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San Francisco  - Apple has agreed to a 14-million-dollar settlement of a shareholder lawsuit that alleged chief executive Steve Jobs and other executives had harmed the company by backdating employee stock options, court papers showed Tuesday.

The settlement won preliminary approval Monday by Judge Jeremy Fogel of the US District Court in San Jose, California. It requires Apple to also pay 8.9 million dollars in lawyers' fees, create new rules for giving employees stock options and appoint a committee to oversee stock trading by employees.

San Francisco  - Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled an upgraded line of iPod media players Tuesday, as well as a deal to sell NBC Universal TV shows and movies through the iTunes store.

But investors had hoped for more dramatic product announcements ahead of the crucial holiday shopping season and sent the company's shares down almost 5 per cent in Nasdaq trading to 150.70 dollars.

San Francisco - The US Justice Department is preparing an anti-trust case aimed at challenging an advertising pact between Google and Yahoo, according to reports Tuesday in the Wall Street Journal and other US media.

Google and Yahoo announced the deal in June, but said they would delay implementation until October to allow regulators to review the agreement. The companies control an estimated 90 per cent of online search advertising in the United States, and the proposed pact sparked opposition from large advertisers and competitors like Microsoft.

San Francisco  - A company called Plastic Logic on Monday unveiled a lightweight electronic newspaper device that is the size of a piece of standard printer paper and can be updated automatically over wireless connections. The screen also allows users to annotate documents and will offer the option of embedding video.

San Francisco  - Microsoft's first spot in its 300-million- dollar advertising campaign to revamp its stodgy image features comedian Jerry Seinfeld and company founder Bill Gates in a quirky attempt to buy shoes at a discount store.

The bizarre ad debuted late Thursday during the season opening game of the National Football League, and by Friday its effect was being heatedly debated on the internet.

The ad shows Seinfeld advising the world's richest man on how to stretch cheap new shoes that are a little too small.