Ed Oswald

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been subpoenaed by the Securities and Exchange Commission to testify in a options case against his former general counsel Nancy Heinen, sources say.

The subpoena was issued last month, and does not target him, according to Wall Street Journal sources. Instead, it focuses around Heinen's own actions in falsifying company documents, as well as tampering with Jobs' and her own options.

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BetaNews was on hand in New York City Wednesday night for the annual Holiday Spectacular product press preview. While there was certainly a dearth of new and compelling products to make their debut at the show, there were a few bright points.

Among those were a new line of techno-centric products from the same company that brings you the Swiss Army Knife, 3-D HDTV, and a device that uses the sun to power your cell phone. Check out the photo gallery to see what could be hot this holiday season.

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At the same time Apple was celebrating the iPhone's launch in Germany, elsewhere the company was defending its price structure for iTunes.

The European Commission claims that the record labels are forcing iTunes to not allow European residents to purchase music from stores in other countries in the EU. This apparently runs afoul of the bloc's laws, and the Commission isn't happy about it.

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Apple and T-Mobile said Wednesday that the carrier will begin selling the iPhone in Germany on November 9, the same day UK consumers first see the device.

T-Mobile is Germany's largest provider with 30.7 million customers. It is also the only carrier in the country that will have deployed EDGE data across its entire network by the end of 2007, which is central to the data capabilities of the iPhone.

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Google is beta testing a new type of ad with a select number of its clients that allows them to take advantage of the rise in popularity of the widget.

Called Google Gadgets, the ads can be placed freely on web pages and the iGoogle pages of interested consumers. From there, the advertiser can regularly update the ad's content to keep the user's interest while at the same time advertising their products.

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Time Warner is "looking hard" at selling off the internet access portion of its AOL division over the next 12-18 months, Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons said on Tuesday.

NEW DETAILS Rumors have been floated in the past about a sale of AOL's US ISP business, but up until now Time Warner -- including Parsons himself -- had denied that it was even a possibility. Parsons did admit earlier in the year that he had been approached by several groups looking to buy the ISP.

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AOL debuted a beta of BlueString on Tuesday, a new service which would allow consumers to upload and share digital media at no cost.

Each user would receive 5GB of online storage. They would eventually have the capability in the fall to link directly to video clips and photos from third-party services without the need to upload or move them to BlueString, AOL said. During the test, the company said it would allow users to connect to their Flickr accounts.

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Just two years after it introduced its premium online subscription service, the New York Times on Tuesday said it will be doing away with TimesSelect on Wednesday and allowing free access to the majority of its content.

The paper made a modest income off of the service, which had about 227,000 paying subscribers and was generating around $10 million in annual revenue. However, it felt ad sales from opening up most of its content and archives would be much more lucrative.

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Google took the wraps off its online presentation software on Monday night, rounding out its online office suite which now matches Microsoft Office in functionality.

The company said the application is very much still in its early stages, thus much of the functionality is quite basic. However, it did say it plans to add new features in the coming months. "Presently" is available immediately in 25 languages.

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Microsoft and Sprint expanded their partnership on Tuesday, with the carrier debuting integrated GPS and search functionality using Live Search, as well as voice search through Tellme.

Sprint's local search as well as full Internet search through the carrier's mobile portal would now be powered by Microsoft. The local search would also be GPS-aware, allowing consumers to search around their location as detected by the Sprint's network.

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Yahoo confirmed late today its pending $350 million cash acquisition of Zimbra, an online/offline open source office applications suite. While exact details of the deal are not yet available, Yahoo's move will put it in direct competition with Google, which is also offering online office applications to both consumers and business.

Zimbra is based in San Mateo, Calif. and has secured about $30 million in funding from its investors. In August, it announced it had grown its customer base by 55 percent over the previous quarter, and boasts a community of about 10,000 contributing to the project.

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Leap Wireless, the wireless company behind the Cricket and Jump Mobile brands, said Sunday that it will reject an unsolicited acquisition offer from competitor MetroPCS.

MetroPCS is a regional carrier which has operations in the metropolitan areas of central and northern California, central and South Florida, Georgia, Michigan, and Texas. It plans to launch service in Los Angeles this week, and in New York, Philadelphia and Boston in 2008 and 2009.

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Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile USA, said Monday it had agreed to acquire Southeastern US carrier SunCom for $1.6 billion USD in cash.

The deal, announced Monday, is still subject to regulatory approval. It is guaranteed to have shareholder approval however, the two companies said, due to the fact that two investment companies owning more than 50 percent of the stock in the company have committed to vote in favor.

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Nokia continued its push into the Internet services industry on Monday, announcing it has acquired Boston-based mobile marketing media provider Enpocket.

"Nokia has already announced its intention to be a leading company in consumer Internet services and we believe that mobile advertising will be an important element in monetizing those services for our customers and partners," Nokia CTO Tero Ojanpera said today.

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After 22 years in the Dulles/Reston area of Virginia, AOL will move the majority of its operations to New York City to be closer to the hub of worldwide advertising, which makes up a good deal of its new business model.

The company's new headquarters, as well as its advertising and programming operations, will be located at 770 Broadway, where it has leased office space. AOL said today it will continue to maintain a presence in Dulles, Va. and Mountain View, Calif., among other locations.

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