San Francisco - About 70 searchers combed the area around the crash site of adventurer Steve Fossett's plane Friday as scientists were due to test a small piece of bone found near the plane.

The small bone, said by police to be about 5 centimetres by 3 centimetres was the only sign of possible human remains at the remote site. But it was far from clear that it was even human.

"When you find a bone fragment, there's no way to know until you give it to a forensic lab, whether it's human or animal," said Erica Stuart, a spokeswoman for the Madera County Sheriff's Department, which is handling the recovery. "We won't know until it's analyzed."

San Francisco - The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the motive behind a false report on CNN's citizen journalist website Friday that Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack.

The report sent the company's stock on a roller coaster ride. Shares fell 5.4 per cent Friday morning after the posting on iReport.com cited an anonymous source who said Jobs was rushed to the hospital after suffering a "major heart attack."

The report followed months of concern about the health of the iconic company founder and CEO who had surgery four years ago to treat pancreatic cancer.

San Francisco - In a bid to close the ever-widening gap with Google on Internet searches, Microsoft has started offering consumers redeemable points for using its search service.

The program was launched as new web traffic figures Thursday showed that Google had extended its lead to 63 per cent of the US search market in August. Yahoo came in with a 19.6 per cent share, followed by Microsoft with an 8.3 per cent share.

San Francisco - A new search was launched Wednesday for missing and presumed-dead adventurer Steve Fossett after hikers in the Sierra Nevada Mountains discovered ID cards, clothes and some 1,000 dollars in cash that appeared to belong to him, authorities said.

Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Los Angeles, confirmed that the copy of a pilot's license he had received matched Fossett's details.

"The certificate number and date of issue on the document in the photo matches the information we have for Mr Fossett in our database," he said.

Other information, including Fossett's date of birth and his address, also matched, he said.

San Francisco - Apple has expanded its iPod lineup in time for the Christmas season with flatter, more colourful models and even more features.

Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, rolled out the fourth generation iPod nano and a retooled iPod touch recently. He also presented a new music software platform dubbed Genius, designed to help users compile playlists.

San Francisco  - Movie stars might be able to perform incredible car manoeuvres while talking on the phone and sending text messages. But in real life such actions will likely result in a nasty crash, and in California at least, a ticket and fine from the Highway Patrol.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former action movie star, has signed a new law banning text messaging while driving - making it only the sixth state in the US to institute such a ban.