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San Francisco Chronicle
30-06-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Celebrated S.F. bakery debuts sprawling new waterfront location
Fresh baked goods at Breadbelly's new location at Pier 70 in San Francisco on June 28, 2025. KELSEY MCCLELLAN/For the S.F. Chronicle People line up at Breadbelly's second location. KELSEY MCCLELLAN/For the S.F. Chronicle Owners James Wong, Katherine Campecino-Wong, and Clem Hsu (left to right) at their second, and much larger, bakery. KELSEY MCCLELLAN/For the S.F. Chronicle Some of San Francisco's most sought-after pastries are now available in a striking new waterfront location. Breadbelly, the popular Asian American bakery and No. 8 on the Chronicle's Top 100 restaurants list, just debuted its second location at Pier 70, adjacent to Dogpatch. Fans can expect all the Breadbelly hits, from thick milk bread decorated with squiggles of kaya jam and top-tier croissants to a standout breakfast sandwich, just served in a much larger setting than its original in the Richmond District. Breadbelly is newly open inside Building 12, a restored shipbuilding facility. KELSEY MCCLELLAN/For the S.F. Chronicle The bakery is inside Building 12, a massive industrial structure erected in 1941 for shipbuilding during World War II. The football field-sized building with soaring ceilings has now been restored and opened to the public as part of a major redevelopment along San Francisco's eastern waterfront. A host of new tenants are drawing people to Building 12, including a taproom from San Francisco's Standard Deviant Brewing, a custom sneaker designer, a ceramics business and a pickleball court. A $7 million immersive entertainment complex that promises live music, movies and yoga is also slated to open at Pier 70 next year. Advertisement Article continues below this ad 'The energy — it's so cheesy — but it's kind of electric,' said Clem Hsu, who runs Breadbelly with Katherine Campecino-Wong and James Wong. 'It's amazing just seeing what was just a dirt pile not too long ago now filled with people and the buzz.' Customers inside the new bakery on a recent Saturday morning. KELSEY MCCLELLAN/For the S.F. Chronicle Since the three former fine-dining pastry chefs opened Breadbelly in the Richmond District in 2018, it's drawn lines and acclaim. In 2022, the trio was a semifinalist for the James Beard Foundation's Outstanding Baker Award. They have moved all bread and pastry production to Pier 70, where the kitchen is four times as big as the Clement Street bakery. They plan to eventually offer specials that are unique to each location. The new Breadbelly has limited seating for now, but will soon build an outdoor patio, and Pier 70 is planning to add indoor seating throughout Building 12. (And by moving production out of Clement Street, the original Breadbelly will finally be able to reopen its indoor dining room, which has been closed since the pandemic.) At Pier 70, where other businesses like Standard Deviant are open all day, they hope to expand Breadbelly's hours into the later afternoon and evening, Hsu said. Initially, it will be open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Pier 70 development is approved for 9 acres of waterfront parks, up to 2,150 homes, up to 1.75 million square feet of commercial office and lab space, a waterfront arts building, light industrial space for local makers and rehabilitated historic buildings. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Pastry chefs Kevin Nucum (left) and May Nguyen (right) prep viennoisserie at Breadbelly at Pier 70. KELSEY MCCLELLAN/For the S.F. Chronicle The larger production capacity also means other San Francisco neighborhoods could be getting their own Breadbelly outlet. The owners tested this last summer by setting up pastry and espresso carts for a few months at Bayview plant store Flora Grubb Gardens, which Hsu said was a success. 'The beauty about having Pier 70 is that we can make more things here and our footprint anywhere else in the city might be smaller … a little satellite station,' he said. Breadbelly at Pier 70 will be open this Thursday-Sunday before eventually expanding to daily operations; check Instagram for current hours. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Breadbelly. Pier 70, Building 12, 1070 Maryland St., San Francisco.
The Star
16-06-2025
- Business
- The Star
Big tech on a quest for ideal AI device
The industry is well aware of the spectacular failure of the AI Pin (pic), a square gadget worn like a badge packed with AI features but gone from the market less than a year after its debut in 2024 due to a dearth of buyers. — KELSEY MCCLELLAN/The New York Times Company NEW YORK: ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has enlisted the legendary designer behind the iPhone to create an irresistible gadget for using generative artificial intelligence (AI). The ability to engage digital assistants as easily as speaking with friends is being built into eyewear, speakers, computers and smartphones, but some argue that the Age of AI calls for a transformational new gizmo. "The products that we're using to deliver and connect us to unimaginable technology are decades old," former Apple chief design officer Jony Ive said when his alliance with OpenAI was announced. "It's just common sense to at least think, surely there's something beyond these legacy products." Sharing no details, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said that a prototype Ive shared with him "is the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen." According to several US media outlets, the device won't have a screen, nor will it be worn like a watch or broach. Kyle Li, a professor at The New School, said that since AI is not yet integrated into people's lives, there is room for a new product tailored to its use. The type of device won't be as important as whether the AI innovators like OpenAI make "pro-human" choices when building the software that will power them, said Rob Howard of consulting firm Innovating with AI Learning from flops The industry is well aware of the spectacular failure of the AI Pin, a square gadget worn like a badge packed with AI features but gone from the market less than a year after its debut in 2024 due to a dearth of buyers. The AI Pin marketed by startup Humane to incredible buzz was priced at US$699 (RM2,967). Now, Meta and OpenAI are making "big bets" on AI-infused hardware, according to CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood. OpenAI made a multi-billion-dollar deal to bring Ive's startup into the fold. Google announced early this year it is working on mixed-reality glasses with AI smarts, while Amazon continues to ramp up Alexa digital assistant capabilities in its Echo speakers and displays. Apple is being cautious embracing generative AI, slowly integrating it into iPhones even as rivals race ahead with the technology. Plans to soup up its Siri chatbot with generative AI have been indefinitely delayed. The quest for creating an AI interface that people love "is something Apple should have jumped on a long time ago," said Futurum research director Olivier Blanchard. Time to talk Blanchard envisions some kind of hub that lets users tap into AI, most likely by speaking to it and without being connected to the internet. "You can't push it all out in the cloud," Blanchard said, citing concerns about reliability, security, cost, and harm to the environment due to energy demand. "There is not enough energy in the world to do this, so we need to find local solutions," he added. Howard expects a fierce battle over what will be the must-have personal device for AI, since the number of things someone is willing to wear is limited and "people can feel overwhelmed." A new piece of hardware devoted to AI isn't the obvious solution, but OpenAI has the funding and the talent to deliver, according to Julien Codorniou, a partner at venture capital firm 20VC and a former Facebook executive. OpenAI recently hired former Facebook executive and Instacart chief Fidji Simo as head of applications, and her job will be to help answer the hardware question. Voice is expected by many to be a primary way people command AI. Google chief Sundar Pichai has long expressed a vision of "ambient computing" in which technology blends invisibly into the world, waiting to be called upon. "There's no longer any reason to type or touch if you can speak instead," Blanchard said. "Generative AI wants to be increasingly human" so spoken dialogues with the technology "make sense," he added. However, smartphones are too embedded in people's lives to be snubbed any time soon, said Wood. – AFP
