Steve Jobs disappointed laptop junkies by failing to announce the new PowerBooks or the much-anticipated consumer portable at MacWorld Expo Tokyo on Thursday. Now the best hopes of notebook aficionados are fixed on the company’s Worldwide Developer Conference in May. Not surprisingly, Jobs also failed to confirm rumors of a merger between Apple Computer Inc, Pixar Inc and the Walt Disney Co. What the iCEO did talk about was the new G3, iMac sales (high and growing), the return of developers to the Mac platform (nearly 1600 new titles, 901 localized for Japan) and the release of Mac OS X Server. Also worth noting: Jobs pointed out that by the end of March, the number of Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices for the iMac should reach 100. That’s one in the eye for critics who said that dependence on USB would prove to be the little blue desktop’s downfall. Meanwhile Connectix’s controversial PlayStation emulator is expected to hit the Japanese market in the middle of the year, Sony and the lawyers willing (CI NO 3,592).