San Francisco Chronicle Business & Technology News - Spoken Edition

The Port of Oakland, one of the busiest West Coast ports and a hub for trade with China, is seeing falling exports as the trade war escalates. In July exports fell 7.3 percent year over year — their fifth monthly drop in a row. “There’s been some decline over the last few months,” said Michael Zampa, a spokesman for the port, which supports over 73,000 jobs in the Bay Area and is the third-busiest U.S. port on the West Coast by container volume.

Legal swipe The co-founders of Tinder and seven current and former executives have filed a lawsuit against the dating app’s parent company, alleging that it undermined the app’s valuation to deny them billions of dollars in stock options. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York, seeks a minimum of $2 billion in damages from IAC/InterActiveCorp and subsidiary Match Group.

The Green Building at 543 Howard St. could soon have a towering new neighbor. The skinny tower at 543 Howard would include some housing. 543 Howard St. (to the left) and its neighbors could see towers spring up. A cantilevered tower could spring up over the existing building. Howard Street between 1st and 2nd could soon fill with towers.

Hungry Hungry Hippos on a table at the office of Hippo Insurance in Mountain View. A Hippo Insurance mascot occupies a place of honor at the company’s Mountain View office. The company is adding an Alexa app to promote its services. Alexa, can you make insurance fun again? Plus RideOS and... Alexa, can you make insurance fun again? Amazon’s ubiquitous Echo speakers can have its voice assistant read the news or add paper towels to your shopping list.

It looks like a toy tractor. It’s barely bigger than a gerbil. And it’s super cute. As Vector, a “home robot with personality” trundles around a San Francisco conference table, it responds to questions (“What’s the weather in Seattle?”) and commands (“Wake up”) much like Siri or Alexa would.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has contributed an additional $10 million to Yes on 10, the coalition supporting a November ballot measure that would let California cities to impose stricter rent control laws. The Los Angeles foundation had previously donated $2.2 million to the campaign. The only other two contributors to the campaign — unions representing nurses and state and local government workers — have put in a total of $110,000. Prop.

Number of the day $1 billion That’s how much Jeffrey Katzenberg (with friend, right) and Meg Whitman have raised for NewTV, which will offer short videos designed to be watched on the go, like waiting at a doctor’s office or just walking around. The investor group was led by Madrone Capital Partners, backed by heirs to the Walmart fortune, and includes Alibaba and Goldman Sachs.

Relativity, Netflix finally settle Troubled Relativity Media (whose “Act of Valor” is shown, right) may finally be sold, now that the Hollywood studio and Netflix have settled a long-running licensing dispute. The Wall Street Journal reported that both sides have OKd a settlement for Netflix to pay a premium rate for Relativity’s films, paying about $7.2 million. It still needs a judge’s approval.

Black Girls Code, an Oakland organization that works to bring computer science education to African American girls through workshops and camps, said it got a $125,000 grant offer from Uber last year — and turned it down. It came at a time when the ride-hailing company was facing backlash from former engineer Susan Fowler’s allegations that the company had a culture of sexual harassment.

The Trump administration on Thursday took direct aim at California’s long-standing ability to set its own air-pollution standards for cars — as well as the state’s main program to boost electric vehicles sales — prompting a furious reaction from Sacramento. The administration’s move, while expected for months, will likely lead to another long courtroom struggle between California and the federal government over greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

Tesla has started production of its electric Model 3 sedan by building souped-up, expensive versions of the car first, with base prices ranging from $49,000 to $64,000. The long-awaited $35,000 edition — the middle-class car CEO Elon Musk has promised for years — will come later. But the Model 3’s buyers clearly don’t mind. Many of them, it turns out, are trading up.

As Tesla ramps up its Fremont factory to escape what Elon Musk called “production hell” with its new Model 3 electric sedan, some customers are enduring their own state of suffering trying to get Teslas serviced. Parts shortages, long repair delays and problems getting through on customer help lines have led to scenes of strife at Tesla’s service centers.

A line of people wait for their Global Entry interview appointments at San Francisco International airport as Gayle Collins tries to find out the status of her application on Thursday. Lines of passengers waiting to go through customs at SFO. Global Entry can speed you through. Paula Fischer (left) and Jana Honczek (middle) wait in line to go through customs at SFO. Travelers who don’t have Global Entry or use the Mobile Passport app have to line up to have their passports scanned.

Bose SoundLink Revolve+ Cnet rating: 4 stars out of 5 The good: The sleek Bose SoundLink Plus Bluetooth speaker sounds excellent for its compact size, has a built-in handle for easy transport and is water-resistant. Battery life is good at 16 hours, there’s a threaded tripod mount on the bottom of the speaker and an integrated microphone for speakerphone calls.

The Medical Board of California has created an app to alert patients about changes in their doctors’ licenses. Users can select up to 16 doctors, and the app will notify them about address changes, status expiration dates and disciplinary documentation. It will say when a doctor has been put on probation or his or her license has been suspended or revoked. The app was introduced at a quarterly board meeting Thursday.