Business & Tech Site of Long-Dead Oceanwide Tower Project In Downtown SF Back In Play With New Development Team Remember that planned 61-story tower at First and Mission streets that a Chinese developer broke ground on in 2016, only to run into pre-pandemic financial trouble and then fully halt construction in mid-2020? Well it may not be a semi-filled hole in the ground much longer.
SF News Spirit Airlines Is Pulling Out of the Bay Area Completely, After Having Filed for Bankruptcy The biggest budget airline in the US, Spirit Airlines, filed for bankruptcy last year, and as part of their restructuring, they’re pulling all service out of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose.
Business & Tech Tesla Opens Up Robotoaxi App to All In SF, But Can They Even Do That? Tesla is pushing ahead with its Robotaxi service in SF, despite what we thought were a lot more regulatory hurdles that, as far as we know, Tesla's autonomous taxis have not actually gone through.
SF News SF Rents Rising Rents Faster Than Anywhere In the Country, So Thanks a Lot, AI Industry There should be no more talk of a “San Francisco exodus,” as rents are spiking here more than anywhere in the nation, and apartments are leasing faster in SF than in any other city in the US.
Business & Tech Parc 55 and Hilton Union Square Hotels Finally Have a Buyer, After Two Long Years Languishing in Receivership SFs largest hotel, the Hilton Union Square, and the also very large Parc 55 have finally found an interested buyer, ending two years of limbo for a pair of SF’s most prominent downtown hotels.
Business & Tech Report: Grok's Responses Have Indeed Been Getting More Right-Wing, Just Like Elon Musk If anyone doubted Elon Musk's integrity or his capacity to fulfill the promise of an unbiased, wholly fact-based AI chatbot that wasn't "woke," look no further than the latest version of Grok to have those doubts validated.
Business & Tech Some Joker Does Flips Off a Waymo, Sets Off Chain of Events That Confuses and Stalls Three Waymos We’ve heard of orange cones stopping a Waymo, but one fellow found that climbing onto the hood of a Waymo and doing a backflip will stop it too, but the halting of three Waymos in the Marina was likely just due to hooliganism.
Business & Tech Judge Stops Short of Making Google Sell Chrome, Forces It to Share Search Data With Competitors In a landmark decision in a landmark antitrust case, a federal judge in DC has ruled that in order to make restitution for its longstanding monopoly over internet search, Google will have to share some of its data and its search results to several qualified competitors.
Business & Tech California Uber and Lyft Drivers are Unionizing, and Uber and Lyft are Actually Going to Let Them In a surprising deal that was somewhat brokered by Gavin Newsom, Uber and Lyft are going to let their 800,000 California rideshare drivers unionize and get collective bargaining rights, though drivers can still refuse to join the union.
Business & Tech Former Bay Meadows Racetrack Finally Getting Its Last New Buildings, 18 Years After It Closed It’s taken 18 years to fully develop San Mateo’s 83-acre former horse racing track Bay Meadows, but a developer is finally submitting permits for the final two buildings of what will be a seven-building complex.
Business & Tech Two Parents Sue OpenAI, Saying ChaptGPT Assisted Their 16-Year-Old Son’s Suicide The first-ever lawsuit against OpenAI for a wrongful death comes from two parents whose son used ChatGPT for advice on the noose with which he hanged himself, and the chatbot allegedly encouraged him to keep his suicidal thought private.
Business & Tech Elon Musk and xAI Sue Apple and OpenAI Claiming Anticompetitive Scheme In the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and seemingly every other player in the AI realm, but specifically OpenAI, his company xAI has now filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and OpenAI.
Arts & Entertainment Metallica Set to Headline This Year's Dreamforce Concert, With Benson Boone Performing Too The corporate Salesforce conference Dreamforce has named Metallica as its headliner for the big concert they have every year, and Benson Boone will play too, but the bigger news may be that Dreamforce is moving to mid-October.
Business & Tech People Like Sam Altman and Eric Schmidt Are Calling Out the AI Bubble, Just as Meta Pauses AI Hiring Big names in Silicon Valley collectively seem to be saying the same thing about the AI boom lately, namely that it is looking more and more like a bubble, and that the rush to AGI (artificial general intelligence) may be very misguided.
Business & Tech Bed Bath & Beyond’s Trumper CEO Says the Company Will Refuse to Reopen Any Stores in California The executive chair of the bankrupt Bed Bath & Beyond claims the company will start reopening its shuttered stores, but will refuse to open any California stores, because he says it’s impossible to do business in the world’s fourth-largest economy.
Business & Tech Lyft Being Sued In Axe-Murder Case In Which Driver Chauffeured Murderer to the Crime Scene San Francisco-based Lyft is being sued over a 2022 murder case in which a Lyft driver ferried a man carrying an axe to the home of his ex-girlfriend, and a judge has ruled that the case may move forward.
Business & Tech Former Stuff Vendor to Open New Mission Offshoot Billed as Largest Vintage Consignment Shop In the Bay Area The beloved vintage houseware consignment shop / full-time flea market Stuff, which closed its Valencia Street location in January 2024 due to a rent hike, lives on in two locations now, but a third will bring the business back to the Mission.
Business & Tech Deliver-to-Your-Door Rental Car Startup Kyte Calls It Quits San Francisco-based car-rental startup Kyte, which was seen a potential rival to the big, old-school rental-car companies in the US, has shut down following a year of contraction and financial strain.
SF News Chris Hansen of ‘To Catch a Predator’ Fame to Expose Roblox in New TruBlu Documentary Chris Hansen’s upcoming documentary 'Predators' will investigate Roblox, the popular game-making tool accused of enabling the exploitation of underage users. The company is also being sued by the state of Louisiana.
Business & Tech Meta’s Policy Allowing Bots to Engage in ‘Romantic or Sensual’ Talk With Kids Prompts Senate Investigation Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) announced Friday that he’s investigating Meta after it was discovered that the company’s policies allowed its AI chatbots to interact with children in a “romantic or sensual” manner.
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.
