Factbox: U.S. President Barack Obama

(Reuters) – As the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, 51, signed into law a revamp of the national healthcare system and authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden but struggled to revive the economy and create jobs.

As the United States holds its presidential election on Tuesday, here are key facts about Obama, the nation’s first black president.

- Barack Obama has a personal background like no other president in U.S. history. His mother, Ann Dunham, was a white woman from Kansas and his father, Barack Obama Sr., was a black Kenyan who saw little of his son after a divorce when the boy was a toddler. Obama spent much of his childhood in Indonesia and then Hawaii, where he lived with his maternal grandparents.

- Obama struggled with his mixed racial background while growing up, writing in a memoir that he wondered “if something was wrong with me.” He also was troubled by the absence of his father, whom he considered a “myth,” and said that may have contributed to his use of marijuana and cocaine in his youth.

- Obama graduated from New York’s Columbia University in 1983 and worked in the business sector in New York and for a Chicago community group. In 1988 he went to Harvard Law School, where he became the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.

- Obama’s relationship with Congress has been problematic. Even when Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate, Republicans often stymied his initiatives. The situation became more difficult when tax-averse Republicans took over the majority in the House in 2010.

- In the early 1990s Obama worked in a voter registration campaign in Chicago, taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago and joined a law firm that specialized in civil rights and neighborhood development. He married Michelle Robinson, whom he met at a law firm when he was an intern and she was assigned to be his adviser.

- In his rare spare moments, the lanky Obama pursues his lifelong love of basketball with semi-regular games at an FBI gym. He also makes time for school functions and sports events of his daughters Sasha and Malia and tries to get out for an occasional “date night” with his wife.

- Obama’s political career began with his election to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 and soared in 2004 when he gave a rousing keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. In November of that year he was elected to the U.S. Senate.

- Obama won the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination by defeating Hilary Clinton, the former first lady and New York senator, and then took the presidency by beating Republican Senator John McCain. His energetic campaign was built on a theme of “hope and change” fueled by powerful oratory.

- A mood of national optimism prevailed at Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009, which drew an estimated 1.8 million people to the National Mall in Washington despite bitter cold. He began his presidency with a 68 percent approval rating.

- Obama simultaneously oversaw wars in Iraq, which he ended in 2011, and Afghanistan, as well as the U.S. military involvement in Libya that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi. In May 2011 he authorized the raid in which U.S. Navy SEALS killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan – a triumph he points to as indicative of a strong national security policy.

- Obama inherited an economic crisis so persistent that it remains a threat to his re-election. Almost 800,000 jobs were lost the month he took over. In the early days of his administration, he pushed through an $ 831 billion economic stimulus package and renewed loans to automakers, even making the government a temporary part-owner of General Motors.

- The centerpiece of his domestic agenda was the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare reform law better known as Obamacare. Its purpose is to give all Americans affordable insurance and more protections but critics say it is expensive federal interference. A key aspect of the reform – requiring most Americans to get insurance or pay a penalty – survived a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court challenge.

- Obama has a reputation as a charming communicator but he also is criticized for being aloof and not building better relationships with congressional leaders. Some have questioned his preparation skills, especially after a poor performance in a presidential debate with Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

(Writing by Bill Trott; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Fed’s Williams: Policies have aided growth without undue fallout

IRVINE, California (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve‘s unconventional monetary policies have lowered borrowing costs and boosted growth without creating unwanted inflation, a top Fed official said on Monday, predicting the Fed’s latest round of asset-buying will exceed $ 600 billion.

The Fed will want to see sustained jobs gains and a consistent drop in the unemployment rate before it stops buying assets, making it likely the purchases will continue until “well into next year,” John Williams, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, told reporters after a lecture at the University of California, Irvine.

The U.S. central bank’s prior round of quantitative easing totaled $ 600 billion; its first one was about $ 1.7 trillion.

The Fed began its third round of quantitative easing, known as QE3, in September, beginning with $ 40 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities and promising to continue or expand the purchases if the labor market does not improve substantially.

Although asset-buying and other non-traditional monetary policies pose potential risks, “the available evidence suggests they have been effective in stimulating growth without creating an undesirable rise in inflation,” Williams said at the lecture. “We are not seeing signs of rising inflation on the horizon.”

The policies also have not stimulated excessive risk-taking, he said.

