Companies don’t change the wording of important regulatory disclosures without some pretty serious soul-searching by the lawyers. So Apple’s amendments today to earlier disclosures about Steve Jobs’ involvement in options backdating amount to a glaring change of stance.

This is the key sentence from Apple’s regulatory filing on October 4th:

In a few instances, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was aware that favorable grant dates had been selected, but he did not receive or otherwise benefit from these grants and was unaware of the accounting implications.

This is the new version of that sentence:

Although the investigation found that CEO Steve Jobs was aware or recommended the selection of some favorable grant dates, he did not receive or financially benefit from these grants or appreciate the accounting implications.

Let’s see now…

1. It turns out Jobs wasn’t only aware of some of the backdating, he "recommended" it.

2. Before, he was said to be "unaware" of the accounting implications: now, he simply did not "appreciate" them.

3. Before, he did not "benefit" from backdated options: now, he did not not "financially benefit." Is this a reference to the fact that, though he never exercised his backdated options and surrendered them two years later, he at least received a notional benefit when they were first issued?

4. Before, Jobs was aware "in a few instances": now, his involvement extends to "some favourable grant dates". How many, and why the change of wording?

Wall Street’s sigh of relief today suggests it believes Jobs’ position is now secure. But in the famous words of former senator Howard Baker during the Watergate hearings: "What did the president know, and when did he know it?"

Despite the hand-wringing from the venture capital crowd, it seems 2006 wasn’t such a disastrous year after all.

It was only a couple of months ago that the National Venture Capital Association in the US was issuing dark warnings about the threat to start-up technology companies from waning public market interest in IPOs. That added spice to a debate that has been getting plenty of airtime recently: whether the venture capital model, as practised in Silicon Valley, is somehow "broken."

Well, at least the IPO part of the model seems to be working just fine. Thanks to a late spurt of deals, 2006 turned out to be a pretty good year. These are the numbers from Renaissance Capital (covering both tech and non-tech deals):

The top performing IPO of the year, according to Renaissance: Riverbed Technology, with a gain of more than 200 per cent since it went public in September. The company, which makes storage for wide area networks, was backed early on by Accel and Lightspeed, with UV Partners and Goldman Sachs taking part in later rounds.

Extra Wii remotes - accessories for the new Nintendo console – have been as hard to come by as the Wii itself this Christmas.
One good reason: hackers are finding lots more uses for the Wii-mote beyond game-playing on the console and causing structural damage and personal injury.
The device works like an infra-red TV remote, but also contains motion-sensing technology and Bluetooth wireless capabilities.
Using a Bluetooth adapter on a PC, the Wii-mote can become a wireless mouse, with unique capabilities such as the ability to soar around Google Earth. It also works with a Mac, controlling something like Front Row, Apple’s media centre.
Beyond computers, there is the Wii-mote controlled car and the Roomba, which graphically demonstrates how Nintendo can really clean up with its invention.

Chris Nuttall, San Francisco

No argument about the most wanted and yet hardest to obtain in our list of the ten gifts the Tech Grinch is holding onto this Christmas…

No.1 The Sony PlayStation 3 - If you’re in Europe, the PS3 has yet to launch, if you’re in the US and Japan only a lucky few hundred thousand will be playing on the PS3 on Christmas Day, while thousands of others hawk theirs on eBay to the highest bidder.

Sony sold less than 200,000 at launch in the US last month as supplies were even tighter than the 400,000 it predicted. It has forecast 1m being sold by the end of the year but Liz Osur, Citigroup analyst, predicts 500,000, with 1.5m units of Nintendo’s Wii selling out in the US as well.

The countdown:

10. An Enzo Ferrari   9. Halo 3  8. The $100 Laptop 7. The iPod wannabes 6. Pleo the dinosaur

5. If I Did It   4. TMX Elmo  3. The iPhone  2. Windows Vista   1. Sony PlayStation 3

We are down to Number Two in our list of must-have gadgets and gizmos that you won’t have in your Christmas stocking this year.

2. Windows Vista - You couldn’t buy it last Christmas, and you can’t buy it this Christmas either. The digital bits that make up Windows Vista have already been released to Microsoft’s corporate customers, but consumers won’t be able to get their hands on shiny new PCs running on the operating system until the end of January.

That means fewer laptops under the Christmas tree. According to Merrill Lynch, PC sales volumes rose 21 per cent in 2005 but will only rise 13 per cent for all of 2006, with the continued Vista delay being part of the reason. What will you be missing? The Aero "glass" graphics interface, full support for High Definition video and (if you’re prepared to pay up for it) the enterprise-class "Bitlocker" encryption system.

