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Will GoldieBlox have enough inventory after the Super Bowl?

(Credit: Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

So you're a little startup.

You employ 15 people and you think you've got a great idea. Oh, and then someone has the bright idea to run an ad during the Super Bowl.

Are they insane? Not at all. All you have to do is enter a competition against 15,000 other small businesses, sponsored by Intuit.

But then GoldieBlox wins, and it feels like the three bears might eat its lunch.

GoldieBlox is a company that makes engineering toys for girls. The company became something of a love object for Kickstarter donors in 2012 and now looks forward to a bright and intelligent future.

But with online voting having propelled it into the largest and harshest commercial light possible, can its 15 employees cope?

Goldiblox founder Debbie Sterling -- oh, of course she went to Stanford; it's compulsory for startup CEOs -- promises that her company is ready.

She told the San Francisco Chronicle: "As soon as we found out, we started ramping up production. We added a second factory in China to produce enough toys to meet demand."

Such is her confidence that her employees will be at a Super Bowl party in New York on Sunday. Meanwhile, with hours left before the game and the commercials get under way, the Goldieblox site has limited itself to this message, in a jumbo font size: "Big Game = Big Traffic!" It continues on to say that "GoldieBlox engineers are hard at work" and points Web surfers to its presence on Facebook and Twitter.

Though teaser ads have been released, it's not yet been revealed what the actual 30-second spot will entail.

I venture that it won't feature the music of the Beastie Boys. In its earlier days, GoldieBlox used a parody of the not exactly girl-powerish Beastie song "Girls" to accompany a YouTube video.

The video was popular, but when GoldieBlox realized that the Beasties didn't like their songs to be used in ads, it changed the music. However, it also tried to make the legal claim that its own parody was fair use.

Now the Beasties have turned, in some eyes, slightly beastly by countersuing.

As Variety reports, the counterclaim uses some very pointed language: "Unfortunately, rather than developing an original advertising campaign to inspire its customers to create and innovate, GoldieBlox has instead developed an advertising campaign that condones and encourages stealing from others."

Sterling seems bemused that it has all come to this. She told the Chronicle: "The reason we did it in the first place was to create a powerful anthem for girls. That's what we stand for and are all about."

Sometimes, disruption can cause ruptures instead of rapture.

In any case, it wouldn't be proper startup without some exciting legal issues.

Lenovo hired a man of space.

(Credit: Lenovo/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Ask a real person what they think of Lenovo, and I fancy they'll say: "Oh, they're all right."

Or perhaps: "They're around a lot. They work. Um, yeah."

Few would leap in the air, shake a fist and say: "Lenovo? Oh, yeah. I won't have anything else in my house."

While the company sells generally well-received products, it doesn't yet enjoy the emotional connection of an Apple or a Samsung. New products coming from Lenovo don't engender rabid excitement. There is no Lenovo-virus.

You might have missed this, but Lenovo launched a campaign in 2011 called " This would have presumably been contrasted with the zeitgeist of the majority of us who don't.

The doers didn't seem to be moved.

No company spends Hollywood money to hire Ashton Kutcher when its image is already set.

Some might find it optimistic to place your fate in a face that has already been associated with selling another tech brand -- Nikon.

Was your heart lifted by the first ad the company produced for its Yoga tablet? Yes, it featured Kutcher. Oh, you missed it entirely. Ah.

This is a challenge not to be underestimated. For all the good business decisions and interesting products Lenovo has made, it still hasn't entered into the US consciousness as a necessary brand to consider.

Now Lenovo has bought Motorola.

Here's a brand that used to enjoy some deep commitment. When Google bought Motorola and some promising phones were released, Motorola positioned itself as the non-Apple.

Apple was a big, fat slob and Motorola was the wily, people-oriented, cheaper and more modern alternative.

Not everyone at Motorola loved the ads. But at least they managed to excite a little. The phones, however, didn't sell a lot.

So now Lenovo has an interesting problem. It claims to be following a two-brand strategy. But neither brand is truly at the forefront of enough human minds.

Neither brand is a must. Neither brand says: "You know you want me. You know you've always wanted me."

And it's not as if real people will be bothered enough to link Lenovo with Motorola, creating some seductive halo effect.

So now the pressure will be on designers at both companies to produce tantalizing products and on marketers at both companies to make the two brands irresistible.

That's a challenge for the thinkers, not just the doers.

Imagine this scenario, times infinity.

(Credit: Screenshots by Nick Statt/CNET)

It was after maybe the 14th or 15th time I'd seen "Game Over" flash across my iPhone screen in the last maybe seven minutes that I decided that the app Flappy Bird -- an experience so simultaneously simple and maddening that I could already picture it haunting my dreams -- was perhaps the worst smartphone game ever created.

