June 05, 2015
Amazon’s new Bee AI devices have a bystander problem, says former AWS security engineer
October 17, 2026
Amazon Bee’s recording light is easy to miss, says a former AWS security engineer. (Amazon Image) Amazon’s new Bee AI devices ask the wrong person for consent, according to a privacy and security veteran who previously worked as a senior principal security engineer at Amazon Web Services. In...
Etzioni on AI: The colorful and cranky language of the AI era, from slop to slap
October 16, 2026
The AI slap: forwarding AI-generated text without reading it. (GeekWire Illustration / GPT-6) We’ve all encountered the phrase AI slop, but what’s an AI slap? A meat proxy? Chatfishing? Or agentsomnia? Following up on my glossary of AI, which demystified AI jargon, Prof. Dan Weld is joining me...
Traffic data pioneer Inrix to be acquired by Allstate’s Arity after more than two decades
October 16, 2026
Inrix co-founder and CEO Bryan Mistele above rush-hour traffic on Interstate 5 in Seattle in 2011. After more than two decades of turning traffic data into a business, Inrix has agreed to sell substantially all of its assets to Arity, a subsidiary of Allstate. (GeekWire File Photo / Annie Laurie...
Retro tech meets modern AI: Inside an Amazon developer’s garage turned working computer museum
October 16, 2026
Darko Mesaros, a distinguished developer advocate for Amazon Web Services, is surrounded by vintage computer equipment in the garage of his Maple Valley, Wash., home. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Darko Mesaros used to park a car in the garage of his Maple Valley, Wash., home. These days,...
Amazon’s NBA coverage adds Prime 360 — AI replays that ‘fly the camera through’ the action
October 16, 2026
A Prime 360 replay shows a Lakers-Pacers play from a court-level angle. (Amazon Image) Amazon is bringing a new AI-powered camera system to the court as the tech giant gets ready to tip off its second season of basketball coverage on Prime Video. Called Prime 360, the technology uses an array...
A two-person Seattle startup lands $1M to reinvent energy-hungry chips suitable for space
October 15, 2026
TriMagnetix co-founders Madison Hanberry, left, and Lucas Hahn at the Plug and Play Semiconductor Accelerator kickoff. (Plug and Play Photo) Seattle-based TriMagnetix has landed new funding and commitments totaling $1 million to continue developing a semiconductor chip that, according to initial...
Leaked list shows what Microsoft, Amazon and other tech giants are giving for the White House ballroom
October 15, 2026
President Trump at the White House ballroom construction site in May. Microsoft, Amazon and T-Mobile have committed $20 million to the project, according to the Washington Post. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian) Microsoft committed $10 million to President Trump’s White House...
Microsoft’s Brad Smith pushes back on Vice President JD Vance’s visa fraud accusations
October 15, 2026
Microsoft President Brad Smith, shown speaking at a Microsoft event last year, told Politico this week that the Trump administration’s claims about the company’s foreign workers were “completely off base.” (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Microsoft President Brad Smith says someone apparently...
Startup Spotlight: Zeacon aims to turn website visitors into buyers with AI-powered video
October 15, 2026
Zeacon co-founders Kris Naidu, left, and Jay Gounder. (Zeacon Photo) Businesses spend heavily to attract visitors to their websites, but traffic doesn’t necessarily translate into sales. Bellevue, Wash.-based Zeacon is building AI tools to help companies connect their marketing content with...
Lime tops 10.5M Seattle rides in 2026, rolling past last year’s e-bike and scooter total two months early
October 15, 2026
Hundreds of Lime e-bikes and scooters staged in a parking lot in the Pioneer Square neighborhood during the FIFA World Cup match between USA and Australia in Seattle this summer. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Lime riders in Seattle have already outpaced last year’s entire ridership numbers,...
Seattle-area innovators shine on Time’s ‘Best Inventions’ list, from tactile tablets to ultrasonic knives
October 15, 2026
Innovations from Seattle startups that made Time’s Best Inventions list, clockwise from top left: Tin Can’s landline-style phone; OneCourt’s tactile tablet for low-vision sports fans; Seattle Ultrasonics chef’s knife; Yoodli’s “Create” tool. (Images via Tin Can, OneCourt, Seattle Ultrasonics,...
