Steve Jobs

Months after Steve Jobs' death, fans are still flocking to his home, sometimes by the busload, to pay homage to the Apple founder. It's a pilgrimage that thousands have made, some from as far away as Italy and Hong Kong. They also visit Jobs' childhood home in nearby Los Altos, Calif., where he started Apple in the garage, and the Cupertino headquarters of the company that is now the world's most valuable. But his home is the most popular stop on a sightseeing circuit of Jobs' Silicon Valley: The Palo Alto neighborhood where Jobs' silver Mercedes is still parked, still without a license plate, on a quiet street flanked by majestic old trees and historic homes.

Aaron Sorkin once declined an offer from Steve Jobs to write a movie for animation house Pixar, saying he couldn't pen dialogue for inanimate objects. Now, however, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "The Social Network" will aim to help bring the life of the legendary tech icon to the screen in a film for Sony Pictures that will reunite him with his "Social Network" producer Scott Rudin. "Steve Jobs" will be based on the bestselling biography written by former Time magazine Managing Editor Walter Isaacson.

Chatter about an iPad mini just won't settle. Another analyst just added fuel to this hot-air balloon with a note to clients. But revisiting Steve Jobs' take on going smaller might just deflate some of this speculation. This week, Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu wrote that a 7- or 8-inch screen with resolution that's comparable to the first- and second-generation iPads is feasible, according to Barron's . "From a competitive standpoint, we believe an iPad mini with a lower price point would be the competition's worst nightmare," Wu wrote.

Chatter about an iPad mini just won't settle. Another analyst just added fuel to this hot-air balloon with a note to clients. But revisiting Steve Jobs' take on going smaller might just deflate some of this speculation. This week, Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu wrote that a 7- or 8-inch screen with resolution that's comparable to the first- and second-generation iPads is feasible, according to Barron's . "From a competitive standpoint, we believe an iPad mini with a lower price point would be the competition's worst nightmare," Wu wrote.

Apple Inc. now has to get down to the business of surviving its founder. It's something that Apple - and Steve Jobs himself - had been painstakingly planning for years. Deep inside its sprawling Cupertino, Calif., campus, one of the world's most successful and secretive companies has had a team of experts hard at work on a closely guarded project. PHOTOS: The life of Steve Jobs But it isn't a cool new gadget. It's an executive training program called Apple University that Jobs considered vital to the company's future: Teaching Apple executives to think like him. "Steve was looking to his legacy.

Questionable moral character, use of illegal drugs, the abandonment of a child and a willingness to distort reality: Welcome to the FBI dossier of Steve Jobs. On Thursday the agency released a file on Jobs that it had compiled in 1991, when the Apple Inc.co-founder was in the running for an appointment under President George H.W. Bush. Included in the 191-page document are confirmations of Jobs' dabblings in marijuana and LSD, his strained relationship with a high school girlfriend with whom he had a child out of wedlock and even some scribbled notes from a time he received a bomb threat in 1985.

Steve Jobs Walter Issacson Simon & Schuster: 656 pps., $35

Aaron Sorkin once declined an offer from Steve Jobs to write a movie for animation house Pixar, saying he couldn't pen dialogue for inanimate objects. Now, however, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "The Social Network" will aim to help bring the life of the legendary tech icon to the screen in a film for Sony Pictures that will reunite him with his "Social Network" producer Scott Rudin. "Steve Jobs" will be based on the bestselling biography written by former Time magazine Managing Editor Walter Isaacson.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' death sparked an outpouring of sentiment and statements from fellow chief executives and other major figures in Silicon Valley, government and the entertainment industry. IN TECHNOLOGY: Steve Wozniak, Apple co-founder , reached at dinner with his son, said he was so overwhelmed by calls that he could not get in touch with his emotions: "People sometimes have goals in life. Steve Jobs exceeded every goal he ever set for himself. " Tim Cook, Apple chief executive and Jobs' successor , in an email to employees: "Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.… We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much.