The Fed lowered short-term interest rates to zero in December 2008, and has bought more than $ 2 trillion in long-term securities to lower borrowing costs even more.

August 2011 it moved further into unconventional territory by saying it planned to keep rates ultra-low for about two more years, a form of policy easing known as forward guidance.

In September, the Fed launched a third round of asset purchases and promised to keep rates low until at least mid-2015.

The latest asset purchase program kicked off with an initial $ 40 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities, and the Fed said it will continue or expand the program until the jobs situation improves substantially.

Unemployment was 7.9 percent last month, considerably higher than the 5 percent to 6 percent that most economists see as the norm for the U.S. economy. Inflation has averaged below the Fed’s 2 percent target over the past year.

Williams told the largely student audience that the Fed’s first two rounds of asset-buying likely shaved 1.5 percentage points from the unemployment rate. They also probably kept the U.S. economy from falling into deflation, he said.

Forward guidance has also become a key monetary policy tool, he said. The Fed’s first stab at it, in August 2011 when it promised low rates until mid-2013, pushed down borrowing costs sharply, equivalent to cutting short-term interest rates by 3/4 to 1 percentage point, he said.

Such guidance only works if the public believes the central bank will do what it says, he added.

“If the public doesn’t understand the central bank’s intended policy path, then forward guidance may not work so well,” he said.

One way for the central bank to reinforce public expectations is to buy assets on a large scale, effectively “putting its money where its mouth is,” he said. Buying assets shows the Fed is “determined to ease monetary conditions,” he said – and helps push down rates further.

Quantifying the effects of the Fed’s policies is difficult, he added, but “the presence of uncertainty does not mean that we shouldn’t be using these tools.”

Williams has been a strong supporter of the U.S. central bank’s super-easy monetary policy and is a voter this year on the Fed’s policy-setting committee.

Once it comes time to exit its super-easy monetary policy, the Fed will target a “soft landing,” raising rates and then selling the assets it has accumulated in its bid to push borrowing costs lower, Williams said.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Leslie Adler and Lisa Shumaker)

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Methane warnings ignored before NZ mine disaster

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A New Zealand coal mining company ignored 21 warnings that methane gas had accumulated to explosive levels before an underground explosion killed 29 workers two years ago, an investigation concluded.

The official report released Monday after 11 weeks of hearings on the disaster found broad safety problems in New Zealand workplaces and said the Pike River Coal company was exposing miners to unacceptable risks as it strove to meet financial targets.

“The company completely and utterly failed to protect its workers,” New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Monday.

The country’s labor minister, Kate Wilkinson, resigned from her labor portfolio after the report’s release, saying she felt it was the honorable thing to do after the tragedy occurred on her watch. She plans to retain her remaining government responsibilities.

The Royal Commission report said New Zealand has a poor workplace safety record and its regulators failed to provide adequate oversight before the explosion.

At the time of the disaster, New Zealand had just two mine inspectors who were unable to keep up with their workload, the report said. Pike River was able to obtain a permit with no scrutiny of its initial health and safety plans and little ongoing scrutiny.

Key said he agrees with the report’s conclusion that there needs to be a philosophical shift in New Zealand from believing that companies are acting in the best interests of workers to a more proscriptive set of regulations that forces companies to do the right thing.

The commission’s report recommended a new agency be formed to focus solely on workplace health and safety problems. It also recommended a raft of measures to strengthen mine oversight.

Key said his government would consider the recommendations and hoped to implement most of them. He would not commit on forming a new agency. Workplace safety issues are currently one of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

In the seven weeks before the explosion, the Pike River company received 21 warnings from mine workers that methane gas had built up to explosive levels below ground and another 27 warnings of dangerous levels, the report said. The warnings continued right up until the morning of the deadly explosion.

The company used unconventional methods to get rid of methane, the report said. Some workers even rigged their machines to bypass the methane sensors after the machines kept automatically shutting down — something they were designed to do when methane levels got too high.

The company made a “major error” by placing a ventilation fan underground instead of on the surface, the report found. The fan failed after the first of several explosions, effectively shutting down the entire ventilation system. The company was also using water jets to cut the coal face, a highly specialized technique than can release large amounts of methane.

The report did not definitively conclude what sparked the explosion itself, although it noted that a pump was switched on immediately before the explosion, raising the possibility it was triggered by an electrical arc.

