Hasta La Gadget!

You’d be forgiven for assuming that the ModBook dream died with release of the first iPad. After all, the first version of the hacked notebook predated Apple’s announcement by a couple of years. When the iPad finally hit in 2010, it did a lot to address the desire for a slate device running Apple software. Since then, things have largely remained silent on the Axiotron front. In fact, the last time we heard a significant peep out of the company was back in 2009. Its former CEO Andreas Haas assured us, however, that the real reason for the company’s silence is a bit more complicated than the story of yet another product falling victim to the Apple steamroller.

“Axiotron itself was a great company,” says Haas. “Back in 2008, I took the company public, everything was really great. There was one little thing that turned out to be a huge problem, which is that the company was largely bank-financed and 10 days after it went public, Lehman Brothers went belly-up and put the whole financial market in a tailspin. After that was mostly spent on trying to somehow restructure the company, and ultimately there was just nothing that could be done about it.”

As the newly reborn Modbook Inc. teased via its Facebook page yesterday, however, the name lives on. This week marks the return of the tablet in the form of the 13.3-inch Modbook Pro, a device slated to ship early this fall. Can such a device survive in a world that’s been downright flooded by tablets in the years since its predecessor’s release? The company clearly feels it can — that its new product is unique enough to set itself apart in amongst the deluge of slates, calling the new Pro, “the world’s most powerful and largest-screen tablet computer.” And in a space where hardware and software are relatively neutered, it’s understandable how the company might be inclined to make such bold claims about the converted notebook.

Continue reading The Modbook Pro gets official, CEO Andreas Haas talks success in an iPad world

The Modbook Pro gets official, CEO Andreas Haas talks success in an iPad world originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google I/O 2012 is in full swing. Google Glass is huge, the Nexus 7 is real, and with the Nexus Q, Google is betting big on the ecosystem. And that was just from the first day! There are two more days to Google developer’s conference. There is another keynote today (which we will liveblog) and dozens more break-out sessions. Hang on, things could get crazy.

Click through for all of our Google I/O coverage.

This one isn’t fully official just yet, but Blog of Mobile has turned up some pictures and specs for a new Lenovo LePhone K860 that would appear to one-up the company’s existing offerings. Perhaps most notably, this one is said to pack a quad-core, 1.4GHz Exynos 4412 processor (the same found in some variants of the Galaxy S III), along with a 5-inch screen boasting a 1280 x 720 resolution. Otherwise, you’ll apparently get a 2 megapixel camera up front and 8 megapixels ’round back, 1GB of RAM, and Android 4.0 for an OS (no mention of a 4.1 upgade). No indication of a price, but it looks like it will be hitting China in August.

[Thanks, FT]

Lenovo LePhone K860 surfaces with quad-core Exynos processor, 5-inch screen, and Android 4.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(Reuters) – Some entrepreneurs are becoming so anxious to sell securities in their companies through crowdfunding sites that they are courting investors before federal rules allowing the process are in place, a state securities regulator said on Wednesday.

Reports about small business owners who are trying to solicit investors too early were among the concerns that prompted the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), an organization of state securities regulators, to issue an advisory about crowdfunding for small businesses on Wednesday, said Heath Abshure, NASAA’s president-elect, in an interview.

Crowdfunding is a capital-raising strategy in which investors buy small stakes in ventures through various websites. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, or JOBS Act, which was signed into law in April, allows small businesses to sell securities through the sites, subject to certain procedures. The sites were initially used as a way to help creative people fund projects such as films and inventions.

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WASHINGTON — Is this a great country or what? Not because the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the overall scheme of the president’s health care law. That is an ordinary question, no matter how much money was at stake. It is a great country because the workings of our carefully wrought system of government are not predicated on punditry, predictions or polls.

Defying the expectations, Justice John Roberts — said to be a relentless conservative activist — joined the court’s “liberal wing” in saving the law by grounding the “individual mandate” not in the power of Congress to regulate commerce, but in its taxing power. As I suggested yesterday, the court essentially said that Congress could not require people to buy something in the private economy, but they could fine them if they didn’t. The court found that power to fine, in the taxing power of Article I. Now the president will have to figure out a way to make the fines in the law — which are weak and toothless — real.

The obvious big political winner, at least initially, is President Barack Obama. Had the court thrown out the core mechanics of the law, his signature accomplishment would have been in shambles. He can take to the campaign trail with the backing of none other than George W. Bush appointee Roberts. His polls were on the upswing and may get a boost. There are troubles down the road. He has to make the fines real. Most people don’t like the mandate, no matter what it is grounded on. Republicans and their likely nominee, Mitt Romney, will make overturning the law their crusade for the campaign, and they will have the polls on their side.

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