I had hit a high score of 12 on my fourth or fifth attempt, finding myself secretly elated at the speedy proficiency of my mindless tapping timing. And then I proceeded to lose after earning a single point -- literally just one successful obstacle cleared -- about 10 times in a row. Before I knew it, I was sitting there at my desk, heat crawling up the back of my neck, ready to shake my phone in frustration like a '90s kid ready to dismantle his NES controller during the "Turbo Tunnel" level of Battletoads.

"Delete it" were the words that echoed in my head as my thumb hovered over the Start button, ready to try once again to achieve absolutely nothing at all but the continuation of a feedback loop so blatant and manipulative that it's frankly insulting, only you yourself are the one hurling the criticism.

Now, when I say "worst smartphone game," I don't mean objectively bad, lacking in quality, or all around worthless. I mean "worst" in the way that Netflix is the worst thing that happened to your reading habits, or Seamless the worst thing that happened to your diet. Flappy Bird is simply just the worst -- the worst thing to happen to everything and anything you're doing at any given moment.

In other words, it's a beautifully manipulative game that sells advertising against your base-level tendencies to keep trying at something that seems within grasp, but rather is designed to mask its clear and utter propensity to grind you into failure. It's a work of a genius, and the free app currently holds a solid 4.0 rating on both iOS and Android, with more than 300,000 customer ratings on the App Store after mysteriously skyrocketing to popularity just this past week despite having been uploaded in May of 2013 by Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen of DotGears Studios.

Like most endless runners, Flappy Bird is a game with no conclusion that subsists solely on your hunger for a higher score and your dumb, completely illogical belief that you will in fact get any value out of playing, let alone feel like you're getting better at the task at all.

From a mechanics perspective, you simply tap to keep your bird afloat and alter your frequency of taps to maneuver the bird through different size obstacles that, if touched, end your game immediately. It's basically a combination of the art style of popular smartphone game Tiny Wings -- with a pixelated Super Mario twist thanks to some rather unoriginal green pipes -- and an experience akin to slamming your head on a desk in an effort to see what's on the other side.

And it's not as if we're being hoodwinked here. Among the first 20 five-star reviews on the App Store include these fantastic headers: "The death of me"; "The apocalypse"; "Save yourselves"; "Life destroying"; "my life is spiraling out of control"; and my all-time favorite, "Hello Darkness My Old Friend."

Therein lies the worst part: We know the game is preying on us, and we let it. There is little else as substantive and convincing as Flappy Bird that the smartphone era has driven us to the cliff of insanity when it comes to compulsive behavior, contracting attention spans, and a desire to succeed at something arbitrary and meaningless.

Because ultimately there is absolutely nothing admirable about dusting yourself off from a Game Over and trying again when there's literally no goal in sight but a higher number and a larger expenditure of your time. You can get a score presumably in the triple-digits, spending a half hour on the verge of an aneurysm, and then find yourself failing in the first few seconds of your next five attempts. There is no puzzle to solve, no mental trick to master. Flappy Bird is infinitely random, and no amount of mental and thumb conditioning save a scary and social-life-threatening amount of practice could push your skills beyond the level at which they pretty much start at off the bat.

And unlike other addictive banes of humanity in the smartphone game space -- now-classic titles like Temple Run and CandyCrush -- there is no way to go about pretending you're getting any better or the game any easier. Whereas those other titles have coins and in-game stores to buy power-ups that fool you into thinking that your high score was hard-earned, and not simply manufactured by the amount of time you've sunk into it to earn artificial prowess, Flappy Bird just chugs along, awarding you a medal if you manage to beat your high score.

Flappy Bird could have been designed to trick us, to give us a bit of faith in our quest toward nonexistent relief from our compulsion, but the point clearly isn't to milk players money like other successful mobile games. That makes it all the more sinister, like the fury-inducing QWOP that's meant to poke fun at the idea of trying to overcome something superficially difficult. We've reached out to DotGears Studios to find out if the game's design has such a hidden purpose -- or if Flappy Bird really is as innocent as its pixelated namesake -- and will update this post with their response.

And despite all that, I can't help but keep trying it, every few minutes even as I write this. So as they say in five-star App Store reviews, hello darkness my old friend.

But it wasn't always like this for Skoda. Wind back the clock a couple of decades and Skoda was the butt of all jokes. Comedians would light up the end of the pier with "hilarious" japes about Skoda cars. Heated windows that were there to keep your hands warm when pushing it. Or how about doubling the value of a Skoda by filling it up with fuel? Oh, how we laughed.

(Credit: Skoda)

It's not that Skoda made particularly bad cars. Heavens, much of what was coming out of Britain was a great deal worse. But Skoda's Czech origins combined with a robust and utilitarian approach to styling meant that it was an easy target. However, the last laugh went to Skoda, who, under the ownership of Volkswagen, went on to manage a multimillion pound marketing campaign on the back of "It's a Skoda, honest." Everyone in the country knew the Skoda name, giving the company a level of brand awareness most manufacturers could only dream of.

