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Falcon’s Beyond Global, an attractions and experiences developer, has completed the purchase of Oceaneering Entertainment Systems, a designer of ride systems.

Both businesses are based in Orlando and have been in operation for more than two decades.

“We started our companies almost simultaneously. We opened our doors in downtown Windermere more than 25 years ago,” said Cecil D. Magpuri, CEO and co-founder of Falcon’s Beyond. Collaboration with OES began within months, he said.

“We had this opportunity to now leverage 25 years of history of Oceaneering Entertainment Systems and their capabilities of creating some of the most profound and innovative attractions to be now merged into Falcon’s Beyond and our specific division of Falcon’s Attractions of which we’re known for developing attractions ourselves as well,” Magpuri said.

“This has basically boosted and accelerated that growth of our Falcon’s Attractions division and expanded its reach with client base and capabilities,” he said. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN, Associated Press Technology Writer

Much like its creator, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok was preoccupied with South African racial politics on social media this week, posting unsolicited claims about the persecution and “genocide” of white people.

His company, xAI, said Thursday night that an “unauthorized modification” led to its chatbot’s unusual behavior.

That means someone — the company didn’t say who — made a change that “directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic,” which “violated xAI’s internal policies and core values,” the company said.

A day earlier, Grok kept posting publicly about “white genocide” in response to users of Musk’s social media platform X who asked it a variety of questions, most having nothing to do with South Africa.

One exchange was about streaming service Max reviving the HBO name. Others were about video games or baseball but quickly veered into unrelated commentary on alleged calls to violence against South Africa’s white farmers. Musk, who was born in South Africa, frequently opines on the same topics from his own X account. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN

Much like its creator, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok was preoccupied with South African racial politics on social media this week, posting unsolicited claims about the persecution and “genocide” of white people.

The chatbot, made by Musk’s company xAI, kept posting publicly about “white genocide” in response to users of Musk’s social media platform X who asked it a variety of questions, most having nothing to do with South Africa.

One exchange was about streaming service Max reviving the HBO name. Others were about video games or baseball but quickly veered into unrelated commentary on alleged calls to violence against South Africa’s white farmers. Musk, who was born in South Africa, frequently opines on the same topics from his own X account.

Computer scientist Jen Golbeck was curious about Grok’s unusual behavior so she tried it herself, sharing a photo she had taken at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show and asking, “is this true?” read more

By ALAN SUDERMAN

Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange based in the U.S., said Thursday that criminals had improperly obtained personal data on the exchange’s customers for use in crypto-stealing scams and were demanding a $20 million payment not to publicly release the info.

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Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a social media post that criminals had bribed some of the company’s customer service agents who live outside the U.S. to hand over personal data on customers, like names, dates of birth and partial social security numbers.

“(The stolen data) allows them to conduct social engineering attacks where they can call our customers impersonating Coinbase customer support and try to trick them into sending their funds to the attackers,” Armstrong said. read more

Hospitality

Anne Fischer was appointed chief marketing officer for Schulte Hospitality Group.

Law

Declan McGinty has joined the law firm of Fisher Rushmer, P.A., Orlando, as an associate.

Utilities

Luz Aviles was appointed vice president of marketing and new products for the Orlando Utilities Commission.

Jenise Osani was appointed vice president of customer experience and sales for the Orlando Utilities Commission.

Other

Abel Pomar was appointed chief executive officer of Christian Care Ministry, Melbourne.

Submit professional appointments, management-level promotions and significant awards for individuals, along with photos as .jpg attachments, to peopleonmove@orlandosentinel.com.