Space propulsion startup Agile Space opens Seattle-area engineering office to tap regional talent
October 15, 2026
The M4 Thruster from Agile Space Industries is designed to provide position control for small spacecraft. (Agile Photo) Space propulsion company Agile Space Industries is expanding its footprint to the Pacific Northwest, signing a sublease for a new engineering office in Bellevue,...
Amazon’s new AI devices can listen to conversations and suggest things to buy — if you opt in
October 15, 2026
Amazon’s new Bee Frontier wristbands, front, and Bee Eclipse devices, which attach magnetically to the back of a phone. (Amazon Image) Bee, the AI wearables startup Amazon acquired last year, makes devices that remember what people say in everyday conversations. A new update, announced Thursday...
Institute led by UW Nobel winner uses AI to build molecular scissors targeting disease proteins
October 15, 2026
Anqi Chen, left, and Hojae Choi, are lead authors on two Nature papers from UW Medicine’s Institute for Protein Design. (IPD Photos) Researchers at UW Medicine’s Institute for Protein Design (IPD) have created new proteins that act like molecular scissors, chopping up targets associated with...
LinkedIn just released its list of the top 10 Seattle startups: One problem, nearly half aren’t based in the region
October 14, 2026
Image via LinkedIn Every so often, we get sucked into a list touting the top regional startups or the most robust entrepreneurial ecosystems. Well, a startup list released today from Microsoft-owned LinkedIn — titled “The 10 companies on the rise in Seattle” — grabbed our attention, for all...
‘What is fusion?’ Helion Energy harnesses the power of television with a ‘Jeopardy!’ mention
October 14, 2026
“What is fusion?” was the correct question for this answer on “Jeopardy” on Tuesday, tied to Everett, Wash.-based Helion Energy. (ABC) Replicating the power of the sun to generate clean energy is hard enough, but Helion Energy just achieved another rare feat: making it onto the iconic...
Prime Intellect acquires Moondream, a vision AI startup founded in Seattle by AWS vets
October 14, 2026
Moondream’s vision AI flags a misoriented box on a warehouse conveyor. Prime Intellect is folding the startup’s models and inference technology into its AI cloud platform. (Moondream Image) Prime Intellect, a San Francisco-based AI cloud company valued at $1 billion, has acquired Moondream, a...
Tech Moves: Brinc Drones, Fred Hutch, Acumatica, Convera add to C-suites; LinkedIn director departs
October 14, 2026
Joe Levy. (LinkedIn Photo) — Brinc Drones, the Seattle-based maker of 911 response drones, has named Joe Levy chief revenue officer. Levy joins from Peregrine, a public safety data platform, and early in his career was a drill sergeant and combat engineer for the U.S. Army Reserve. Levy...
Steve Ballmer’s USAFacts pits Ben Shapiro against Scott Galloway in YouTube debate special
October 14, 2026
Professor and progressive author Scott Galloway, left, debates conservative political commentator and Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro, right, in a USAFacts debate moderated by PBS News Hour’s co-anchor and managing editor Geoff Bennett. (USA Facts Photo) USAFacts — the nonpartisan civic data...
Microsoft’s wild ride: Stock hits new record after a year of ups and downs
October 14, 2026
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella gives the company’s founding mission an AI update at Build in June, a preview of the “Windows Hybrid Intelligence” initiative that the company unveiled last week. (Photo by Dan DeLong for Microsoft) In less than four months, Microsoft has added roughly half an Amazon...
Booking Holdings unveils AI travel startup Vayo, based in Seattle, with a planned $100M investment
October 14, 2026
Members of the team at Vayo, a new Booking Holdings startup building AI agents to organize and manage people’s trips. (Vayo Photo) Booking Holdings is launching a new Seattle-based travel startup called Vayo, led by serial entrepreneur Mike Fridgen, betting that AI agents built for travel can do...
Humanly acquires CareerArc to connect recruitment marketing with AI hiring
October 14, 2026
(CareerArc, Humanly Logos) Bellevue, Wash.-based hiring technology company Humanly has acquired CareerArc to merge its artificial intelligence screening tools with software that helps employers attract job applicants. The deal announced Wednesday brings together Humanly’s automated chat and...