The now-bankrupt Pike River Coal company is not defending itself against charges it committed nine labor violations related to the disaster. Former chief executive Peter Whittall has pleaded not guilty to 12 violations and his lawyers say he is being scapegoated.

An Australian contractor was fined last month for three safety violations after its methane detector was found to be faulty at the time of the explosion.

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Everyday Objects Photographed as Childlike Adventures

1. Zesty Mower

“It was so like Patty. Right idea. Wrong execution.” Image used with permission by Christopher Boffoli

Click here to view this gallery.

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Children let their imaginations run wild, turning everyday scenarios like breakfast at the kitchen table into a fantasy world.

As we grow more familiar with our surroundings, things become “normal” and lose that sense of wild curiosity.

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Photographer Christopher Boffoli created the series Big Appetites with that same imaginative, childlike mindset. The photos, shown above, play on object scale and words, adding tiny, detailed figurines of people to real food environments. A cup of tea turns into a scuba diving adventure, and cylindrical pasta becomes a pipeline factory.

“As a child you live in an adult world that is out of scale with your body and proportions. And you constantly exercise your imagination around a world of toys that are further out of scale,” says Boffoli.

Each photo is paired with a humorous caption that Boffoli says adds “an element of surprise and humor that things aren’t simply as they appear.”

The series will be exhibited in Seattle and Singapore this month, and a book on Bofolli’s work will release next year.

What sort of imaginative adventures did you go on as a child? Let us know in the comments below.

Images used with permission by Christopher Boffoli

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Lucas plans ‘little personal films’ in future

NEW YORK (AP) — George Lucas is done with “Star Wars,” but not with filmmaking.

The “Star Wars” creator says he’s looking forward to making his “own little personal films” that he doubts will be for the theater crowd.

Lucas spoke Friday night at Ebony magazine‘s Power 100 Gala, days after announcing the sale of his storied Lucasfilm to Disney for $ 4.05 billion. The deal would allow for more “Star Wars” films.

Lucas was “very sad” let Lucasfilm go but excited about his educational foundation, which will benefit from the sale. He also plans to make more movies. His last one was this year’s “Red Tails,” about the Tuskegee Airmen, but he said he barely got it in theaters. He said the movies he’s working on now “will never get into theaters.”

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Angioplasty costs are higher at non-surgery hospitals

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Angioplasty to clear blocked arteries costs more at hospitals not equipped for emergency heart surgery, according to a study presented on Sunday at the American Heart Association scientific meeting.

Elective angioplasty is becoming increasingly common at hospitals that do not conduct more complicated heart procedures. During angioplasty, doctors insert a balloon-tipped catheter into an artery and inflate a balloon to open the narrowed blood vessel.

Researchers from Duke University Medical School in North Carolina analyzed billing data from more than 18,000 patients and found that the average cumulative medical costs were $ 23,991 in surgery-equipped hospitals, versus $ 25,460 in those without surgical centers.

“Surprisingly, there was no difference in procedure cost,” said Dr. Eric Eisenstein, lead author of the study and assistant professor of medicine at Duke. “We did find a difference in follow-up cost.”

The difference was due mainly to the fact that non-surgery hospitals used intensive care units for post-angioplasty care, as required by the study, and patients treated at these hospitals were more likely to be readmitted nine months after treatment.

“Rising costs of medical care make it very pertinent for us to assess value,” said Dr. Mark Hlatky, director of the cardiovascular outcomes research center at Stanford University.

Eisenstein said, “there is no guarantee that a community hospital can provide angioplasty services at costs comparable with those of major hospitals with on-site cardiac surgery.”

More than 1 million coronary artery opening procedures are performed in the United States each year, according to the American Heart Association.

(Reporting By Deena Beasley; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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India’s Outsourcing Firms Must Boost Morale

India’s business-process-outsourcing (BPO) companies have a problem. The $ 50 billion industry has enjoyed phenomenal growth: The top 20 BPO companies’ employee base grew 12 percent in 2011, according to Dataquest, and the domestic market is expanding.

Yet BPO companies are struggling to attract the right talent. Not long ago, a BPO job was considered prestigious and financially beneficial, but lately potential candidates have opted for jobs in more traditional sectors such as banking, retail, and manufacturing. One of the critical issues facing business leaders today is the people perception that BPO jobs are unattractive. Rebranding could help change this view, but leaders can only achieve a true shift in people’s perceptions of BPO jobs when professionals in the industry view them as an attractive career option. When BPO employees feel loyalty to their companies and advocate for them, they provide excellent images of the industry to the outside world.

