The letter, it added, does not contain trade secrets about the Palo Alto-based technology company or non-public financial information. Some sentences concerning Hurd’s family were ordered redacted.

Celebrity attorney Gloria Allred sent the letter last year on behalf of Jodie Fisher, who was hired as a contract employee to help with HP networking events and who later accused Hurd of sexual harassment.

Although an HP investigation did not find any evidence to support the harassment claim, it uncovered inaccurate expense reports for his outings with Fisher. Hurd was ultimately forced out in August 2010. He now works as co-president at rival Oracle Corp.

Allred alleged in the letter that, while Fisher was ostensibly hired an HP event hostess in late 2007, she was really brought on to accompany Hurd to HP events held out of town. Throughout 2008 and 2009, Hurd made it clear he expected to have a sexual relationship with Fisher, using his “status and authority as CEO of HP,” Allred alleged.

Allred claimed that Hurd made several sexual advances toward Fisher, which Fisher rejected. In 2008, while walking with Fisher in Madrid, Hurd stopped at an ATM and showed her his checking-account balance “to impress her,” according to the letter.

After Fisher rejected him a final time in October 2009, she was not hired for any future HP events, Allred alleged.

Allred also alleged that in March 2008, Hurd told Fisher that HP was likely to purchase technology services vendor EDS. HP announced the $13 billion acquisition in May of that year.

HP shareholder Ernesto Espinoza had sued to have the letter unsealed. Hurd’s attorney, Amy Wintersheimer, said his lawyers had requested that the letter be kept confidential because “it is filled with inaccuracies.”

“The truth is, there never was any sexual harassment, which HP’s investigation confirmed, and there never was any sexual relationship, which Ms. Fisher has confirmed,” Wintersheimer said in a statement.

Both Allred and Hewlett-Packard Co. had no comment on the letter’s contents.

___

Ortutay reported from New York.

The ruling said information that is only “mildly embarrassing” is not protected from public disclosure. Some sentences concerning Hurd’s family were ordered redacted from the letter, however.

Celebrity attorney Gloria Allred sent the letter last year on behalf of Jodie Fisher, who was hired as a contract employee to help with HP networking events and who later accused Hurd of sexual harassment.

Although an HP investigation did not find any evidence to support the harassment claim, it uncovered inaccurate expense reports for his outings with Fisher. Hurd was ultimately forced out in August 2010. He now works as co-president at rival Oracle Corp.

Allred alleged in the letter that, while Fisher was ostensibly hired an HP event hostess in late 2007, she was really brought on to accompany Hurd to HP events held out of town. Throughout 2008 and 2009, Hurd made it clear he expected to have a sexual relationship with Fisher, using his “status and authority as CEO of HP,” Allred alleged.

Allred claimed that Hurd made several sexual advances toward Fisher, which Fisher rejected. In 2008, while walking with Fisher in Madrid, Hurd stopped at an ATM and showed her his checking-account balance “to impress her,” according to the letter.

After Fisher rejected him a final time in October 2009, she was not hired for any future HP events, Allred alleged.

Allred also alleged that in March 2008, Hurd told Fisher that HP was likely to purchase technology services vendor EDS. HP announced the $13 billion acquisition in May of that year.

HP shareholder Ernesto Espinoza had sued to have the letter unsealed. Hurd’s attorney, Amy Wintersheimer, said his lawyers had requested that the letter be kept confidential because “it is filled with inaccuracies.”

“The truth is, there never was any sexual harassment, which HP’s investigation confirmed, and there never was any sexual relationship, which Ms. Fisher has confirmed,” Wintersheimer said in a statement.

Both Allred and Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packard Co. had no comment on the letter’s contents.

___

Ortutay reported from New York.

Cook said the latest iPhone, which came out in June 2010, sold more quickly than previous models, but the iPhone still has just 5 percent of the worldwide handset market.

Apple is hoping to grow that with a new model. The new iPhone 4S has an improved camera with a higher-resolution sensor. The processor is faster, which helps run smoother, more realistic action games. It’s also a “world phone,” which means that Verizon iPhones will be able to useable overseas, just as AT&T iPhones already are.

Apple is including a “personal assistant” application called Siri, which responds to spoken questions and commands such as “Do I need an umbrella today?” It’s an advanced version of speech-recognition apps found on other phones.

The new iPhone also comes with new mobile software, iOS 5, that includes such features as the ability to sync content wirelessly, without having to plug the device to a Mac or Windows machine.

IOS 5 will also be available on Oct. 12 for existing devices — the iPhone 4 and 3GS, both iPad models and later versions of the iPod Touch.

Apple said Oct. 12 will also mark the launch of its new iCloud service, which will store content such as music, documents, apps and photos on Apple’s servers and let people access them wirelessly on numerous devices.

Apple also touted the popularity of its products and unveiled a new line of iPods, including a Nano model with a multi-touch display that promises to be easier to navigate. Apple made no mention of its Classic model, which many people had speculated the company might discontinue.

The event took place in Apple’s Town Hall room, where the first iPod was launched a decade ago. Cook said Apple has sold more than 300 million iPods worldwide so far, including 45 million in the 12 months through June.

The iPhone came six years later and has gained millions of fans, thanks to its slick looks, high-resolution screen and intuitive software. There were 39 million iPhones sold in the first six months of this year.

Apple’s stock fell $11.76, or 3.1 percent, to $362.84 in afternoon trading Tuesday.

In the ’90s, AOL was the king of dial-up Internet access, known for its ubiquitous CD-ROMs and “You’ve got mail” greeting in its inboxes. The company even managed to buy Time Warner at the height of the dot-com boom in 2001. But the companies never successfully melded, and as consumers moved to faster Internet services from cable and phone companies, AOL’s main source of revenue dwindled.

Over the past several years, AOL has struggled to reinvent itself as a company focused on advertising and content, operating a variety of websites such as the popular tech blog Engadget. Since CEO Tim Armstrong was lured from Google Inc. to take the helm of AOL in April 2009, AOL has focused increasingly on the market for local content, helped by the purchase and expansion of its network of Patch local news sites.

The company has continued to acquire sites, too: Most recently, it paid $315 million for The Huffington Post as part of its efforts to become a go-to source for news and other content. That deal closed Monday.

Armstrong, speaking at a conference in New York, said the company has no immediate plans for further layoffs. But he added, “in our situation we don’t have the luxury of long-term planning.”

Armstrong said AOL will hire this year and will try to have more full-time journalists in its ranks to rely less on freelancers. He said about half the employees now have content-producing roles, and he wants to increase that to 70 percent.

Armstrong maintained his confidence about AOL’s prospects for a comeback.

“AOL will turn around,” he said. “No doubt about that.”

But AOL’s revenue is contributing less and less to the overall online advertising market in the U.S., eMarketer Inc. analyst David Hallerman said.

“If they’re going to succeed, they’re going to be succeeding as a smaller company,” he said. “Therefore their success won’t be as big.”

Although Hallerman said he sees promise in the company’s efforts to establish itself as a local content provider, he said the ads that run on these sites bring in less revenue than those on its more popular websites. That means AOL will have to make that up by drawing a lot of traffic.

Clayton Moran, an analyst with The Benchmark Co., said that the changes made since Armstrong took control are sensible and probably the best route the company could take.

But he said the changes “haven’t shown a lot of financial progress. It’s taking time for the changes to have an impact.”

Shares of AOL fell 4 cents to $19.30 in afternoon trading Thursday.

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Rachel Metz reported from San Francisco. AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson contributed to this report.