GEEK News
June 05, 2015 - 01:04 PM
UW receives $12M gift from Taiwan-based chip company led by alumnus Arthur Chiao
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 a master’s degree from the school more than 45 years ago. The donation is from Winbond...
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Flexport and AI startup Freightmate settle trade secrets suit ahead of trial
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 logistics software startup’s products on the market. “We’re glad to have this resolved,” said Bryan...
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Robot on aisle 7: Customers react to autonomous inventory machine roaming a Seattle grocery store
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 with a smooth-gliding, autonomous robot named Tally. Equipped with an array of cameras, computer...
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Why Amazon might pay billions for Decart, a 3-year-old AI startup that hasn’t disclosed its revenue
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 help AI models run faster on different kinds of chips, would give Amazon new ways of getting more AI...
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‘I am not an AI-friendly actor’: Nicolas Cage likely done with Amazon after ‘Spider-Noir’ stance
“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 Video series “Spider-Noir.” Speaking during a panel at New York Comic Con over the weekend, the...
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Microsoft makes ‘biggest bet yet’ on its own silicon, unveils new AI chip to reduce reliance on Nvidia
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 juggernaut Nvidia. The company on Monday unveiled Maia 300, the third generation of its custom AI...
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Etzioni on AI: Where I agree with AI ‘doomer’ Max Tegmark, and where I think he’s wrong
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 column, “What kids tell chatbots, but not you.” Well, it’s hard to write business-as-usual AI columns...
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of Oct. 4, 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 GeekWire Customer service, selling partner support and retail engineering teams were among those hit in...
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White House vs. Microsoft, AI fighter jets, and a visit to a startup founder’s Seattle recording studio
Seth Paul of Front Burner Studios and security startup Qinsay at the studio near Pike Place Market. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) This week, we take the GeekWire Podcast to Front Burner Studios in Seattle, where we’re hosted by studio co-owner Seth Paul, who’s co-founder and CEO of security startup Qinsay. We discuss the White House crackdown on Microsoft’s green-card sponsorships, which...
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Billionaire Jeff Bezos: ‘Success is not villainy’
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is interviewed by Bret Baier of Fox News in Florida. (Screen grab via Fox News) When Jeff Bezos sat down on Blue Origin’s Cape Canaveral factory floor for an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier earlier this week, he laid out an unapologetic defense of free enterprise and wealth creation. “Success is not villainy,” Bezos said. The Amazon founder’s point was...
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‘Star Wars’ is crossing over with ‘D&D’ in two upcoming books from Wizards of the Coast
(Source: Amir Zand for Wizards of the Coast) Wizards of the Coast plans to revisit the Star Wars universe as its next big cross-company collaboration for Dungeons & Dragons. On the first day of New York Comic Con 2026, one of the reveals at its big Disney/Lucasfilm panel was the upcoming debut of two new sourcebooks for D&D based on the Star Wars universe, a crossover Wizards first teased...
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Satellite radar tech startup Kapta Space raises $24M from Bill Gates-backed fund and defense investors
Kapta Space co-founders Adam Bily (left) and Milton Perque. (Kapta Photo) Kapta Space, a Seattle startup building lower-cost, steerable radar sensors for satellites, has raised $24 million in a Series A funding round to scale production and meet growing demand for defense intelligence contracts. The investment brings total funding to $30 million, following an initial $5 million seed round...
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From H-1B to CEO: How Satya Nadella traveled the path the U.S. just cut off for Microsoft workers
President Trump applauds the six recipients of this year’s National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology and Innovation on Thursday in Washington, D.C. Five were born outside the U.S., including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, far left. (White House Video Screenshot) Satya Nadella arrived in the U.S. from India in 1988 to study computer science. Over the next three decades, he went...
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Microsoft 2.5: GitHub COO Kyle Daigle on stitching the developer universe together
GitHub COO Kyle Daigle, who now also leads developer marketing for all of Microsoft, speaks at GitHub Universe last year. (Microsoft Photo) GeekWire is profiling over the next few weeks some of the people and teams that are shaping the evolution of Microsoft in what we’re calling its “Microsoft 2.5” era. A delicate dance: In August 2025, Microsoft moved to integrate GitHub into the...