However, a study based on Gallup data indicates that BPO companies are unlikely to change people’s perspectives of them while the industry continues on its current path. A Gallup analysis of more than 75,000 respondents across eight BPO organizations over a two-year period indicates that a mere 28 percent of employees strongly agree that they intend to stay with their organization for the next two years; the same number strongly agree that they would recommend their organization to friends or family members.

The low level of loyalty shown by this number should worry any business leader concerned about employee turnover costs and lost productivity. But there is another issue here: When less than one in three employees strongly believes in a BPO employer, it is unlikely that young aspirants looking to embark on a career will meet mentors or advisers who would urge them to pursue a job with a BPO organization. This is true in any industry, but it is especially true in India: Indians typically rely on advice from people in their social networks, especially when it comes to big decisions such as choosing a school, a neighborhood, or a profession. While industry specific information is typically publicly available, many Indians tend to make key decisions after receiving direct advice from a trusted person.

That leads to the critical roadblock to acquiring talent in the BPO industry: Because of current experience in their organizations, these trusted sources are more likely to guide young, aspiring professionals into other industries.

The first step in reshaping the BPO industry’s image is to focus on existing BPO professionals’ needs. Gallup investigated the difference between extremely loyal advocates of the industry and those who take the opposite view and found two critical factors separating the groups: first, the contribution an employee’s job makes to the mission and purpose of the organization and second, the opportunities each employee has to learn and grow on the job.

While these factors are common across industries, the range of their effect on engagement and subsequently loyalty and advocacy in the BPO industry is tremendous. For example, when employees can strongly agree with two statements from Gallup’s engagement assessment designed to measure employee-engagement conditions, (“The mission or purpose of my organization makes me feel my job is important” and This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow”), their engagement levels increase to the 92nd engagement percentile of the overall workforce in India. Indeed, at those levels these workers become some of the most engaged employees. Being able to strongly agree with just one of the two items boosts employee engagement to above-average levels—into the 69th percentile of the workforce in India.

However, when an employee cannot strongly agree with either item, his or her engagement level falls to the 20th percentile of the India database. Such low levels of engagement drastically affect employees’ ability to be successful at work and ultimately their overall well being.

This lack of employee agreement with the key factors of loyalty and advocacy is an important signal to BPO company leaders. Increasing employee engagement affects loyalty and advocacy in the industry. Gallup data show that “engaged” employees are at least four times more likely than employees who are “not engaged” and 15 times more likely than “actively disengaged” employees to become advocates for their organizations in their social networks. Gallup has seen similar trends among employees regarding loyalty.

However, three out of five employees do not understand their role in fulfilling their organization’s mission and are unclear on how they will grow in their organization. The critical goal for BPO industry leaders is to connect their employee base with the vision of the company and to explain to employees how to achieve this vision and what the path forward will look like. If BPO companies can show workers the direction forward, the industry’s path will suddenly look a lot clearer, too.

Gill is a Senior Consultant with the strategic consulting firm Gallup in India. He works with clients in the technology, hospitality, financial services, and business services sectors in India, Australia, and Japan.

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Newspaper discloses new Cameron text messages

LONDON (AP) — A British lawmaker says he’s asked the country’s media ethics inquiry to consider newly disclosed text messages sent between Prime Minister David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks, the ex-chief executive of Rupert Murdoch‘s British newspaper division.

The Mail on Sunday newspaper on Sunday published two previously undisclosed messages exchanged between the pair, who are friends and neighbors.

Brooks is facing trial on conspiracy charges linked to Britain’s phone hacking scandal, which saw Murdoch close down The News of The World tabloid.

In one newly disclosed message, Cameron thanked Brooks in 2009 for allowing him to borrow a horse, joking it was “fast, unpredictable and hard to control but fun.”

Opposition lawmaker Chris Bryant has asked a judge-led inquiry scrutinizing ties between the press and the powerful to examine the messages.

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Microsoft Testing Its Own Smartphone [REPORT]

Microsoft is building its own smartphone, a new report suggests. It’s currently in the testing phase with Asian component suppliers, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cites “people familiar with the situation.”

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In an interview with Mashable this week at Microsoft‘s Build developer conference, Todd Brix, senior director for Windows Phone Apps and Store, said, “We have nothing to talk about our own phone. We’re very happy with all of our partners.”

