile 5.0 or the RIM Blackberry platform.

One good example of this innovation is the "seeing by sound technology", a brainchild of Dutch scientist Peter Meijer. What it does is configures signals from a video camera processed via computer into a series of sounds. To the untrained ear it sounds like a series of roars hisses and bleeps, but with a little time users begin to discern shapes and shadows based on the texture and density of the soundscape.

You may think that this one is a hoax, but there are actual blind users who have said that this technology made them "see" distinct shapes such as that of a coke bottle, a soccer and a rugby ball. Another user mentioned that now, when she's doing her groceries, she can now distinguish red and green peppers. These may mean peanuts to us people who are fortunate to have a good pair of seeing eyes, but to the blind, these are big deals.

Before the "seeing by sound technology" was designed for stationary use only since it operates on desktop computers. But now due to technological advaces such as smartphones and PDAs, handheld devices can now help the blind in going on with his/ her  daily life with less hassles. A good example is Marcia Cumming, a technical writer, uses an iPaq 4150 to run Trekker and Maestro software from L.A.-based Humanware. Maestro is a mobile software which reads documents to her, such as any notes she types into her mobile device or the text in documents. She can also download talking books, which are then digitally enhanced with chapter guides and bookmarks.

Also, she now has the ability to navigate in almost any city using Trekker, a Ground Positioning Satellite (GPS)-linked software. Trekker takes widely available mapping software one step further for the blind. It voices her location, points of interest and gives directions. Indeed, it's always a good thing when technological advancements can alleviate the lives of some of the physically challenged.

The Motorola Q is being touted as "the coolest smartphone in America."  Besides being a cell phone, it will play your music files and allow you to access your e-mail - all for a price tag starting at $200. The downside is that the service plan - by Verizon - is pricey.

At 2.5 inches long, a 1/2 inch thick and weighing in at 4-ounces, the Q has a 320-by-240 pixel screen and a raised, angled QWERTY keyboard.  Like the BlackBerry, there is a side scroll wheel and button,  and it shares the Palm Treo's  five-way cursor pad above the keyboard. Both can be used for navigating, so Q can be used with one hand without too much trouble.

Sound quality for both music and voice is reportedly excellent, and features the wireless Bluetooth technology. And, as if this were not enough, you can take reasonably good pictures with its 1.3-megapixel camera.  49 megabytes of on-board storage will allow you to keep a good number of your photos until downloading them to your PC. Battery life is 5 hours and 25 minutes.

The biggest downside is the cost of the service plans; Verizon's least expensive runs $79 a month for 450 minutes, so unless this comes down a bit, don't expect this PDA to sweep the country just yet.