GEEK News
Helium problem forces NASA to delay Artemis 2 launch to the moon and roll back the rocket
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, far left, walks around Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a team of troubleshooters working on a helium flow issue with the Space Launch System rocket in the background. (NASA Photo) NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman says the giant rocket set to send four astronauts around the moon for the history-making Artemis 2 mission must...
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We tested Amazon’s speedy delivery live on the podcast: Here’s what it says about the future of retail
GeekWire’s Todd Bishop unpacks an Amazon Now delivery that was ordered when the show began, and arrived well before it ended. Amazon promises 30-minute delivery with its new Amazon Now service. We put it to the test — live on the GeekWire Podcast — with help from Michael Levin and Josh Lowitz, co-founders of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners and two of the sharpest Amazon watchers we...
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Amazon pushes back on Financial Times report blaming AI coding tools for AWS outages
Amazon Web Services issued an unusual public rebuttal to a Financial Times report about outages. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Seven hours at the top of Techmeme was apparently too much for Amazon to take. The tech giant’s cloud division, Amazon Web Services, issued an unusually pointed public rebuttal Friday afternoon to a widely cited Financial Times report asserting that Amazon’s...
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Analysis: The best thing that the new Xbox CEO can do is … nothing
Asha Sharma and Matt Booty, the new leadership team for Microsoft Gaming. (Microsoft Photo) During Phil Spencer’s tenure as the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, he brought dozens of the games industry’s best developers and most beloved franchises under a single roof. As a result, his successor Asha Sharma is in a unique position where she really can succeed in the video game business, despite her...
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Mariners open Spring Training with a win — and a loss in first Automated Ball-Strike challenge
A view of the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System’s call of a ball as it appeared during the Seattle Mariners game on Friday. (Screen grab via Mariners.TV) The Seattle Mariners opened their Spring Training schedule with a win and a loss on Friday, beating the San Diego Padres 7-4 but losing their first try with the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System. The technology for tracking...
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Xbox chief Phil Spencer retiring after 38 years at Microsoft; Asha Sharma named new gaming CEO
Phil Spencer, head of Xbox at Microsoft, at the Xbox E3 Briefing at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles in 2019. (Microsoft Photo) Phil Spencer, the Xbox leader who spent 38 years at Microsoft and helped reshape the gaming industry through big acquisitions and a bet on cloud gaming, is retiring from the company. He will be succeeded as CEO of Microsoft Gaming by Asha Sharma, a former...
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Tech Moves: Code.org has a new leader; Synapse vet joins Amazon; ex-Tableau CEO lands at Code Metal
Karim Meghji, president and CEO of Code.org. (Code.org Photo) — Karim Meghji is taking over the the role of president and CEO at Code.org, the Seattle-based computer science education nonprofit. Meghji, the former CTO at Seattle digital remittance company Remitly, joined Code.org in 2022 to serve as chief product officer, leading the organization’s shift toward an AI-centered strategy....
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Microsoft’s new RTO policy starts Feb. 23, bringing Seattle-area workers back 3 days a week
A keychain in the Microsoft company store awaits one of the company’s returning commuters. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Remember that return-to-office mandate Microsoft announced last fall? It’s almost here. Monday, Feb. 23 — yes, next week! — will mark the start of the company’s new policy requiring Puget Sound (a.k.a. Seattle-area) employees who live within 50 miles of a Microsoft...
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NASA completes a smooth rehearsal for historic Artemis 2 moon launch
NASA’s Space Launch System rocket stands on its Florida launch pad. (NASA Photo / Aubrey Gemignani) NASA counted down to T-minus 29 seconds during a smooth rehearsal for a historic launch that could send astronauts around the moon for the first time in more than half a century. The run-through at Launch Complex 39B, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, was known as a wet dress rehearsal...
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From a mall booth to a $3B fintech: Matt Oppenheimer’s startup lessons from a 15-year journey with Remitly
Matt Oppenheimer led Remitly for nearly 15 years as co-founder and CEO. He announced this week that he’s moving into the chairman role. (Remitly Photo) Build with intentionality. Lead with authenticity. Prioritize customers over your ego. And focus on the problem you’re solving — with flexibility on the solution. That’s part of the playbook Matt Oppenheimer followed as he helped grow a...
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Ballmer? Bezos? Sir Mix-a-Lot? Seahawks sale draws more hot takes on potential owners and price
The Seattle Seahawks have been officially for sale for a day, but the speculation about who could be the next owner of the team has been in high gear for years. National media personalities are now playing catch-up. “The Rich Eisen Show” on ESPN / Disney+ weighed in Thursday (above) with a flurry of Seattle-connected names who could step in to buy the NFL franchise — some serious and...
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Seattle transit’s new ‘tap-to-pay’ feature goes live next week as region gears up for World Cup
Seattle-area transit riders will soon be able to tap their physical credit cards or smartphone to pay for fares. (GeekWire Photos / Taylor Soper) The ubiquitous tap-to-pay technology now common in grocery stores and coffee shops is coming to Seattle-area buses and trains next week. Starting Monday, Feb. 23, ORCA will accept contactless credit and debit cards, along with digital wallets...
