Business & Tech Apple Unveils Plans for Tabletop Robot Companion and Home Security System In response to criticism that Apple has missed the boat on the AI revolution, the company is reportedly working on a new tabletop AI "companion" that could hit the market in two years, as well as home-security cameras, and a smart speaker with a display.
Business & Tech Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Say Private School on Their Property Is a Home-School, Not Illegal Sometimes it's tough being a billionaire when the public is training a watchful eye on you, particularly when that public notices you're doing something that may not be fully above-board in your quiet suburban neighborhood.
Business & Tech Video: SF Man Climbs on Top of Waymo, Beats It With His Belt, Eventually Smashes Windshield A South of Market pedestrian made his feelings known about a self-driving Waymo this week, climbing onto the vehicle’s hood, beating the automobile with his belt, and eventually smashing its windshield (because he was standing on it).
Business & Tech Mark Zuckerberg's Palo Alto Compound, With 'Bunkers,' Has Reportedly Been Under Constant Construction For 8 Years Neighbors of the Chan-Zuckerbergs in Palo Alto's Crescent Park neighborhood say that the city and local police have basically bent over backwards to accommodate their local celebrity billionaire, at everyone else's expense.
Business & Tech Free Streaming Platform Tubi Announces New SF Headquarters; OpenAI Takes More Space In Mission Bay While new leasing activity for office space is still fairly quiet around downtown San Francisco, a couple of prominent companies are making moves in further positive signs of an upswing.
Business & Tech United Airlines Tech Glitch Causes Almost 300 Flight Delays In and Out of SFO United Airlines was recovering Thursday from a technology problem Wednesday afternoon that temporarily grounded all of its flights and caused widespread delays, as well as some flight cancellations.
Business & Tech Report: Uber Has Sexual Assaults Reported on the Platform Every Eight Minutes A new exposé into the sexual assault problem on Uber shows that an assault is reported by an Uber driver or passenger every eight minutes, and that the company has intentionally been dragging its feet on letting women request women drivers.
Business & Tech Apple Sues the New Apple Cinemas at 1000 Van Ness, Claiming Trademark Infringement Not even one month after the movie theater chain Apple Cinemas took over the vacant 1000 Van News theater, the computer company Apple, Inc. is suing them over their name, saying that it’s meant to deceive consumers.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Philz Coffee Being Sold to Private Equity Firm for $145 Million, Employees Reportedly Getting Screwed Out of Their Stock The once-trendy, San Francisco-born coffeeshop chain Philz Coffee has struck a deal to be sold off to a private equity firm for $145 million, but any employees who bought stock are getting the shaft, as they won’t see a penny of that money.
Business & Tech Nvidia May Be Opening SF Office at New Mission Rock Complex The multi-building development at Mission Rock that's co-owned by the San Francisco Giants may be getting another high-profile tenant: chip-maker Nvidia.
Arts & Entertainment People Are Spotting That OpenAI Movie Being Shot at Locations Around San Francisco A Hollywood comedy about OpenAI’s firing and rehiring of Sam Altman as CEO is now being shot around San Francisco, and people are spotting big stars like Jason Schwartzman and Monica Barbaro in Dolores Park, the Marina, and SoMa.
Business & Tech Tesla Rolls Out Ride-Hail Service In Bay Area, Careful Not to Call It 'Robotaxi' So, it seems that Tesla still doesn't have permits to operate a self-driving taxi service in California. But after launching just such a service for a select few users in Austin, the company appears to be doing the same thing in the Bay Area, but here they're not calling it self-driving.
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink Yet Another SF Cafe Trying ‘Robot Baristas,’ This Time at the Former Creamery Spot Near SoMa Caltrain “AI slop” may soon be available in liquid form, as yet one more forthcoming SF cafe is trying the robot barista idea, but also adding AI-generated art and music plus “tech-forward coffee” at the former Creamery space on Fourth Street.
SF News Day Around the Bay: Wag! Pet Care Company Enters Bankruptcy A Palestinian teacher who tried to come to the Bay Area last month has been killed; Wag!, the pet-care company, has filed for bankruptcy; and there was a shooting today outside the Manhattan headquarters of the NFL.
Business & Tech Local Tech Company’s AI Agent ‘Panics,’ Deletes Production Data, Then Hallucinates Cover-Up Replit, a Bay Area–based coding platform, made headlines after its AI deleted a live database during a “vibe coding” session. Investor Jason Lemkin says the cover-up attempt was worse, but he’s still using Replit after what he called “mega improvements.”
Business & Tech Tesla Is Maybe Launching Robotaxis In San Francisco This Weekend, For Testing An internal memo apparently informed Tesla employees that the company was planning to put its robotaxis, with drivers behind the wheel, on the streets of San Francisco this weekend — but do they even have a permit for this?
SF Restaurants, Food & Drink That Tesla-Branded Diner Has Opened In LA, and Predictably It Is Being Yelp-Bombed The 24-hour Tesla Diner just opened earlier this week in West Hollywood, serving smashburgers, hot dogs, chicken and waffles, breakfast tacos, and more. But apparently you can't park there unless you drive a Tesla.
Business & Tech Sam Altman Warns of Coming AI-Created 'Fraud Crisis' OpenAI CEO Sam Altman issued a fairly dire warning about how some personal security apparatuses — particularly things we use to guard our bank accounts and the like — are highly vulnerable to AI-based fraud.
Business & Tech Tourist In SF For Conference Ends Up Stuck In Weird Waymo Garage Limbo "This was like, out of a science fiction movie," says attorney Darren Findling, describing a brief ordeal he had during his first-ever Waymo ride on Monday morning in San Francisco.
Business & Tech Tesla Lawsuit Underway That Could Temporarily Yank Its License to Operate in California State Attorney General Rob Bonta has Tesla in his crosshairs, and is aiming to temporarily suspend the company’s ability to do business in California, charging that Tesla’s “autopilot” and “full self-driving capability” claims are misleading bunk.
Business & Tech Tech Bro Builds App to 'Cheat on Everything,' and a Former Classmate Creates One to Detect It A 21-year-old Columbia dropout built Cluely to help users “cheat on everything.” Now rebranded as a productivity tool, it’s facing scrutiny from critics, as well competition from Truely, an app by another Columbia student that detects stealth AI.
Business & Tech Turns Out, Meta's AI Data Centers Use Up a Lot of Water In Addition to Electricity Something that hasn't gotten enough attention is whether the entire AI enterprise is even sustainable, given how the computing power currently required, scaled upwards, uses incredible amounts of energy and water.
Business & Tech The Grok Chatbot Is Apparently Programmed to Check for Elon Musk's Opinions to Answer Questions Well well. Should it be at all shocking to learn that Elon Musk's xAI has built an AI chatbot that essentially seeks to parrot Musk's own views of the world whenever it gets the chance?
Business & Tech Good News for Union Square, as Bang & Olufsen Is Returning, in the Old Britex Fabrics Location Danish luxury electronics retailer Bang & Olufsen actually closed their Union Square store long before the pandemic and subsequent downtown SF downturn, but they're coming back this October in the former Geary Street Britex Fabrics space.
Business & Tech Musk Threatens to Bring Tesla's LiDAR-Free Robotaxis to Bay Area Within Months Lest we thought that Elon Musk was finally done with the Bay Area, having closed down Xitter's offices and moved several of his companies to Texas, he's now claiming that Tesla's robotaxis will be coming to compete with Waymo soon.
