Faces to Watch in ’96 : The Year’s in Their Hands : Well, maybe not just theirs (notice we don’t list Jim Carrey). But these artists and entertainers--some you know, some you don’t--are most likely to make some kind of splash in ’96. Ready? Everybody into the pool. : TECHNOLOGY : Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer, has been wandering in the technology wilderness since he was forced out of Apple a decade ago, struggling to make his second computer company, Next Inc., a success. But he burst onto the public stage this year with his third company, Pixar, the computer animation pioneer that created Disney’s “Toy Story.”

Pixar rode the success of “Toy Story” with an initial public offering that made Jobs, who owns 80% of the company, an overnight billionaire, though the stock has since declined somewhat. In 1996, look for Pixar to take home an Oscar for technical excellence--though some in Hollywood grumble that the company chairman wasn’t involved enough in operations to deserve much of the limelight.

The company’s stock might not continue to be a high-flyer: Pixar is under contract to do two more films for Disney under terms that have most of the money flowing back to Burbank. But Jobs, 40, himself may have another big winner nonetheless: A scaled-back Next finally appears to have found its niche in specialized software, and may itself go public next year. And the onetime Apple wunderkind is a perfect fit for his new role as apostle of the digital movie studio: famous, charming, energetic and very, very rich.