Getty Images to keep Seattle HQ as it goes private through bankruptcy
October 14, 2026
Getty Images’ headquarters at 605 Union Station in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Getty Images, the stock-photo giant with a presence in Seattle dating back to the dot-com era, plans to keep its headquarters in the city and avoid layoffs as it heads into a prearranged bankruptcy...
Seattle voters view economy as weakening in survey that reveals short-lived World Cup euphoria
October 13, 2026
FIFA World Cup soccer matches in Seattle attracted huge crowds to watch parties in Pioneer Square and elsewhere, but the honeymoon faded quickly according to new data shared by the Seattle Metro Chamber this week. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Seattle embraced the global spotlight and rode a...
Microsoft forms ‘Xbox Labs’ to explore game remixes, ports and other new frontiers
October 13, 2026
Scott Van Vliet, Xbox’s chief technology officer, will lead the new Xbox Labs team. (LinkedIn Photo) Xbox is creating a new team to experiment with technologies that are changing how games are made, ported and played — including some that run counter to how the game industry and its business...
Apple challenges Amazon’s Echo and Ring with its new smart home lineup
October 13, 2026
Apple’s HomeView smart display, shown with faces for a clock, FaceTime, photos, smart home controls and music. (Apple Image) Apple is going after Amazon’s smart home business on several fronts at once. The iPhone and iPad maker on Tuesday unveiled HomeView, a $299 smart display that competes...
Microsoft’s top science exec is leaving to fulfill a childhood dream: Joining a Formula 1 team
October 13, 2026
Peter Lee, president of Microsoft Science, is trading research labs for racetracks. (GeekWire File Photo / Clare McGrane) When Peter Lee announced two weeks ago that he was leaving Microsoft, he said only that his next job would fulfill “a dream I’ve had since childhood.” The dream, it turns...
UW receives $12M gift from Taiwan-based chip company led by alumnus Arthur Chiao
October 13, 2026
The Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering is part of the University of Washington’s College of Engineering. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) The University of Washington’s College of Engineering has received a $12 million gift from a semiconductor company whose chairman earned...
Flexport and AI startup Freightmate settle trade secrets suit ahead of trial
October 13, 2026
The trade secrets case between Flexport and Freightmate centered on the use of shipping documents. (Unsplash Photo / Rinson Chory) Freightmate AI has settled a trade secrets lawsuit filed by San Francisco-based freight forwarder Flexport on terms that will keep the Bellevue, Wash.-based...
Robot on aisle 7: Customers react to autonomous inventory machine roaming a Seattle grocery store
October 12, 2026
Tally, an inventory robot, scans shelves at a Fred Meyer store in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Shoppers navigating aisles of chips and cookies at a Fred Meyer store in Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood are dodging more than carts — they’re also sharing space...
Why Amazon might pay billions for Decart, a 3-year-old AI startup that hasn’t disclosed its revenue
October 12, 2026
Not Werner: Decart’s real-time video model turns AWS Senior Vice President Peter DeSantis into a cartoon of Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, live on stage, at the start of DeSantis’ re:Invent keynote in Las Vegas last December. (AWS Video Screenshot) A deal for Decart, a startup that makes software to...
‘I am not an AI-friendly actor’: Nicolas Cage likely done with Amazon after ‘Spider-Noir’ stance
October 12, 2026
“Spider-Noir” streamed for one season before being canceled. (Amazon Prime Video Image) Nicolas Cage is drawing a hard line in the digital sand against artificial intelligence, revealing that he likely won’t work with Amazon again after refusing to sign an AI waiver for his now-canceled Prime...
Microsoft makes ‘biggest bet yet’ on its own silicon, unveils new AI chip to reduce reliance on Nvidia
October 12, 2026
A prototype of Microsoft’s Azure Maia 300 chip, which the company plans to begin deploying at scale in 2027. (Microsoft Photo) Microsoft plans to run most of its AI services on chips it designs itself, a shift that could save the company billions of dollars and reduce its dependence on industry...
Etzioni on AI: Where I agree with AI ‘doomer’ Max Tegmark, and where I think he’s wrong
October 11, 2026
Oren Etzioni, left, and Max Tegmark debated the risks of AI in a New York Post video. Etzioni actually considers himself a realist, not an optimist, as he notes in this piece. (New York Post via YouTube) Regular readers of this column may have wondered about the long gap since my Sept. 4...
Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Oct. 4, 2026
October 11, 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 Oct. 4, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...
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