pixar

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is scheduled to be questioned in a lawsuit charging several technology companies for allegedly agreeing not to poach employees from each other, Bloomberg said today.

The case is part of a civil suit filed in 2011 by five workers against Google, Intuit, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Pixar, and Lucasfilm, claiming that they tried to keep down wages through non-poaching agreements.

Six of the companies involved settled a Justice Department complaint in 2010. The civil suit was launched in 2011 and named Lucasfilm as a seventh defendant.

Neither Facebook nor Sandberg are named as defendants in … Read more

Although it didn't earn the critical acclaim of "Toy Story 3," "Up," or "Ratatouille," Pixar's 2012 film "Brave" joined those three hits, as well as three other Pixar predecessors, in winning the Oscar for best animated feature.

Beating out fellow nominees "Wreck-it Ralph," "Frankenweenie," "ParaNorman," and "The Pirates! Band of Misfits," "Brave" became the seventh Pixar film to nab the Oscar since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences began awarding the honor in 2002. No other studio has … Read more

Everett Downing knows a thing or two about drawing. After all, he's a story artist for Pixar, and has worked on such classics as "Up," "Wall-E," and other major films.

Given how much drawing he does during work hours, it might surprise you that one of Downing's hobbies is even more drawing. Several years ago, Downing created a blog called 365 Supers, a site that would eventually house hundreds of his original superheroes. The goal? Overcome a creative rut, and have a little fun in the process. We took a moment to highlight a few of Downing's heroes (and heroines) for your pleasure.… Read more

The original "Toy Story" took years and $30 million to produce, but a pair of enterprising filmmakers have created a live-action tribute to the Pixar classic with a few toys picked up at the local toy store.

Filmmakers Jonason Pauley and Jesse Perrotta began working on their remake of the 1995 animated children's movie in 2010 and posted the fruit of two and a half years of work yesterday on YouTube. In less than 24 hours, the 80-minute-long movie, titled simply "Live Action Toy Story," has become an Internet sensation, attracting more than a quarter … Read more

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has logged a patent application from Disney that points toward a gaming console that focuses on 3D augmented reality, which may provide a hint about the company's reported gaming endeavor, the Toy Box.

The patent application describes techniques underlying a device that can capture a real scene and then augment it, such as taking a picture of a coffee mug on top of a table and then animating the cup. When the user looks at the mug through the device, it will look like a cartoon character, for example. The images included … Read more

When I see a cute critter like Fizzgig or an Ewok in a movie, I want to take it home with me. I get the same feeling when I see Pixar's sweet Luxo Jr. lamp mascot. It's like a little metal puppy you want to hold on your lap and take care of.

The sprightly lamp has now hopped out of the screen and into the real world thanks to a project created at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand by Adam Ben-Dror, Joss Doggett, and Shanshan Zhou. This lamp is black, rather than white like Luxo Jr. The project is called Pinokio and the lamp is imaginatively named "Lamp."

Pinokio uses six servos, a Webcam, and Arduino to track human faces, play hide-and-seek, hear sounds, and try really hard to get your attention.… Read more

Steve Jobs has been memorialized on film studio Pixar's campus.

The Pixar Times, a site dedicated to the film studio, reported yesterday that the Pixar main building is now known as "The Steve Jobs Building." Junn Lee, a Pixar employee, yesterday tweeted a picture of the building with its new name atop the entranceway.

Pixar likely wouldn't be the company it is today without Steve Jobs. In the mid-1980s, the company was having trouble staying afloat under the leadership of famed director George Lucas. After his ouster from Apple, Steve Jobs paid Lucas $5 million for … Read more

In a video released today, "Star Wars" creator George Lucas explained that he decided to sell his media empire to The Walt Disney Company for $4.05 billion because he believed it would "protect" Lucasfilm and its cash cow, the "Star Wars" franchise.

Sitting at a table alongside Lucasfilm co-chairman Kathleen Kennedy -- who will be Lucasfilm's president under Disney -- Lucas explained that in recent months, as he had mulled retirement and what he wanted to do with his life, he realized that the "perfect person to take over the company … Read more

In a shocking announcement linking two of the best-known names in the movie business, Disney said today that it is buying Lucasfilm, maker of the "Star Wars" films, for $4.05 billion. … Read more