GEEK News
‘I am very concerned’: Bill Gates says the world needs a plan to deal with AI, and he has three ideas to start
Bill Gates at the keyboard in a 2018 file photo. (Gates Notes Photo) Bill Gates is legendary, bordering on notorious, for his late-night emails — missives to colleagues with piercing questions about Java back in the day, or malaria these days, or whatever esoteric topic he happens to seize upon at any given moment. But increasingly, he is sending these messages to AI, not to people. He’ll...
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Seattle’s AI weed wars: One startup maps them, another zaps them
TerraPower’s new Weed Maps helps farmers identify individual weeds as small as a quarter inch. Photo via TerraPower. The next big test for AI isn’t happening in a data center. It’s happening in the dirt. Really, it’s in the weeds. Two Seattle-area startups are betting that AI can transform how farmers find and eliminate unwanted plants — one by mapping every weed, the other by zapping...
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Jeff Bezos remembers Dolly Parton — a recipient of his $100M ‘Courage and Civility’ award
Dolly Parton in Los Angeles in 2012. (BigStock Photo) Amazon founder Jeff Bezos joined the chorus of people who said they were touched by the life and work of Dolly Parton as he shared his condolences after the passing of the entertainment legend. Parton, the rags-to-riches country music star whose hits included “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” “9 to 5” and “Coat of Many Colors,” died in...
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Wizards of the Coast reveals first look at ‘Warlock,’ the next video game based on ‘Dungeons & Dragons’
(Wizards of the Coast/Invoke Studios press image) Wizards of the Coast and its subsidiary Invoke Studios released a first-look gameplay trailer for Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons, a new open-world action game based upon the systems and setting of Wizards’ popular tabletop role-playing game. Wizards, based in Renton, Wash., is a subsidiary of Hasbro and the company behind the D&D and Magic: The...
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Xbox layoffs fallout: ‘South of Midnight’ creator Compulsion Games successfully goes independent
(Compulsion Games image) One of the video game studios impacted by Xbox’s layoffs in July has successfully reclaimed its independence, as well as control over its intellectual property. Compulsion Games, headquartered in Montreal, was founded as an independent studio in 2009 and acquired by Xbox in 2018. Its one release as a member of the Xbox Games Studio network was 2025’s South of...
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Report: Amazon eyes ‘fully automated’ delivery stations to bring robotics to the last mile
Amazon’s ZancaSort system brings packages to workers automatically at its Last Mile Innovation Center in Dortmund, Germany. A separate initiative, Project Tetromino, reportedly aims to bring full automation to delivery stations. (Amazon Photo) Visiting an Amazon delivery station can feel like walking into the past. While many of its massive fulfillment centers are equipped with the latest...
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Airline security in the cloud: PNNL tech analyzes checked bags during flight to skip layover lines
The International Remote Baggage Screening platform allows U.S. customs agents to analyze X-ray images of checked baggage during an inbound flight. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) While passengers are cruising at 35,000 feet, their checked luggage is already passing through a very different kind of cloud. In a move designed to eliminate one of the more frustrating friction points of...
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University of Washington and Seattle biotech win $245M patent judgment against Guardant
TwinStrand graphic A federal judge has entered a final judgment requiring Guardant Health to pay more than $245 million to Seattle biotech TwinStrand Biosciences and the University of Washington over DNA sequencing technology developed at the university. The judgment, entered Friday in U.S. District Court in Delaware, follows a 2023 jury verdict that found Guardant willfully infringed two...
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Homebuilding AI startup Digs raises $25.3M and partners with building products giant
Digs co-founders Ty Frackiewicz, left, and Ryan Fink. (Digs Photo) Digs, a Vancouver, Wash.-based startup building AI software for residential construction, raised $25.3 million in Series A funding led by building products giant Builders FirstSource, the companies announced Tuesday. Under the five-year agreement, Builders FirstSource will integrate Digs’ AI platform into its digital...
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Immersive Gamebox brings controller-free gaming to new location south of Seattle this week
The players are the controller in the play spaces at Immersive Gamebox. (Immersive Gamebox Photo) Immersive Gamebox, a global interactive group gaming company, is coming to the Seattle region with its first Pacific Northwest location opening this week at Westfield Southcenter mall. Designed for groups of two to six players, the venue uses projection mapping, touch-sensitive walls, 3D motion...
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Washington state pioneered a privacy model for the nation — when will it finally pass the law at home?
Rep. Shelley Kloba, D-Kirkland, has introduced a privacy bill in the Legislature every year since 2021, none of which has reached the House floor due to disagreements over whether consumers should be able to sue. (Washington House Democrats Photo) More than 20 states have now passed the “Washington model” of privacy legislation. Washington state hasn’t. In the years since then-state Sen....
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How the FTC’s last-minute settlement with Zillow and Redfin reshapes their $100M rentals deal
GeekWire Illustration Zillow and Redfin settled an antitrust case with the Federal Trade Commission and five states Monday, just as a trial was set to begin, agreeing to undo part of a $100 million partnership that the government said effectively paid Redfin to stop competing in apartment rental advertising. The companies, both based in Seattle, have been rivals in online real estate and...