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Your digital photos and posts are scattered everywhere: This startup ties them all together
Bilkay Rose is a co-founder of Eluum, which is looking to bring digital memories together into a common story. Photo via Eluum Eluum is taking aim at a problem created by the explosion of digital life: We chronicle our lives everywhere, but a single home for our most meaningful memories is hard to come by. The Seattle startup’s new app brings together photos, videos, social posts, locations...
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Microsoft responds to White House immigration crackdown as Trump honors Nadella
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella receives the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Trump on Thursday at the “Science: A New Golden Age” summit in Washington, D.C. (White House video screenshot) The Trump administration suspended Microsoft from the federal program the company uses to help foreign workers stay in the U.S. permanently, accusing the tech giant of abusing the...
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Rocket fuel: Seattle-area startups raise a record $3.5B as national VC funding cools
Q3 2026 VC deal activity by U.S. metro area. Note: PitchBook’s map uses broader regional boundaries than the metro-area figures in this story (PitchBook-NVCA Graphic, click to enlarge.) Seattle-area startups raised $3.5 billion in venture capital in the third quarter, the most in any quarter going back at least a decade, led by big rounds for Kent-based rocket maker Stoke...
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UW protein institute run by Nobel winner lands giant AI cloud grant from Nvidia CEO’s foundation
A large, symmetrical protein created by researchers at the UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design. (IPD / Benedicte Rossi Image) The UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design (IPD) has announced a giant grant of computing power from the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation, supercharging its research into new protein discovery. “We have made more rapid progress on methods development than...
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Fast-growing AI startup Nscale doubles Bellevue office footprint to 46K square feet
AI infrastructure startup Nscale is doubling down on its new Seattle-area presence before even opening the doors. After initially leasing a single floor at The Eighttower in downtown Bellevue earlier this year, the London-based company has expanded by an additional floor, bringing its total footprint in the new development to approximately 46,000 rentable square feet, according to a report...
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Overland AI unveils IBEX, a new autonomous ground vehicle selected by the Marine Corps
Overland AI’s IBEX vehicle at the company’s proving grounds. (Overland AI Photo) Seattle defense startup Overland AI has unveiled IBEX, a new fully autonomous ground vehicle selected by the U.S. Marine Corps to support counter-drone air defense operations and execute high-risk frontline missions, including resupply, breaching, and electronic warfare. IBEX was developed under a Department of...
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Shield AI lands $150M Navy contract to advance AI-piloted fighter jet that will be built south of Seattle
Shield AI’s new X-BAT autonomous fighter jet is designed to take off and land vertically. Photo via Shield AI. Defense technology startup Shield AI has secured a $150 million contract from the U.S. Navy to advance development of its X-BAT autonomous fighter jet — providing fresh federal backing for the program as the company establishes its first major manufacturing footprint south of...
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Amazon unveils Alexa Tablets running Android with Google Play, including a Pro model aimed at work
The Amazon Alexa Tablet 12 Pro with the $89.99 Pro Pen, which Amazon designed exclusively for the 12 Pro. (Amazon Photo) After more than a decade of focusing on low-cost devices, Amazon is taking its tablets upmarket and moving them to Android, setting up a more direct challenge to Apple’s iPad. The company on Thursday unveiled Amazon Alexa Tablets, a new line of aluminum tablets with full...
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Amazon confirms job cuts impacting hundreds of employees in retail unit
Amazon’s latest job cuts are mainly in its Stores business, which runs its main e-commerce site. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Amazon laid off hundreds of employees this week in its Stores business, which runs the company’s main e-commerce site — the latest in a series of smaller job cuts in recent months. Customer service, selling partner support and retail engineering teams were...
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Microsoft plays the Windows card in the AI game, with help from Nvidia
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, left, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang shake hands in front of new RTX Spark laptops at Microsoft’s Windows and Surface event in San Francisco on Wednesday. (Photo by Ken Yeung for GeekWire) Microsoft is turning to an old friend and a familiar advantage in search of a new edge in AI. The company and its longtime partner Nvidia on Wednesday started taking orders for a...
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In effort to diversify economy and build resilience, Seattle Mayor names 18 leaders to new task force
City of Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson set up a new task force to bolster the economy. (Photo via Katie Wilson for Mayor) Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is bringing together leaders from Amazon, Spotify, the Port of Seattle, organized labor, technology, cleantech, small business and other sectors as part of a new task force focused on rebuilding and diversifying the city’s economy. Wilson on...