The Skoda Favorit was the very last car to be built before the company was swallowed by the mighty Volkswagen empire. It was also significant for the fact that it was the first front-wheel-drive car Skoda had ever produced, replacing the rear-wheel-drive Estelle. The Favorit instantly felt more mainstream, more modern, and more practical.

It was styled by Bertone, so the Favorit joined a back catalog including the likes of the Lancia Stratos and Fiat X1/9, as well as the Lamborghini Countach and Miura. It's fair to say it doesn't share too much in common with these iconic cars, but as far as bloodlines go, there are few better than Bertone.

Skoda also pulled in assistance from Porsche, which helped develop the Favorit's suspension. Not that you'd suspect any Favorit owners would actually have noticed. But they would have noticed a decent amount of pace from the Ricardo-tweaked 1.3-liter engine and a surprisingly good ride. Skoda had made a genuinely good car, but such was the image problem in the UK, the Favorit was always going to face an uphill struggle.

Which is why Skoda immediately played the price card. Full-page ads confidently asked the question "who else offers 5 doors and 5 gears for under 5,000 pounds?" The question was obviously rhetorical as nobody could match the 4,997 pounds Skoda asked for the entry-level model. The message clearly got through, as at one point there were as many as 50,000 Favorits on the roads of Britain.

The Favorit soldiered on until 1994 when it was replaced by the Felicia, which still used the Skoda platform but benefited from significant input from Volkswagen. The styling was instantly more mainstream, but in doing the makeover, VW had stripped away the Favorit's unique charm and character. Old Skoda was dead, and the rest, as they say, is history.

There are still a healthy number of Favorits enjoying active service in Britain, and it's rare that they come up for sale. This suggests owners rather like their no-nonsense practical nature. A genuine last of a breed car that should provide years of good service for the the price of a cheap television. What's not to like?

Open-back Sennheiser HD 800 (left), closed-back AKG K 272HD (right)

(Credit: Steve Guttenberg/CNET)

There are many types of headphones, and if you understand the pros and cons of each before you go shopping, you'll make a more informed buying decision. Closed- and open-back headphones sound very different and serve different needs. To learn more about how they differ I spoke with two engineers, Sennheiser's Axel Grell and AKG's Philipp Schuster, and thanks go out to them. Today I'll look at open- and closed-back headphones; I covered on- and over-the-ear headphones in yesterday's blog item.

Closed-back headphones' ear cups have no openings, so they hush outside sound by creating a tight seal around your ears. Open-back designs are just the opposite, the ear cups are open to let you hear the world around you. So where you listen may determine whether you'd prefer open- or closed-back headphones. Generally speaking, open headphones sound better when you're listening in quiet settings. If you try to listen to an open-back headphone on a bus you'll have to turn the volume way up to overcome the bus' noise. Open-back headphones' sound can be heard by people nearby; closed-back designs keep most of the sound in the ear cups.

Closed-backs' noise isolation may be adequate for some buyers, but if you need maximum noise hushing, buy noise-canceling headphones. The upside for closed-backs is they don't use batteries or electronic processing to keep noise out, and dollar for dollar closed-back headphones sound better than noise-canceling headphones. I covered the difference between noise-canceling and noise-isolating headphones in a previous write-up.

Open headphones produce more spacious stereo imaging, because the "backside" of the drivers radiate sound in free space. With closed-back headphones the sound reflections inside the ear cups can play havoc with the stereo imaging; with open headphones you hear the sound directly, without reflections. Poorly designed closed-back headphones tend to sound "canned" and hollow. For a given price class, open headphones sound better than closed designs.

Beats full-size headphones, all of which are closed-back designs, have boosted buyers expectations for bass power, so most headphone manufacturers are producing bassier sounding models than they did in years past. The pumped up bass response is a benefit if you crave maximum bass oomph, or mostly listen in noisy places like trains, buses, cars, etc. If you prefer a more accurate tonal balance, or tend to listen in quiet surroundings and don't need isolation from noise, buy an open-back headphone.

Schuster pointed out that your ears will probably feel hotter with closed-back headphones than they would with open designs, which allow for greater air circulation. Almost all on-ear headphones are closed-back designs. So don't waste time searching for the "best" headphone, look for one that best suits your needs.

For more information about headphones, check out Justin Yu's Headphone Buying Guide.

Slidejoy show ads on an Android phone's lock screen. Sliding the ad to the right ignores it, and sliding it to the left triggers further engagement such as opening up a Web page.

(Credit: Slidejoy)

If you're not annoyed by seeing an ad for J. Crew, Adidas, Target, or Best Buy when you wake up your smartphone, a new app called Slidejoy could lop some money off your monthly phone bill.

