GEEK News
June 05, 2015 - 01:04 PM
Chasing Starlink, Amazon Leo strikes satellite Wi-Fi deal for future Delta flights
Amazon Leo and Delta Air Lines announced a deal Tuesday for satellite-powered in-flight Wi-Fi starting in 2028. (Amazon Photo) Amazon Leo has landed its highest-profile customer yet, reaching a deal with Delta Air Lines to provide satellite-powered Wi-Fi on 500 aircraft starting in 2028. The agreement, announced Tuesday, gives Amazon’s fledgling satellite internet venture a big new partner...
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Mary Jo Foley: What the heck is going on with Microsoft lately?
Satya Nadella in November 2016, in his honeymoon period as Microsoft CEO. (GeekWire File Photo) [Editor’s Note: We’re excited to welcome Mary Jo Foley as a GeekWire contributor. Mary Jo has been one of the sharpest watchers of Microsoft for many years, currently as Editor in Chief at Directions on Microsoft, an IT planning and advisory service. She’ll be offering her take for GeekWire...
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Snap acquires assets from Rec Room as social gaming platform announces shutdown
Rec Room, the social gaming platform that reached more than 150 million players, is shutting down on June 1. (Rec Room Image) Snap Inc. confirmed late Monday that it has acquired select assets from Rec Room Inc., following the news that the Seattle-based company plans to shut down its longtime social gaming platform. Some of Rec Room’s employees will be joining Snap — but this does not...
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Portal Space’s ‘Mini-Nova’ payload goes into orbit to test technologies for maneuverable space vehicles
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sends Portal Space Systems’ “Mini-Nova” technology demonstration payload and more than 100 other payloads into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. (SpaceX Photo) Bothell, Wash.-based Portal Space Systems has made its first foray into Earth orbit, in the form of a piggyback payload that will test technologies for highly maneuverable space...
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Rec Room shutting down: Once valued at $3.5B, social gaming platform finds profits elusive
Rec Room, the Seattle-based social gaming company once valued at $3.5 billion, is shutting down its platform on June 1, leaving the future of the company and its employees unclear. The company made the announcement Monday afternoon, saying it couldn’t find a path to profitability even after serving more than 150 million players over the past decade. “Despite this popularity, we never...
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Singapore’s PixVerse picks Seattle area for its first U.S. office amid $300M funding round
AI video generator PixVerse is opening an office in Bellevue, Wash., and released its latest model, which it says “delivers complex scenes with coherent motion and consistent detail.” (PixVerse Image) PixVerse, the Singapore-based AI video generator, is establishing its first U.S. office in Bellevue, Wash., and on Monday released the newest version of its model. Earlier this month the...
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Opinion: AI coach or AI ghostwriter? The choice is yours
(Image via Claude) You are using AI to write and so is your boss, your intern, and virtually everyone else. That ship has sailed so arguing whether to board is a waste of breath. The real question is: how do you use AI? AI is a fork in the road disguised as a shortcut. Down one path, it’s a coach that studies your weaknesses, challenges your assumptions, and pushes you past your limits....
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Report: Amazon buys 1,300 acres near Columbia River that could become a giant data center
Inside an Amazon data center. (AWS Photo / Noah Berger) Amazon has purchased 1,300 acres of undeveloped land on the Oregon side of the Columbia River that could one day become a massive computing campus with up to 20 data center buildings, the Oregonian reports. The Seattle-based tech company on Monday confirmed that it bought the land but declined to provide details on the potential data...
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‘Transformative’: Amazon and Microsoft celebrate opening of light rail line between Seattle and Eastside
Sound Transit’s Link light rail crossing Lake Washington’s floating bridge. (Sound Transit Photo) Amazon and Microsoft are on board with the Crosslake Connection. With this weekend’s grand opening of Sound Transit’s Link light rail service over Lake Washington between Seattle and the Eastside, the region’s biggest tech employers touted what it means for their employees and others. “I’ve...
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GPT drafts, Claude critiques: Microsoft blends rival AI models in new Copilot upgrade
Microsoft is using Anthropic’s Claude to review work by OpenAI’s GPT inside Copilot’s Researcher agent. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) A new feature from Microsoft uses Anthropic’s Claude to assess and correct the work of OpenAI’s GPT, blending the tech giant’s new and old AI partnerships in the latest attempt to boost adoption of its Microsoft 365 Copilot tools for businesses. The company...
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Orbital AI: Seattle-area startup Starcloud hits $1.1B valuation to build space-based data centers
Image of a Starcloud deployment of its space-based data center. (Starcloud Photo) Starcloud, a startup building solar-powered data centers that operate in space, announced $170 million in new funding Monday, vaulting it to unicorn status with a $1.1 billion valuation. The Redmond, Wash.-based company is now the fastest in Y Combinator history to hit that milestone, reaching the billion-dollar...
