Carl Page’s “shell” public company, Handheld Entertainment

Carl Page was an Internet success before his younger brother, Larry Page, made billions as co-founder of Google.

Our Mercury News colleague Mike Langberg catches up with Carl Page’s latest effort (free registration) at Handheld Entertainment of San Francisco, which makes a portable device called the Zvue for playing audio and video.

But Langberg is somewhat critical, saying Page is using a tactic tainted by a long history of scams: purchasing a dormant or “shell” public company and merging into it, instead of slogging it through the conventional initial public offering process. Read the story and decide for yourself what you think.

Separately, Dan Primack weighs in on the totally different “blank-check” entity, Acquicor created by Steve Wozniak & Co. We mentioned it a few days ago, and now Primack seems to have the same questions. Though he takes the extra step, and raises the “fraud” question.