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PageMaker pioneer Paul Brainerd, 1947-2026: Aldus founder devoted his second chapter to the planet
Paul Brainerd at a Brainerd Foundation retreat in Montana. (Brainerd Foundation Photo) In the summer of 1984, Paul Brainerd and four engineers packed into his old Saab and drove south on Interstate 5 from the Seattle area. They had been laid off after Kodak bought their employer, Atex, a company whose computerized text-processing systems let newspaper reporters and editors write and edit...
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TerraClear launches autonomous farm robot to capture images for tackling rocks, weeds and more
TerraClear’s autonomous field robot the TerraScout. (TerraClear Photo) TerraClear’s mission to help farmers map and tackle tough field problems such as rocks and weeds has evolved with the launch of a new machine: an autonomous robot called TerraScout. The startup, based in Issaquah, Wash., and Grangeville, Idaho, says the device can collect ultra-high-resolution imagery across an entire...
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New hacker house in Seattle area brings startup founders together under one creative roof
Bili House is a hacker house located on the water in Bellevue, Wash. (Photo courtesy of Bili House) A large house overlooking Meydenbauer Bay in Bellevue, Wash., could be the home of the Seattle-region’s next big AI startup. At the very least, it’s a place where ideas are being hatched by tech founders who are inspired by living and working with one another. Bili House is a hacker house...
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Seattle startup Adronite raises $5M to help enterprises understand their codebases
Adronite CEO Edward Rothschild. (Adronite Photo) Seattle startup Adronite raised $5 million in a Series A round led by Gatemore Capital Management, as it looks to expand its AI-powered platform designed to give large organizations visibility into sprawling and complex codebases. The funding comes amid intense competition in the AI developer tools market. Unlike many AI coding tools that...
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Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer steps down, hands reins of fintech company to former Amazon exec
Remitly CEO Matt Oppenheimer helped launch the company back in 2011, helping grow the firm into a global remittance platform. (Remitly Photo) Remitly co-founder Matt Oppenheimer is stepping down as CEO after nearly 15 years growing the Seattle-based digital remittance company into a profitable, publicly traded fintech firm valued at nearly $3 billion. Veteran tech and finance executive...
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Seahawks parade drone incident underscores security concerns ahead of World Cup in Seattle
Fans gather at Lumen Field on Feb. 11 ahead of a parade through Seattle to celebrate the Seahawks’ Super Bowl victory. (GeekWire Photo / James Cook) A pilot is facing charges after flying a drone into Lumen Field in Seattle during last week’s Seahawks Super Bowl victory celebration — an incident that underscores growing concerns about drone threats as Seattle prepares to host 2026 FIFA World...
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Seattle Seahawks are for sale as Paul Allen estate seeks buyer shortly after Super Bowl win
Paul Allen is credited with saving the Seahawks for the city of Seattle when he purchased the team in 1997. He was inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor at Lumen Field in October 2019. (GeekWire File Photo) The Seattle Seahawks are officially for sale. A week after parading through the city to celebrate the team’s second Super Bowl championship, the team announced Wednesday that the Paul...
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Tech Moves: Sana hires CFO; Aptevo names new CEO; Violett founder departs; and more
— Brian Piper, a longtime biotech leader, is the new CFO at Seattle-based Sana Biotechnology. Piper was previously CFO at Antares Therapeutics, Scorpion Therapeutics, and Prelude Therapeutics. Piper was also given an executive vice president title at Sana, a cell and gene therapy company that went public in 2021. “We have meaningful momentum in our type 1 diabetes and in vivo CAR T...
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Seattle startup Griptape acquired by creative software firm Foundry
Griptape CEO and co-founder Kyle Roche. (LinkedIn Photo) Griptape, a Seattle-based startup founded in 2023 by former Amazon Web Services executives, has been acquired by Foundry, a London-based company whose software is used in visual effects and animation across Hollywood. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Griptape built a platform that helps companies securely manage and coordinate...
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Airbnb offering $750 to attract new hosts during World Cup in Seattle this summer
The Seattle skyline looking north from Lumen Field, which will play host to FIFA World Cup matches. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Airbnb is incentivizing people to open up their homes this summer to FIFA World Cup visitors, offering $750 to new hosts in Seattle and other cities hosting soccer matches. The short-term rental platform says millions of fans are expected to attend the...
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Cloud and AWS cost consultant Duckbill expands to software, raises $7.75M for new Skyway platform
Duckbill co-founders Corey Quinn, left, and CEO Mike Julian. (Duckbill Photo) “We’ve raised a pile of money, and we’re building a product.” That’s the characteristically deadpan announcement Wednesday morning from Corey Quinn, the cloud cost consultant who has built a second career, basically, on his sharp and irreverent takes on Amazon Web Services in his popular podcasts and...