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Microsoft VP’s memoir of growing up in India makes unexpected case for what matters in the age of AI
Ravi Vedula holds a photograph of himself and his childhood friends from their housing colony in Panjagutta, Hyderabad, taken more than 40 years ago. The boys went on to become leaders at Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Rivian, and other companies. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) One of Ravi Vedula‘s strongest memories from childhood is seeing his name in the Deccan Chronicle. He and his friends in a...
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Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of March 22, 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 March 22, 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 The new cafe in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood draws on Chinese cafe culture for its menu...
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GeekWire AI summit takeaways: Token budgets, watermelon metrics, and the $5k weekend coder
OpenAI CTO of Applications Vijaye Raji, left, and GeekWire’s Todd Bishop on stage at the GeekWire AI summit, Agents of Transformation, in Seattle on March 24. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Fresh off the big GeekWire AI summit, we unpack what they heard from Microsoft EVP Charles Lamanna, OpenAI applications CTO Vijaye Raji, and other speakers at the Agents...
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More layoffs at T-Mobile: Company confirms it’s ‘further aligning’ IT org
(GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Bellevue, Wash.-based wireless carrier T-Mobile confirmed it made an unspecified number of layoffs this week. A tipster told GeekWire the number was in the hundreds, which the company did not verify. “To move even faster in a dynamic market while continuing to deliver best-in-class digital experiences for our customers, we’re further aligning our IT...
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‘No more’: Washington state sues Kalshi, alleging prediction market is illegal gambling
Screenshots of Kalshi ads and betting markets included in Washington state’s complaint. At right, an ad cited by the state shows a text conversation in which one person tells another they “found a way to bet on the NFL even though we live in Washington.” Updated below with Kalshi comment. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown is suing prediction market platform Kalshi,...
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Seattle data storage company putting R&D hub in Ireland
Seattle-based data management firm Qumulo is looking across the Atlantic for its next phase of growth. The company announced Friday the launch of a new European software research and development and customer success hub in Cork, Ireland, a move expected to create 50 jobs over the next three years. Qumulo Chief Technology Officer Kiran Bhageshpur said Cork was “the obvious choice for us...
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GeekWire Awards: 5 Workplace of the Year finalists lean on key values to build solid company culture
The finalists for Workplace of the Year at the 2026 GeekWire Awards, clockwise from top left: The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2); Humanly, led by CEO Prem Kumar; Carbon Robotics, led by CEO Paul Mikesell; DAT Freight & Analytics; and the team at Yoodli. (GeekWire and company photos) Trust. Fairness. Accessibility. Openness. A lot goes into building a solid company culture —...
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Tech Moves: Smartsheet adds to C-suite; Armoire gets ML lead; past Microsoft director launches startup
New Smartsheet executives, top row from left: Robson Grieve and Toyan Espeut. Bottom row: Pratima Arora and Kelsi McDonald Harris. (LinkedIn Photos) Enterprise software giant Smartsheet on Thursday announced four C-suite changes — two hires and two promotions. The Bellevue, Wash., company, which is best known for helping businesses organize and track work, has undergone two rounds of layoffs...
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Two tech workers took it Offline, and opened a Seattle coffee shop that AI can’t replicate
Offline Coffee Co. co-founders Lucy Kong, left, and Krystal Graylin behind the counter at the cafe in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. (Sarah Goh Photo) The meeting was running long, so someone said what they always say: “let’s take this offline.” For Krystal Graylin, that phrase — hollow corporate shorthand for a problem deferred, not solved — became something else entirely. She...
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GeekWire rides the world’s first floating-bridge train — Seattle tech commutes will never be the same
The view of Lake Washington and eastbound I-90 traffic out the window of Sound Transit’s Crosslake Connection Link light rail line as it heads west toward Seattle on Thursday. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) As the train approached the bridge Thursday morning, it was hard to imagine what it would feel like to travel on a rail line over Lake Washington. Would a floating-bridge train feel...
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Washington state needs a ‘coherent’ story to compete in AI, leaders agree
The Washington Technology Industry Association held its Tech in Focus roundtable on March 25, 2026, in Seattle. (Ken Yeung Photo) Washington state may have everything it needs to become a global AI hub. The problem is, it hasn’t figured out how to say so, and its political and tech leaders agree it’s time they got to work on it. On Wednesday, at the Seattle office of K&L Gates, the...
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Bungie scores an unexpected success with ‘Marathon’ revival
(Bungie screenshot) By all indications, Bungie’s revival of its Marathon franchise should not have worked out. Despite a CEO’s departure, an indefinite delay, several controversies, and targeting a saturated genre, Marathon came out earlier this month and has become one of this year’s unexpected successes. Marathon, developed by Bellevue, Wash.-based Bungie (Halo 2, Destiny), is a...
