Pixar

Steven P. Jobs, the charismatic technology pioneer who co-founded Apple Inc. and transformed one industry after another, from computers and smartphones to music and movies, has died. He was 56. Apple announced the death of Jobs - whose legacy included the Apple II, Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. "We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today," Apple said. "Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives.

When Walt Disney Co. looked to revamp its troubled retail stores in 2008, Chief Executive Robert A. Iger sought advice from the company's largest shareholder, a foremost expert on the consumer experience. Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs had lured theme-park-size crowds to his company's stores with daring architecture, no-pressure sales staffs and displays that enticed customers to come in and play with the tech world's sexiest toys. Though Disney sold its chain four years earlier, its name was still on the stores.

SERIES Live From Daryl's House: This musical series makes the jump from Web to broadcast TV with an episode featuring San Francisco band, Train, and a second new episode with Fitz and the Tantrums (11 and 11:30 p.m. KTLA). Saturday Night Live: Alec Baldwin hosts the season premiere with musical guest Radiohead (11:29 p.m. NBC). SPECIALS The Nerdist: This new half-hour special, based on the "Nerdist" blog and podcast by Chris Hardwick, features discussion of nerd-centric topics.

Entering the campus of the largest animation production facility in China, visitors are greeted by life-size statues of Disney and Pixar characters: Belle dancing with the Beast, Mowgli and Baloo sitting on a tree trunk and Buzz and Woody in a classic buddy pose. But this isn't an overseas outpost of the American studios. Instead, these knockoff statues are meant to inspire a new generation of Chinese animators to make films that can compete with Hollywood blockbusters and classics such as "Beauty and the Beast," "The Jungle Book" and "Toy Story.

Walt Disney famously said, "I only hope that we never lose sight of one thing — that it was all started by a mouse. " For the Pixar artists, it was all started by a lamp. Twenty-five years ago (Aug. 17, 1986), "Luxo, Jr.," a short depicting the misadventures of a rambunctious little desk lamp and his weary father, premiered in Dallas and did something no computer-animated film had done before: It made audiences laugh. The first film from Steve Jobs' newly formed company Pixar and the second from director John Lasseter, "Luxo" launched the most successful and innovative animation studio since Walt Disney's heyday in the 1930s.

Pixar, arguably Hollywood's most admired movie studio, has made its first lemon as far as the critics are concerned. "Cars 2," director John Lasseter's sequel to his 2006 ode to gearheads, has collected the worst reviews of any of the 12 films in the animation studio's 25-year-history. "It actually hurts to knock one of [Pixar's] movies — something I've never done before," wrote Indiewire critic Leonard Maltin. "But then, I've never gotten a headache watching any of their previous films.

"Cars 2" will get a checkered flag by the end of this box-office weekend, but it won't be traveling in the fast lane. The latest release from Walt Disney Co.-owned Pixar Animation Studios will continue the studio's unblemished record of No. 1 openings, but it is expected to debut with only $50 million to $55 million worth of tickets, according to people who have seen pre-release surveys. That would be the second-lowest opening in the last decade for a Pixar movie, ahead of only "Ratatouille's" $47 million in 2007.

It's Pixar Animation's 25th anniversary, and the studio has kicked back and given a present to itself and its ever-expanding audience with the genially entertaining "Cars 2. " A movie that loves autos and doesn't care who knows it, "Cars 2" is so close to the heart of John Lasseter that he carved out time from being the creative czar of both Pixar and Disney animation to direct it himself, the first time Lasseter's done that since, well, the original...

"Honnnnnk! Honnnnnk!" John Lasseter had explicit instructions about how the Galloping Goose, an antique steam train character in "Cars 2," should look and sound, and he was delivering them with brio. It was January and the animation czar was making the hourlong commute from his home in Sonoma County to his Pixar office here on the outskirts of Oakland in the passenger seat of a town car. On his lap, he balanced an iPad loaded with shots to review while he recorded voice memos for the movie's crew: "Like a diesel horn.

When it comes to sequels, "Cars 2" flies in the face of conventional Hollywood calculus. Its predecessor was the least well-reviewed of Pixar Animation Studios' 11 movies and among its poorest performers at the box office — at least, by the premier animation studio's sterling standards. One attribute distinguishes "Cars" from most other films: it sparked a licensing bonanza that continued to fuel merchandise sales long after Lightning McQueen, Mater and the movie's other anthropomorphic autos rolled out of the megaplex.