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AWS accelerator initiatives will offer $100M in credits to federal agencies for cloud and AI services
Cloud computing and AI can come into play in advanced manufacturing and shipbuilding for the U.S. military. (NIWC Pacific Illustration) Amazon Web Services has launched two credit programs worth up to $100 million to help federal agencies leverage AWS cloud services and generative AI technologies for applications ranging from battle management to quantum computing. The AWS Warfighter...
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San Francisco-based Binti opens office on Seattle’s Lake Union ‘to tap into city’s great talent pool’
The waterfront view from Binti’s new Seattle office overlooking Lake Union and the Aurora Bridge. (Binti Photo) Binti, a San Francisco-based startup that develops software tools for child welfare agencies, opened a new office on Seattle’s Lake Union. In the shadow of the Aurora Bridge overlooking a marina full of boats, members of the Binti team rang a gong on an office balcony last week to...
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Former Avalara exec leads new Seattle-area startup inspired by Washington’s estate tax
Legata CEO Alesia Pinney. (Legata Photo) After a decade helping Avalara scale its tax software business, Alesia Pinney is taking aim at a different kind of tax headache. Pinney is CEO and co-founder of Legata, a Seattle-area startup helping affluent households create estate plans. She said the idea for Legata grew out of frustration with Washington’s estate tax and how little many...
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Don’t take success for granted: Seattle Chamber CEO Joe Nguyen on tech’s evolving storyline
Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Joe Nguyen. (Legislative Support Services Photo) When Joe Nguyen left his role as director of the Washington State Department of Commerce at the end of last year, it wasn’t because he was done fighting for the state’s economic development. He just was ready to do it in the place that drives so much of it. As the new president and...
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Temporal raises $300M, hits $5B valuation as Seattle-area infrastructure startup rides AI wave
Temporal co-founders Samar Abbas (left), CEO, and Maxim Fateev, CTO. (Temporal Photo) Temporal has raised $300 million in a Series D funding round at a $5 billion valuation, positioning the company as a key infrastructure provider for the emerging wave of AI agents moving into real-world production. The latest round, led by Andreessen Horowitz, doubles the company’s valuation from...
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GeekWire’s AI summit to feature key leaders from Amazon, Microsoft, and more, on March 24 in Seattle
From left, Charles Lamanna of Microsoft, Theresa Piasta of Outreach, Swami Sivasubramanian of AWS, and Kiana Ehsani of Vercept will be among the speakers at GeekWire’s Agents of Transformation summit on March 24 in Seattle. GeekWire’s Agents of Transformation summit is a little more than a month away, and we’re announcing the first wave of speakers for the half-day event the afternoon of...
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Seattle startup Certivo raises $4M to automate supply chain compliance with AI
Certivo CEO Kunal Chopra. (Certivo Photo) Seattle startup Certivo raised $4 million in seed funding to expand its AI-powered platform aimed at automating supply chain compliance. Boston-based Suffolk Technologies, which specializes in construction technology investments, led the round. Seattle-based Pioneer Square Labs also invested. Total funding to date is $6 million. Certivo, which...
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Zillow teams up with ‘World of Warcraft’ to exhibit virtual homes inside popular game
(Zillow Image) Real estate company Zillow has partnered with the company behind the long-running online game World of Warcraft in order to showcase players’ creativity by exhibiting their virtual homes. A new microsite, “Zillow for Warcraft,” allows users to explore an assortment of designs for in-game housing, both those made by players and by members of WoW’s development team. Some of...
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Proposed income tax on high earners advances in Washington state
Washington state’s Legislative Building in Olympia. (GeekWire Photo / Brent Roraback) The so-called “millionaires tax” was approved by Washington’s Senate on Monday, advancing a measure that would create a 9.9% tax applied to taxable, personal annual income that exceeds $1 million. Gov. Bob Ferguson earlier this month criticized Senate Bill 6346 for doing too little for small businesses and...
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‘We’re experimenting aggressively’: How Expedia sees AI reshaping travel — and its own business
Expedia’s headquarters in Seattle, Wash. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Expedia is responding to the AI era by making sure it’s testing new ways to reach travelers — and also using it aggressively inside its own business. In its newly filed 10-K annual report, the Seattle-based company added a reference to “generative and agentic AI” under its competitive threats, warning that the...
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Spokane startup Blaze Barrier heats up with new funding for quick-deploy wildfire defense system
Members of the Blaze Barrier team, from left: Jacob Schuler, founder and CEO; Jennifer Fanto, chief operating officer; and Cody Schuler, head of production and safety. (Blaze Barrier Photo) Jacob Schuler is not a firefighter. But in 2021 he heard from a friend who was first on scene to a barn in flames in Stevens County, Wash. The friend described the technique firefighters use to slow or...
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Washington state has embraced data centers – but now it’s looking to set terms of engagement
Racks of servers inside an AWS data center in 2023. (AWS Photo / Noah Berger) Lisa Karstetter grew up in Eastern Washington’s agricultural country. By the mid-2000s, she was running the Quincy Valley Chamber of Commerce when she started getting calls from tech companies eager to build facilities packed with online computers. “They would call them ‘server farms,'” Karstetter said. “And...
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