The app, which is set to launch Monday, shows an ad from these and some other advertisers on an Android phone's lock screen, said Robert Seo, chief executive of the company. The app adapts to a person's preferences, locations, behaviors, and usage times to "curate a more profitable and relevant user experience," he said, and promises that the ads will be "beautiful."

In return, the company will pay you.

"We have no substantial data yet, so it's hard to give an exact amount for payouts," he said. "But we are targeting between $5 to $15 per month initially and as the algorithm learns, this range will increase."

What's the app algorithm learning from? People's interactions from the ads. Sliding the ad to the right ignores the ad. Sliding to the left signals interest and takes the ad a step further, for example opening up a Web page, a Google Play destination, or a YouTube video.

People get paid the same amount regardless of which way they slide the ad. "This is to ensure our advertisers get quality leads and to provide our app with unbiased data on user preferences," Seo said.

The app shows how developers have realized that lock screens -- which people often view dozens of times a day -- is prime real estate. Operating system developers adjust lock screens with features like notifications, music playback controls, and direct access to the camera. And app developers are adding more, too: the Cover app for Android turns the lock screen into a customized home screen, and the users ICE Unlock Fingerprint Secure fingerprint-scanner software.

Slidejoy initially will be only for Android phones. "We are expecting to come out with our iOS app by fall 2014," Seo said.

Slidejoy plans to extend to iOS devices in the fall of 2014.

(Credit: Slidejoy)

The usual tradeoff in advertising applies here, too: Give up more of your personal information, and the company will try to target the ads toward your interests.

Here's how Seo describes the privacy implications:

We don't share any individual information of our users.

When users sign up, they have a choice to register through Facebook or to provide their basic demographic information separately. The more accurate information users provide, the easier it is for Slidejoy to curate a better experience. For instance, if I'm in a Macy's store, then Slidejoy can recognize my location and push me an ad with a coupon for a jacket that appeals to men my age. This way, I make money from the app and save money on a jacket style I liked, but wasn't aware of. Later on, when the weather warms up, I can be shopping in the same location, and be pushed an ad for shorts from the same designer.

The app notifies a person daily how much money they've made; they can cash out monthly using Square Cash electronic payments or donate the money to a charity, Seo said.

The company is dealing directly with its initial advertisers and merchants -- including Sephora, MeUndies.com, Groupon, Best Buy, Target, Adidas, J. Crew, and Macy's -- but will expand to financial services companies and makers of consumer products, too. The company also is using ad networks to draw on a larger supply of ads, Seo said.

The six-person company's headquarters are in New York, with some research and development work in Seoul. Along with Seo, the company's founders are mobile programmers Hovan Yoo and Jay Chung and back-end programmer Mike Sanghoon Kwak.

How did life really begin?

(Credit: Science Documentary/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

I've never thought of humanity as being especially advanced.

Somehow, we struggle so much with such basic things as thermostats and civility that I cannot imagine we've been around since either the Big Bang or God's Big Finger Pressing Play.

Harvard astrophysicist Abraham Loeb gets the feeling that we are one of the last to the universe party.

As Space.com reports, Loeb's research suggests that a mere 15 million years after the Big Bang, alien microbes might have happily survived.

He said: "When the universe was 15 million years old, the cosmic microwave background had a temperature of a warm summer day on Earth. If rocky planets existed at that epoch, then the CMB could have kept their surface warm even if they did not reside in the habitable zone around their parent star."

Traditional scientific thinking offered that the first stars formed out of hydrogen and helium. There weren't any so-called heavy elements that would have assisted planet formation.

Loeb asked the simple question: What if there were some heavy elements? There might have been huge stars exploding and emitting them.

Any planets that might have resulted from these explosions would have enjoyed the warmth of cosmic microwave background radiation. Therefore, water may have been present and life forms may have existed.

This puts into question the idea of "Goldilocks Zones," the areas of the universe that are said to be the right distance from stars -- not too warm, not too cold, but just right -- in order for the existence of liquid water to have been possible.

But wait. How on earth can we ever know whether Loeb's theory might have some truth attached to it?

He suggests "searching for planets with atmospheric bio-signatures around low-metallicity stars in the Milky Way galaxy or its dwarf galaxy satellites."

In essence, if researchers find planets in the vicinity of stars that have merely a few heavy elements, then these might once have been analogous to the very earliest of planets.

Understanding what may or may not have happened billions of years ago is not exactly a simple task.

But one sign that Loeb might be onto something is that his fellow scientists aren't pooh-poohing it.

Water might have existed in many more places than first imagined. So who knows who or what might have existed in times gone far by?

And who knows what might still exist and be visiting us regularly, only to leave, shaking their heads and bodies in derision?