Best Buy has cut $50 off Apple's iPad 2 ahead of what many expect will be the launch of the iPad 3 as early as March 7 . Best Buy quietly rolled out the price drops over the weekend for every variation of iPad 2 offered -- so the starting price of the 16-gigabyte, Wi-Fi-only iPad 2 is down to $449.99 from $499.99 and the most expensive iPad, 64-gigabytes with Wi-Fi and 3G capability, is down to $779.99 from $829.99. Officials at Best Buy declined to comment on just what motivated the price cut, but the iPad rumor mill is pointing to the discount as a sign that the iPad 3 (as many journalists and analysts have dubbed the next iPad)

Apple Inc., responding for the first time to antitrust charges levied against it and five major book publishers this week, denied that it had engaged in price-fixing to inflate prices paid for electronic books. In a statement to The Times on Friday, Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said that the Department of Justice's accusation against Apple "is simply not true. " Neumayr said customers have benefited from e-books that are more interactive and engaging and, "just as we've allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.

WASHINGTON - Former Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs was a key player in a conspiracy with five major book publishers to drive up the price of digital books, federal and state officials said in antitrust lawsuits filed against the companies. Jobs helped orchestrate a complex price-fixing plan that cost consumers tens of millions of dollars over the last two years by boosting the price of many new releases and bestsellers by $3 to $5 each, federal investigators said. Apple even proudly described the maneuver - which gave the iPad maker a guaranteed 30% commission on each e-book sold through its online marketplace - as an "aikido move," referring to the Japanese martial art, according to the lawsuit.

This post has been corrected. See note below. WASHINGTON -- Former Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs and top executives at five major book publishers illegally conspired to raise the prices of e-books, costing consumers tens of millions of dollars, federal and state officials alleged in antitrust suits filed Wednesday. The collusion began in 2009 and price fixing took effect with the launch of the iPad in early 2010, boosting the average cost of e-books by $2 to $3 each "virtually overnight," said Sharis Pozen, the acting head of the Justice Department's antitrust division.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded two patents to Steve Jobs, the Apple Inc. co-founder who died five months ago. The patents were posthumously awarded to Jobs, as well as other employees of Apple, for their design of the current iMac and for the third-generation iPod Shuffle - which was famous for its tiny size and lack of buttons. In total, the agency awarded 19 patents to the company, which is notorious for stockpiling patents. In the past, Apple has filed patents for items ranging from products that have never made it to the public to staircases used at Apple stores around the world.

Faced with a surplus of roughly $100 billion in cash, Apple Inc. announced this week that it will use the money to pay investors a quarterly dividend and embark on a three-year stock buyback program. Bo-ring! The choice, which represents a departure from Steve Jobs' no-dividends-ever policy may be nice for investors, but it has no entertainment value. If only Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook had gone with one of the many interesting ideas proposed by our favorite Taiwanese animated news commentators, the good folk at Next Media Animation.

In agreeing to pay $35 billion in dividends, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook was sending Wall Street a message: It's my company now. Steve Jobs, Cook's predecessor and Apple's co-founder, hated dividends. To him, Apple profits should be plowed back into the development of mind-bending new products, and shareholders would reap the benefits as the stock value rose. Cook, on the other hand, is siding with Wall Street investors who have long believed the company was only as strong as its last product.

It took just one word for Apple Inc. to make headlines. "Yep," wrote Apple chief Steve Jobs in an e-mail. The message was addressed to Andrea Nepori, an Italian blogger who wrote to sjobs@apple.com this week. He asked the reclusive Apple founder whether he'd be able to sync his free e-books to the iPad, due to hit U.S. stores next week. Jobs' affirmation wasn't the real news. That particular detail was listed on Apple's website before Nepori's inquiry. The response itself is what prompted bloggers to fly off the handle.

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs broke with his usual code of secrecy Monday to explain his health problems, but the disclosure that a hormone imbalance was causing his noticeable weight loss will probably do little to tamp down concerns. Medical experts said a hormone imbalance in a pancreatic cancer survivor raises red flags about a possible recurrence. Jobs said in 2004 that he had undergone surgery to treat a rare form of the deadly disease.

Apple Inc.'s plan to launch a stock buyback program as well as start paying a quarterly dividend was welcome news to investors in the world's most valuable company. Apple will pay a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share, starting in its fiscal fourth quarter, which begins July 1. And a $10 billion share buyback program will begin next fiscal year, reports  our colleague David Sarno. It's big news -- and not just because of the big bucks involved. The development also suggests a break with the way Apple was run under late Chief Executive Steve Jobs : For years, the company had rejected demands to share that money with stockholders.  The about-face left some consumers -- you know, the men, women and children who purchased the products that made such wealth possible -- grumbling on Monday, wondering about their piece of the pie. In a conference call with investors this morning, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the company would spend about $45 billion on the two-pronged approach over the next three years.