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Want to watch the Seattle Mariners? Here are the TV and streaming options as Opening Day arrives
Seattle Mariners pitcher Logan Gilbert is expected to open the season tonight against Cleveland. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) The Seattle Mariners open the 2026 season tonight at T-Mobile Park against the Cleveland Guardians. And perhaps the biggest question on the minds of fans, apart from whether the team will make another playoff run, is how in the heck to watch the games on TV or...
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Forget new power plants — Seattle startup Edo wants to turn your office building into one
An Edo employee connecting to a commercial building’s operating system. (Edo Photo / Patrick Martinez) A surge in electricity demand from data centers and AI use, compounded by more frequent extreme weather and wildfires, is finally putting Seattle startup Edo‘s 5-year-old mission in the spotlight. Edo’s technology creates virtual power plants (VPPs), which dial back the electricity used by...
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Everyone is a builder: Microsoft and OpenAI execs on the new era of AI-powered personal software
Vijaye Raji, OpenAI’s CTO of applications and former CEO at Statsig, speaks at GeekWire’s Agents of Transformation event in Seattle on March 24. (GeekWire Photos / Kevin Lisota) Vijaye Raji wanted to figure out how to keep up with the firehose of Slack messages. After a couple prompts, he had a solution. Raji, OpenAI’s CTO of applications, vibe-coded his own personal tool using Codex,...
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Startups pitch big AI ideas during mini-competition at GeekWire’s ‘Agents of Transformation’
Manfred Markevitch, co-founder and CEO of GemaTEG, pitches alongside judges, from left, Bryan Hale of Anthos Capital, Yifan Zhang of AI House, and T.A. McCann of Pioneer Square Labs during GeekWire’s Agents of Transformation event in Seattle on Tuesday. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) Big Tech is not alone in the AI innovation race. Four startup founders took the stage at GeekWire’s Agents of...
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GeekWire Awards: Breakthrough tech for healthcare and data centers highlight Innovation of the Year
The finalists for Innovation of the Year at the 2026 GeekWire Awards. Clockwise from top: Starcloud; RevealDx; Alpenglow Biosciences; VerAvanti; and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. (GeekWire / Company Photos) From the research lab to the healthcare clinic and all the way above Earth — the Pacific Northwest continues to produce game-changing innovation. The finalists for Innovation of...
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Amazon and FedEx, together again, this time for e-commerce returns
An Amazon Prime delivery van and a FedEx Ground van on a Seattle street. The two companies are expanding their rekindled partnership into returns. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Amazon and FedEx are expanding their partnership after starting to patch things up last year. The companies announced Wednesday that more than 1,500 FedEx Office locations nationwide are now accepting Amazon...
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Beyond the chatbot: At GeekWire summit, AI leaders say the era of autonomous agents is already here
GeekWire’s Agents of Transformation AI summit drew a full house to Block 41 in Seattle on Tuesday. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) The debate over whether AI will transform industries is over. At GeekWire’s Agents of Transformation summit in Seattle on Tuesday, the founders, executives and engineers in attendance had moved on to harder questions — what’s working, what isn’t, and how fast...
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Aetheon raises $1.2M to translate lived experiences into job-ready skills
From left, Aetheon co-founders: Gina Jeneroux, Marie Gill, and Mark Wayman. (LinkedIn and Aetheon Photos) Aetheon, a new startup that helps job candidates map their real world capabilities into work opportunities, has raised $1.24 million as part of its seed round. Founded last year, the company is building what it calls a “skills operating system” aimed at helping workers — particularly...
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Job candidates are starting to negotiate AI token budgets, changing the dynamics of hiring
Charles Lamanna (left), Microsoft’s executive vice president of Business Applications & Agents, interviewed by GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop at GeekWire’s Agents of Transformation event at Block 41 in Seattle on March 24. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota) Technical job candidates are adding a new line to their list of requests in the AI boom: ample access to AI...
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Epic Games layoffs impact 82 workers at Seattle-area office as part of broader cuts
(Epic Games Photo) Epic Games, the gaming giant behind Fortnite, is laying off 82 employees at its Bellevue, Wash.-based office, according to a WARN notice filed with Washington state regulators. Epic announced Tuesday that it is laying off 1,000 employees across the company, or about 20% of its workforce, citing reduced engagement with Fortnite. “This layoff, together with over $500...
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Brinc unveils Guardian, a Starlink-connected drone that could ‘replace the police helicopter’
Blake Resnick, founder and CEO of Brinc Drones, with the company’s new Guardian public safety drone in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Brinc Drones founder and CEO Blake Resnick has a big vision for what the company’s largest-ever drone can accomplish. “To replace the police helicopter,” Resnick said with a smile when asked about his goal for the device. “And to build the most...
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Drone home: Brinc moving to massive new HQ and factory in Seattle amid startup’s rapid growth
The main floor of the new Brinc Drones factory and headquarters location in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Brinc Drones, the Seattle-based maker of public safety drones for first responders, is moving its headquarters and factory space to a massive development not far from its current Fremont neighborhood location. Brinc is taking over 35,000 square...
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