Lenovo hires star who played Jobs

A US movie star, who recently portrayed Steve Jobs, will have a leading role with Lenovo to develop next-generation tablets targeting Apple.

Ashton Kutcher joined Lenovo as product engineer, and the movie star and venture capitalist will help the Chinese company to develop and market the Yoga series tablets.

Lenovo is also likely to unveil an AK brand product next year, featuring Kutcher's design ideas, according to a source familiar with the project.

David Roman, the chief marketing officer of Lenovo, told a news conference in Los Angeles that Kutcher will provide input on design, specifications, software and usage scenarios.

The world's biggest personal computer maker is launching the next-generation tablet in China on Friday. The Beijing-based company hopes its "attacking" strategy will boost its efforts against giants such as Apple and Samsung.

Lenovo's tablet shipment, in the second quarter, lags far behind Apple and Samsung.

The company delivered 1.5 million tablets worldwide during that period while Apple produced 14.6 million, data from research firm IDC revealed.

However, IDC also noted that Lenovo's 300-percent-plus year-on-year growth rate gave the company stronger momentum than industry leaders.

Apple's growth rate was down 14 percent.

Kutcher, 35, has invested in a number of Silicon Valley tech start-ups including Skype, Foursquare, Path and Fab.com.

He also starred in a number of sitcoms and Hollywood movies including Two and a Half Men, That '70s Show and The Butterfly Effect.

Kutcher portrayed Apple co-founder Jobs in his most recent film.