The countdown so far:

10. An Enzo Ferrari   9. Halo 3  8. The $100 Laptop 7. The iPod wannabes 6. Pleo the dinosaur

5. If I Did It   4. TMX Elmo  3. The iPhone

We’re onto the medal rostrum in our rundown of the 10 Tech Things you won’t be able to buy this Christmas. In the bronze medal position:

3. The iPhone – this has to be top of the list of rumoured iPod variants and seems likely to be unveiled at Macworld at the beginning of January. A phone that plays music and looks cooler than a RAZR or LG Chocolate could shake up the wireless world, particularly if Apple goes the whole hog and becomes a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) to promote its services.

But right now the company is saying nothing to suggest the iPhone will even be announced and the same goes for reports about a wireless iPod, the widescreen iPod or the touch-screen iPod.

The iPhone name already appears to have been taken anyway. Linksys announced an iPhone family of products on Monday, beginning with a Voice-over-IP handset (pictured) that works with Skype.

The countdown so far:

10. An Enzo Ferrari   9. Halo 3  8. The $100 Laptop 7. The iPod wannabes 6. Pleo the dinosaur

5. If I Did It   4. TMX Elmo

There is a new way of web surfing from today with Opera introducing its browser for the Nintendo Wii.
Using the motion-sensing Wii Remote controller, it’s possible to scroll pages with a wave of the hand and there’s a button to zoom in on those that are hard to view on the TV from a distance.
Some of the Wii’s channels were not available at launch, and the News one still appears inaccessible. But The Weather Channel showed up this week and the free Opera download creates the Internet Channel.
Opera has lost out to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox in the PC browser wars, but it is carving a useful niche for itself with Nintendo and as a browser on mobile phones.
Chris Nuttall, San Francisco

We’re down to the final four in our Tech Grinch list of the things you won’t be able to buy this Christmas:

4. TMX Elmo - the irritating orange furry thing that rolls on the floor chuckling has its maker laughing all the way to the bank for this tenth anniversary year. TMX stands for Tickle Me Ten or Tickle Me Xtreme as Fisher-Price has increased its robotic ability far beyond what this gargalesis victim could muster back in 1996. We were able to find a version today at the $40 list price that chortles in Spanish, but all English ones were either unavailable or ridiculously overpriced.

Other favourite tech toys this season have been Leapfrog’s FLY Pentop computer and an indoor helicopter we first saw demo’d at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January.

The countdown so far:

10. An Enzo Ferrari   9. Halo 3  8. The $100 Laptop 7. The iPod wannabes 6. Pleo the dinosaur

5. If I Did It

The Christmas cards decking the San Francisco bureau are cheering up the place and hiding the usual clutter, but we have also been receiving our fair share of carbon-neutral electronic seasonal greetings.

There seems to be a gaming trend this year: Activision’s e-card features a penguin that moves according to keyboard arrows to catch games and avoid deadly snowflakes, while Amadeus Capital invites you to mix and match the faces of members of its team.

The team at Blabbermouth public relations will sing you a blah-blah Christmas, but the best e-card so far comes from VC firm Blueprint Ventures with their continuing adventures of Gary Snoman.

This year, Gary discovers that the venture capital business isn’t quite the champagne-swilling playboy lifestyle he imagined. Not always, at least.

Chris Nuttall, San Francisco

Given events in China today and announcements on Skype last week, investors may be taking predictions by Meg Whitman, eBay chief executive, with more than a pinch of salt in future.

Here’s Meg talking at the eBay analyst day in February 2005:

“There are a bunch of small competitors nipping at our heels, but we are on a tear to be the undisputed winner in China.”

 And then today, announcing eBay was closing its online marketplace and becoming a junior partner in a venture with Tom Online:

 "By combining our expertise with that of a strong local partner like Tom Online, we are even better positioned to participate in this growing market."

That’s hardly a winner talking, Meg.

Then, when eBay bought Skype in October 2005 for $4bn, she told analysts :

 "The price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the net will trend towards zero."

Ebay followed that up with free Skype calls in the US and Canada to mobiles and landlines. Until last week that is, when it announced a new $30-a-year subscription plan to replace the free-calls programme.

That’s a lot cheaper than the monthly plans of regular phone companies, but it is "trending", just like eBay in China, in the completely opposite direction to that predicted by Chief Executive Meg.

Chris Nuttall, San Francisco