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Opinion: Washington’s new state income tax must be repealed
The Legislative Building in Olympia, where Washington lawmakers passed a 9.9% tax on household income above $1 million earlier this year. Initiative 645 on the November ballot would repeal it. (Photo by Nils Huenerfuerst via Unsplash) Editor’s note: GeekWire publishes guest opinions to highlight a range of perspectives on issues shaping the tech and startup community. To submit a guest column,...
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Sen. Maria Cantwell outlines six-point plan to regulate frontier AI as concerns escalate
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell at the GeekWire Summit in 2022. (GeekWire Photo / Dan DeLong) With President Donald Trump, states and tech giants taking varied and largely uncoordinated steps to put guardrails on artificial intelligence as the technology speeds ahead, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., has outlined a comprehensive AI governance framework. “To manage risks from advanced AI systems...
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Walmart prepares to take off in Amazon’s backyard with Seattle-area drone delivery in 2027
Walmart and Wing are partnering on drone delivery service that is expanding across the U.S. (Walmart Photo) Walmart looks like it might beat Amazon to the skies over the Seattle area as the retail giant announced this week that it plans to bring automated drone delivery to the region in 2027. The move is part of a broader nationwide push by Walmart and drone operator Wing — a subsidiary of...
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Ring’s first smart lock ditches the key and adds a dial to revive a dead battery
The new Ring Smart Lock, right, next to one of the company’s video doorbells. (Ring Image) Ring is moving from the doorbell to the deadbolt. The Amazon-owned company on Wednesday announced its first smart lock, a $249 deadbolt with no keyhole and a dial that recharges a dead battery by hand. Jamie Siminoff, Ring’s founder and chief inventor, said the dial solves the...
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Yoodli’s next act: AI that can teach workers almost any job skill
A portion of the Yoodli team gathers for a photo this week inside the company’s new headquarters on Seattle’s Pier 70, under a neon version of the startup’s logo. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Yoodli, the Seattle startup that offers AI to help people practice speeches, sales pitches and job interviews, is expanding to pursue a larger vision: AI that can teach people almost any...
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Fast-growing Temporal hires team from NYC startup Oso to build AI agent security controls
Temporal co-founders Maxim Fateev, CTO (left), and Samar Abbas, CEO. (Temporal Photo) Bellevue, Wash.-based Temporal is expanding its security capabilities for AI agents following a $550 million funding round last month that valued the enterprise infrastructure company at $12.55 billion. In an announcement Tuesday, Temporal revealed that team members from Oso, a New York-based startup...
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Tech Moves: Microsoft CVP retires; former Amazon SVP to lead Boston Dynamics; Qualtrics, Overland AI, Fred Hutch name execs
Ravi Vedula. (LinkedIn Photo) — Ravi Vedula, a corporate vice president at Microsoft, is leaving the company after 26 years. Vedula, who is based in the Seattle area, led an organization of more than 1,000 people that runs the data and analytics platform behind Microsoft 365 and Copilot. “26 years. It’s time,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “Goodbye and thank you, Microsoft. It’s been a privilege. I...
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Superhuman opens new Seattle office, joining wave of AI companies expanding in the region
A rendering of the reception area at Superhuman’s new Seattle office in South Lake Union. (Superhuman Image) Superhuman, the San Francisco company formerly known as Grammarly, opened a 13,501-square-foot office in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood on Tuesday, moving out of a coworking space and giving itself room to hire. The office, at 1000 Dexter Ave. N., is opening with 50...
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Beyond co-working: Former tech leader launches new hub for Seattle’s women founders
The SWELL hosts a weekly open house for entrepreneurs, including non-members, to meet up. Sally Revell, The SWELL founder, at lower center. (The SWELL Photo) A new hub for women entrepreneurs is taking shape in Seattle and will host its official launch party tonight. Less than 10 weeks after opening, The SWELL has 53 members and quickly evolving programming that includes an accelerator, its...
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AI founders for hire: Startup hub Foundations launches service to connect businesses with builders
Founders and guests mingle at the opening of Foundations’ San Francisco hub earlier this year. (Foundations Photo) Foundations, the startup community with hubs in Seattle and San Francisco, launched a service Tuesday that lets businesses contract with its members — many of them technical founders building companies of their own — to plan, develop and implement AI systems and...
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