Rebekah Brooks to Be Charged in Hacking Scandal; Police Allege Conspiracy, Obstruction of Justice

UK Prosecutors will charge Rebekah Brooks, the former News Corp chief, with conspiring to obstruct justice in the media group's infamous hacking scandal.

The decision marks the first charges filed in a wide-ranging criminal investigation into wrongdoing at the U.S. media company's British tabloids.

Brooks, who served as editor of the News of the World and the Sun tabloids before running all of News Corp.'s newspapers in the U.K., is due to be charged by the Crown Prosecution Service with perverting the course of justice.

Prosecutors also plan to charge her husband, Charles Brooks; her former assistant; her chauffeur; and two men who provided security for Brooks.

The obstruction charges relate to the continuing police investigation into phone hacking and the alleged corruption of public officials by News Corp. titles.

Brooks has also been previously arrested on suspicion of corruption and conspiring to intercept communications, but she wasn't charged Tuesday in relation to either of the previous allegations. She remains on bail for those.

The planned charges spelled out by prosecutors date to July 6-19 of last year.

The phone-hacking scandal - the subject of a police probe since Jan. 2011 - boiled over following a July 5 article in the Guardian alleging that the News of the World hacked the phone of a missing teenage girl, who was later found dead.

Days later, News Corp. shut down the News of the World after 168 years.

Rebekah Brooks, a longtime protégé of News Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch, faces three charges in the sensational case.

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Samsung Galaxy S III C-Pen stylus gets leaked with more accessory press shots

Samsung wasn't done with the accessories when it announced a whole stack of 'em alongside the incoming Galaxy S III last week. A few more have now started to appear on pre-order, including, yes, another stylus. This is the C-Pen and it's different from both the S-Pen and the stylus we used with Samsung's sketch-friendly tablet. Aside from these press shots courtesy of Mobile Fun, specifics remain a little light -- we're not even sure what the C stands for, but we'd hazard a guess at "creative", possibly "chrome"? It's joined by a substantial £80 (or around $128) WiFi display hub, a battery-charging holster for the phone (£35, around £56) and the previously seen Galaxy S III flip cover (£30, around $48). The stylus is up for pre-order at £20 (about $32) for the British Isles, but a release date for the whole collection still eludes us.

Samsung Galaxy S III C-Pen stylus gets leaked with more accessory press shots originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 07:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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California facing higher $16 billion shortfall (Providence Journal)

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Romney Among the Evangelicals (Atlantic Politics Channel)

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Panasonic sends 100,000 LEDs down Tokyo river, mates tech with tradition

If you'd been by the shore of the Sumida River in central Tokyo this past weekend, you would have noticed that it was glowing a distinct shade of blue. That's because Panasonic decided to kick off the first-ever Tokyo Hotaru (fireflies) festival by sending 100,000 EVERLED light bulbs down the river, both to mimic fireflies as well as to pay homage to a Japanese tradition of floating candles on the water. Before you cringe too much at the thought of the environmental impact, rest assured that Panasonic minimized the footprint of its aquatic LED parade. All the bulbs ran on solar power (presumably, charged during the day) that kept Evolta batteries fed inside, and the entire lot was scooped up in a large net afterwards. We love the exhibition as a large-scale demo of sustainable lighting -- you may just want to avoid fishing along the Sumida's shoreline for awhile in case you catch a straggler.

Panasonic sends 100,000 LEDs down Tokyo river, mates tech with tradition originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 May 2012 20:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Obama, Romney try to refocus on economy Friday after gay rights issues overtook campaigns (Star Tribune)

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Konka W900 hands-on

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, consider Konka the number one practitioner of that "craft." The company, (in)famous for its OEM-copycatting ways, has set up a booth here at CTIA 2012, letting us get some up close and personal time with its W900. The HTC-esque handset, previously released at this past Mobile World Congress, is yet another in a line of underwhelming Android offerings that subsists on design without delivering on performance. Although, the phone's official spec sheet lists it as running Ice Cream Sandwich, the build we encountered was actually that of Gingerbread 2.3.6 -- a very buggy version, at that. So, don't let your eyes deceive you, what you're seeing on the homescreen is simply a third-party launcher made to ape ICS' more streamlined UI. Beneath that 4-inch WVGA display lies quadband GSM (850, 900, 1800, 1900) and WCDMA (2100) radios, VGA front-facing / rear 5-megapixel cameras, in addition to support for WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth. Unfortunately, the company couldn't confirm what processor's powering this lackluster affair. But no matter, this is one uneven device you can safely ignore.

Gallery: Konka W900 hands-on

Terrence O'Brien contributed to this report.

Konka W900 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 May 2012 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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