Microsoft building its own phone makes sense in the context of the Surface, a Microsoft-designed and -manufactured tablet the company unveiled in the summer. Microsoft also managed to keep the Surface a total secret until right before the launch.

[More from Mashable: Windows 8 Is Bold and Powerful [REVIEW]]

Other people involved with Microsoft’s Windows Phone division told Mashable that if the company was indeed working on a phone, that it was being kept even more top secret than the Surface.

Microsoft’s introduction of the Surface has irked some of the company’s hardware partners, and some have even publicly voiced their displeasure over Microsoft becoming a competitor. With regard to mobile, a Microsoft-branded phone has the potential to jeopardize the company’s relationship with Nokia and HTC, both of which have developed hardware specifically for Windows Phone. Nokia has, in fact, tied its very survival to Windows Phone (HTC also makes Android devices).

The Journal report says the phone Microsoft is rumored to be testing has a screen that measures between 4 and 5 inches. The anonymous parties who shared this information said the phone may actually be a testing model, with no plans for it to go into production.

It’s not a crazy idea. Microsoft sets much tighter hardware guidelines for Windows Phone than Google does for Android, where varied design and interface overlays are commonplace. Microsoft may be building a phone to serve as a template for the next generation of Windows Phone software rather than a device it actually intends to market.

What do you think about the rumor of a Microsoft-branded Windows phone? Share your thoughts in the comments.

HTC Windows Phone 8X

HTC has said that the 8X was inspired by the Windows Phone Start Screen, and is designed to look like a live tile if a tile was a physical thing.

With that thought in mind, the phone will be available in a number of different colors – Flame Red, California Blue, Limelight Yellow and Graphite Black – colors that match some of the tile color options available in Windows Phone 8.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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George Lucas’ filmmaking rooted in rebellion

LOS ANGELES (AP) — There’s no mistaking the similarities. A childhood on a dusty farm, a love of fast vehicles, a rebel who battles an overpowering empire — George Lucas is the hero he created, Luke Skywalker.

His filmmaking outpost, Skywalker Ranch, is so far removed from the Hollywood moviemaking machine he once despised, that it may as well be on the forest moon of Endor.

That’s why this week’s announcement that Lucas is selling the “Star Wars” franchise and the entire Lucasfilm business to The Walt Disney Co. for more than $ 4 billion is like a laser blast from outer space.

Lucas built his film operation in Marin County near San Francisco largely to avoid the meddling of Los Angeles-based studios. His aim was to finish the “Star Wars” series— his way.

Today the enterprise has far surpassed the 68-year-old filmmaker’s original goals. The ranch covers 6,100 acres and houses one of the industry’s most acclaimed visual effects companies, Industrial Light & Magic. Lucasfilm, with its headquarters now in San Francisco proper, has ventured into books, video games, merchandise, special effects and marketing. Just as Anakin Skywalker became the villain Darth Vader, Lucas —once the outsider— had grown to become the leader of an empire.

“What I was trying to do was stay independent so that I could make the movies I wanted to make,” Lucas says in the 2004 documentary “Empire of Dreams.” ”But now I’ve found myself being the head of a corporation … I have become the very thing that I was trying to avoid.”

After the blockbuster sale announcement Tuesday, Lucas expressed a desire to give away much of his fortune, donate to educational causes and return to the experimental filmmaking of his youth. Still, the move stunned those who’ve followed him. He’d contemplated retirement for years and said he’d never make another “Star Wars” film.

Dale Pollock, the author of the 1999 biography “Skywalking,” said Lucas disdained the Disney culture in interviews he gave in the 1980s, even though he admired the company’s founder. “He felt the corporate ‘Disneyization’ had destroyed the spirit of Walt,” Pollock said.

Lucas said through a spokeswoman on Saturday that he never said such a thing. But his anti-corporate streak is renowned. In the Lucasfilm-sanctioned documentary “Empire of Dreams”, Lucas says on camera that he is “not happy that corporations have taken over the film industry.”

Growing up in the central California town of Modesto, the independent streak was strong in young Lucas. The family lived on a walnut ranch and Lucas’ father owned a stationery store. But, like his fictional protege Luke, George had no interest in taking over the family business. Lucas and his father fought when George made it clear that he’d rather go to college to study art than follow in his father’s footsteps.