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Why McKinstry leader Matt Allen is betting on clean nuclear, geothermal and smarter buildings
Matt Allen, chief client officer at McKinstry. (McKinstry Photo) Matt Allen wasn’t sure he wanted to pursue a career at McKinstry, the Seattle-based company his grandfather co-founded in 1960. The business started with plumbing and piping, evolving into a construction and energy services firm with national reach. But after joining in 2012, Allen began appreciating the impact McKinstry has...
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Etzioni on AI: An Opinionated Glossary of AI
Definitions for the AI era. (GPT-5.6 Sol Illustration, Click for larger image.) Jargon stinks. What do the terms open weights, RAG, and agent mean exactly? Here’s a plain English, slightly snarky glossary of befuddling AI terminology with references for further reading. AI is a broad name for the technology. Machine learning is the part where a system learns from data...
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Aug. 16, 2026
Get caught up on the latest technology and startup news from the past week. Here are the most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Aug. 16, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on GeekWire 404 Media put an Apple AirTag in a rare book and tracked it to an Amazon warehouse in Las...
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Amazon drones go national, inside Anduril’s Seattle buildup, and AirTag leads to secret book-scanning site
This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Amazon’s delivery drones are going national, nearly 13 years after Jeff Bezos unveiled them on 60 Minutes. We listen back and discuss what’s next. Plus: We go inside Anduril’s unmarked Bellevue office as the defense company builds toward 1,000 Seattle-area engineers; a reporter hides an AirTag in a rare book and tracks it to a secret Amazon book-scanning...
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Starbucks lays off 224 workers tied to Seattle HQ, including tech roles, as restructuring winds down
A former Starbucks cafe in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Starbucks is laying off 224 more workers tied to its Seattle headquarters, according to a new state filing. The coffee giant says the layoffs don’t represent a new round of cutbacks, but rather the lingering effect of restructuring work announced earlier this year. About 120 of the 224 are employees who were offered roles...
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Starcloud raises $250M to support the creation of data center satellite network in league with Nvidia
Nvidia’s next-generation AI chip, the Space-1 Vera Rubin Module, is set to be used on Starcloud’s future satellites. (Nvidia Illustration) Starcloud says it has raised $250 million in new funding to support the creation of a constellation of data center satellites powered by Nvidia’s next-generation AI chips. The Series A extension funding round was led by Manhattan West, with participation...
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Tech Moves: AWS data leader jumps to Oracle; Seattle Children’s names new CIO; Zillow’s new legal chief
Mehul Shah. (LinkedIn Photo) — Mehul Shah joined Oracle as group vice president for OCI data and storage services, ending a 14-year run at Amazon and Amazon Web Services. In his last role at AWS, Shah led engineering and product for Amazon RDS for SQL Server, Oracle and Db2, and ran the launch and expansion of Oracle Database@AWS, the partnership that put Oracle’s database inside Amazon’s...
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Inside Anduril’s AI warfighting buildup: Defense giant sees a path to 1,000 Seattle-area engineers
Chad Pfarr, principal design director at Anduril, at left shows GeekWire co-founder John Cook the company’s EagleEye augmented reality system at a testing lab at the company’s Bellevue offices. (Photo via Matt Mostad / Anduril) BELLEVUE, Wash. — There is no prominent signage outside Anduril’s downtown Bellevue office. The name isn’t listed in the building directory, on the suite door, or in...
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Anduril exits Seattle shipyard following canceled Navy program and omission from new warship list
Anduril recently vacated the the old Foss Shipyard on Seattle’s Lake Washington Ship Canal. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) Defense technology giant Anduril Industries has quietly vacated its maritime operations along Seattle’s Lake Washington Ship Canal. The exit, confirmed by the company to GeekWire this week, comes after the U.S. Navy canceled the specific autonomous vessel acquisition...
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Seattle keeps No. 2 spot in closely watched tech talent ranking, with warning signs
Seattle remains a beacon for tech talent, ranking No. 2 in CBRE’s annual report. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) The Seattle region outranked New York, Austin, Boston and other tech hubs, trailing only the Bay Area, in an annual tech talent scorecard from commercial real estate firm CBRE that weighs factors such as tech worker concentration, wages, education levels and real estate...
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Game review: Investigate a haunted (?) ’90s PC in Seattle-made mystery adventure ‘Desktop Explorer’
(Recurring Dream screenshot) For the first hour or so, Desktop Explorer looks like a nostalgia project. The indie adventure game challenges the player to unravel a mystery by sorting through the files and programs on an old desktop computer. Many of its puzzles are solved through clever usage of features and tools that will be immediately familiar to anyone who spent any amount of time with...
