San Francisco Chronicle Business & Technology News - Spoken Edition

Sea lions tussle over frozen herring fed to them by volunteers at the Marine Mammal Center. Buckets of frozen herring are prepared for sea lions and harbor seals at the Sausalito facility, which got $30,000 in Facebook donations in the past year. Tony Hoff, Fred Grumm and Tamyra Thomas feed a bucketful of herring to sea lions at the Marine Mammal Center.

In response to my Aug. 19 column on the California law that lets parents transfer homes to their children without a property tax reassessment, several readers asked questions similar to this one from Hal Louchheim. “If parents transfer their home to a child, she can keep the current assessed value and annual property tax. That transfer can be while the parents are living or in their will.

For 28 years, Coral Reiff has gone to Video Wave every day it’s open. She sifts through the shelves for a DVD to rent, grabs a $2 bottle of soda and heads off. Her routine has altered only once, when the Noe Valley store moved around the corner three years ago seeking cheaper rent. But her comforting ritual, like Video Wave itself, is becoming a rarity. In 1988, a couple years before Reiff first walked into Video Wave, the San Francisco phone book listed more than 160 video stores.

Joule Cnet rating: 4.0 stars out of 5 The good: The Wi-Fi-enabled $200 Joule immersion circulator has an app that will teach you a thing or two about sous vide cooking. It also works with Alexa, Amazon’s digital assistant, to help connect your cooking to the rest of your smart home. The bad: The lack of controls on the body of the Joule could be irritating if you want to just glance at the immersion circulator to get an update. The integration with Alexa still has some kinks to work out.

People work on the assembly line at Tesla’s Factory in Fremont. Elon Musk wants to take the company private. Elon Musk has said says he wants to take Tesla private. The electric car company’s chief executive announced he was considering as much with an impulsive tweet Aug. 7, and expanded on his thinking in a letter to employees, a blog post and an interview. What is not clear is how, exactly, Musk would pull off such a deal.

Late last year, a company tied to one of President Trump’s campaign donors took possession of a bankrupt power plant in Kern County. Now, the company has asked federal regulators to change California’s electricity market, potentially making it more lucrative for power plants that burn fossil fuels.

The casual back and side garden allows guests to watch birds and butterflies attracted to the garden. A sunken path winds through the landscape. Stones were stacked at the edge of the raised beds to make an unusual sunken path. Plant features don't all have to be in the ground. Sometimes the contained space of a pot does the trick.These are filled with shade-tolerant torenia at the foot of a river birch tree.

Number of the day 8,017 That was the closing price of the Nasdaq on Monday, the first time that the tech-heavy index had topped the 8,000 mark. Stocks rose broadly after the White House said it has reached a preliminary agreement with Mexico on replacing NAFTA. The S&P 500 also closed at a record of 2,896.

The casual back and side garden allows guests to watch birds and butterflies attracted to the garden. A sunken path winds through the landscape. Stones were stacked at the edge of the raised beds to make an unusual sunken path. Plant features don't all have to be in the ground. Sometimes the contained space of a pot does the trick.These are filled with shade-tolerant torenia at the foot of a river birch tree.

Eventbrite files for IPO San Francisco’s Eventbrite has filed for an initial public offering to repay debt and raise working capital. In Thursday’s filing, the online meeting and planning service listed the offering at $200 million, but that is likely to change as the process goes on. Underwriters include Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Allen & Co.

Nvidia, run by CEO Jen-Hsun “Jensen” Huang, has been one of the best-performing S&P 500 stocks in the current bull market. Since he took over as Apple CEO, Tim Cook has seen Apple become a trillion-dollar company. Apple is a component of the S&P 500, so its rise in value has lifted the index. The famous bull statue on Wall Street has some added significance this week as the current bull market, which started March 9, 2009, became the longest in history on Wednesday.

Courts Cost of harassment at Uber is outlined The cost of Uber’s sexual harassment scandal is now itemized: 56 current and former employees who filed claims stand to collect an average of $33,928.57. In addition, almost 500 female and minority engineers covered by a 2017 class-action lawsuit alleging pay discrimination will receive just under $11,000 on average, according to a proposed settlement submitted to a federal judge in Oakland.

San Francisco’s Westin St. Francis hotel, a 1904 landmark that spans the western side of Union Square, could be sold for the third time since 2015. China’s Anbang Insurance Group is seeking to sell the Westin, along with 14 other hotels, to raise cash after a government takeover, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The Westin St.

It happens over and over, he says. Uber emails him about a ticket he received from SFO for a violation, such as not displaying the Uber logo. The $100 fine, a big chunk of his daily earnings, is subtracted from his wages with no way to appeal. That’s the situation reported by Mustafa Ayubi of San Ramon — and plenty of other Uber drivers.

Chromecast Audio Cnet rating: 4.5 stars out of 5 The good: Google’s ultra-affordable Wi-Fi music dongle streams anything from an Android device and many top iOS apps as well. It supports multiroom audio, digital and analog outputs and — with Google Home — voice control. The bad: Some notable music services, including iTunes, Apple Music and Amazon Music, are not supported on iPhone and iPad. You need to supply the speakers.