Lucas loved fast cars, and dreamed that racing them would be his ticket out. A near-fatal car crash the day before his high school graduation convinced him otherwise.

“I decided I’d better settle down and go to school,” he told sci-fi magazine Starlog in 1981.

As a film student at the University of Southern California, he experimented with “cinema verite,” a provocative form of documentary, and “tone poems” that visualized a piece of music or other artistic work.

The style is reflected in some of the short films he made at USC: “1:42:08″ focused on the sound of a Lotus race car’s engine driving at full speed and “Anyone Who Lived in a Pretty How Town,” inspired by an e.e. Cummings poem. In later interviews, Lucas described his early films as “visual exercises.”

Lucas’ intellectual explorations led to an interest in anthropology, especially the work of American mythologist Joseph Campbell, who studied the common thread linking the myths of disparate cultures. This inspired Lucas to explore archetypal storylines that resonated across the ages and around the world.

Lucas’ epic battle with the movie industry began after Warner Bros. forced him to make unwanted changes to an early film, “THX 1138.” Later, Universal Pictures insisted on revisions to “American Graffiti” that Lucas felt impinged on his creative freedom. The experience led Lucas to insist on having total control of all his work, just like Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney in their heyday.

“In order to get my vision out there, I really needed to learn how to manipulate the system because the system is designed to tear you down and destroy everything you are doing,” Lucas said in an interview with Charlie Rose.

He shopped his outline for “Star Wars” to several studios before finding a friend in Alan Ladd Jr., an executive at 20th Century Fox. Despite budget and deadline overruns, and pressure from the studio, the movie was a huge success when it was released in 1977. It grossed $ 798 million in theaters worldwide and caused Fox’s stock price at the time to double.

In one of the wisest business moves in Hollywood history, Lucas cut a deal with distributor Fox before the film’s release so that he could retain ownership of the sequels and rights for merchandise. He figured in the 1970s that might mean peddling a few T-shirts and posters to fans to help market the movie. Over the decades, merchandising has formed the bedrock of his multi-billion-dollar enterprise, resulting in a bonanza for Lucas from action figures, toys, spinoff books and other products.

Industrial Light & Magic, the unit he started in a makeshift space in the Los Angeles suburb of Van Nuys, moved to the ranch in northern California and lent its prowess to other movies. It broke ground using computers, motion-controlled cameras, models and masks. Its reach is breathtaking, notably among the biggest science fiction movies of the 1980s: “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” ”Poltergeist,” ”Back to the Future,” ”Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark,” ”Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and more.

“Between him and (Steven) Spielberg, they changed how movies got made,” said Matt Atchity, editor-in-chief of movie review website Rotten Tomatoes.

These days, the talent at ILM has spread around the globe, and many former employees have become top executives at other special effects companies, said Chris DeFaria, executive vice president of digital production at Warner Bros.

“You meet anybody who’s a significant executive or artist at a company, they’ve spent their time at ILM or got their start there. That’s probably one of George’s greatest gifts to the business,” DeFaria said.

Lucas helped make the tools that were needed for his films. ILM developed the world’s first computerized film editing and music mixing technology, revolutionizing what had been a cut-and-splice affair. Pixar, the imaging computer he founded as a division of Lucasfilm, became a world-famous animated movie company. Apple’s Steve Jobs bought and later sold it to Disney in 2006.

But the goliath Lucas created began to weigh on him. Fans-turned-critics felt the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy he directed fell short of the first films. Others believed his revisions to the re-released classics undid some of what made the first movies great.

Giving up his role at the head of Lucasfilm may shield him from the fury of rebellious fans and critics. He said in a video released by Disney that the sale would allow him to “do other things, things in philanthropy and doing more experimental kind of films.”

“I couldn’t really drag my company into that.”

Still, Lucas is not planning on going to a galaxy far, far away.

Speaking on Friday night at Ebony magazine’s Power 100 event in New York, Lucas said: “It’s 40 years of work and it’s been my life, but I’m ready to move on to bigger and better things. I have a foundation, an educational foundation. I do a lot of work with education, and I’m very excited about doing that.”

This week he assured the incoming president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy that he’d be around to advise her on future “Star Wars” movies —just like the apparition of Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi helps Luke through his adventures.

“They’re finishing the hologram now,” he told Kennedy. “Don’t worry.”

___

Liedtke reported from San Francisco. Global Entertainment Editor Nekesa Mumbi Moody in New York contributed to this story.

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