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Former Microsoft product manager launches bid to end clock change in Washington state, Congress or not
Scott Thurlow is founder of Last Fall Back Washington. (Photo courtesy of Scott Thurlow) Scott Thurlow isn’t a morning person. So much so, he wants to change state law. In 2019, Washington lawmakers voted to put the state on permanent daylight saving time if Congress ever allows it. Thurlow has a different idea: Stop changing the clocks now, even if that means staying on Pacific Standard...
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Seattle weighs ban on ‘surveillance pricing’ at grocery stores, but will it save shoppers money?
A sale price at a Seattle grocery store. A proposed city ordinance would bar grocers from setting different prices for individual shoppers based on their personal data. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Seattle is in the final stages of becoming the first city in the country to ban so-called “surveillance pricing” in grocery stores. Experts disagree about whether it will actually save consumers...
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We’ve entered Seattle’s Third Act
The Lake Washington Ship Canal, the working waterway connecting Lake Union to Puget Sound, where shipyards, fishing boats and houseboats share the shoreline with the region’s new wave of tech startups. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) Opinion: A year ago, GeekWire ran a headline that posed an uncomfortable question to the local startup community: “Seattle is a global AI hub — but where are the...
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Inside the satellite factory: Portal Space Systems gets set for the debut of Starburst and Supernova
Portal Space Systems’ co-founder and CEO, Jeff Thornburg, shows off the Starburst-1 satellite in the company’s Bothell lab. (Portal Space Systems Photo) BOTHELL, Wash. — Portal Space Systems is getting ready to send its first Starburst spacecraft to Florida for a milestone launch, and at the same time is fleshing out its plans for launching an even more capable spacecraft known as...
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North America’s biggest book sorter just opened in the Seattle area
The new sorting facility in Renton, Wash., where materials from 50 libraries are routed to 186 delivery chutes. (Photo: Ken Yeung) Washington is home to Mount Rainier, the Space Needle, and the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks. It’s also now home to what the King County Library System says is North America’s largest library materials sorter — a $5.2 million installation in Renton that...
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Qualtrics cuts jobs in Seattle, Utah and overseas as it absorbs $6.75B acquisition
GeekWire Graphic / Qualtrics logo Three months after closing its $6.75 billion purchase of Press Ganey Forsta, Qualtrics is cutting jobs across the combined company — a reduction that the experience-management technology company says reflects duplication between two organizations that were built independently. The cuts are global, including the company’s dual headquarters in Seattle and...
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Want to know what Jeff Bezos brings to Liverpool FC? Study Amazon’s Leadership Principles
GeekWire co-founder John Cook talks with Dan Clubbe of The Redmen TV about Jeff Bezos’ investment in Liverpool FC. (The Redmen TV Video) What does Jeff Bezos’ new ownership stake in English Premier League powerhouse Liverpool FC mean for the storied soccer club? I was invited by Dan Clubbe of the Liverpool fan site The Redmen TV to talk about the Amazon founder’s recent investment, Bezos’...
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Internal memo: Eight execs out at Expedia Group in AI-driven shakeup
The Expedia Group logo at the company’s headquarters campus on the Seattle waterfront. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Expedia Group is parting ways with at least eight vice presidents and senior vice presidents in a major reorganization designed to reorient its product and technology groups around AI. In an internal memo Tuesday, obtained by GeekWire, the Seattle-based online travel giant’s...
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TikTok cuts 75 jobs in Seattle area, hitting e-commerce teams
GeekWire Illustration / TikTok Logo TikTok is laying off 75 workers in the Seattle region, focused largely on the company’s e-commerce business, according to a notice filed Tuesday with Washington state. Job titles listed in the notice are almost entirely TikTok Shop and Global E-Commerce roles in Bellevue, Wash., including anti-fraud and governance program managers, seller and creator...
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Zeno Power reserves a spot on Firefly moon lander to demonstrate its atomic space heater
An artist’s conception shows Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander on the moon’s surface during the lunar night, with Zeno Power Systems’ radioisotope heater unit highlighted with a blue glow on the left side of the lander’s top deck. (Firefly Aerospace Illustration) A nuclear-powered heater built by Zeno Power Systems is slated to fly to the moon aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander for a...
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Amazon drone delivery set to expand nationally, reaching nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns this year
An Amazon Prime Air delivery drone flies over a suburban neighborhood in Arizona. (Amazon Photo) Amazon’s drones are finally going national. The company’s autonomous aerial vehicles are set to deliver packages to nearly 500 cities and towns across the country by the end of this year, zipping items through the air to drop them in backyards and driveways as quickly as 30 minutes after...
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Startup Spotlight: Tech consultant returns to the farm with Reroot, connecting growers with consumers
Reroot founder Genevieve Priebe, a fourth-generation member of a Montana farm family. (Photos courtesy of Genevieve Priebe) Genevieve Priebe took a business meeting this summer while bottle-feeding baby goats. A couple of years ago, she was advising executives at some of Seattle’s largest tech companies. “Best decision I’ve ever made,” she said of her career change. Priebe is the solo...
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