GEEK News
June 05, 2015 - 02:04 PM
GeekWire test ride: Lime’s new bike packs a zippy punch into a compact, easier-to-use device
GeekWire’s Kurt Schlosser cruises the Burke-Gilman Trail in Seattle on a new LimeBike electric bicycle from Lime this week. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) Lime’s newest electric bike is being billed mostly as an accessibility upgrade, but don’t let that undersell it — this thing is nimble, punchy and genuinely fun to ride. The new LimeBike, which plays on the company’s original name, is...
Published :
XBOW, the unicorn with a Seattle mailbox, raises another $35M for its autonomous hacking platform
The XBOW team photo from the company’s website shows employees gathered in Malta, where founder and CEO Oege de Moor is based. The company lists Seattle as its headquarters. (XBOW Photo) The headquarters address of one of Seattle’s newest billion-dollar startups isn’t a trendy office tower or a sprawling corporate campus — it’s a mailbox at a Pioneer Square coworking space. XBOW, the...
Published :
Tin Can launches program to help schools and neighborhoods go smartphone-free together
Tin Can landline phones in a variety of colors. (Tin Can Photo) Tin Can, the Seattle startup behind the screenless, Wi-Fi-enabled landline phone for kids, is launching a new feature aimed at the groups that have been driving its rapid growth: schools, neighborhoods, and parent organizations looking to ditch smartphones together. The company is calling it Tin Can Communities — a program that...
Published :
Seattle-area tech vets buy a cricket team — in Boston — to further feed the sport’s talent pipeline
The new ownership group of the New England Eagles Minor League Cricket franchise, clockwise from top left: Vandana Thomas, Anand Subbaraj, Gaurav Seth, Satheesh Santhamurthi, and Manoj Naidu. (LinkedIn Photos) After more than a decade building cricket fields, sponsoring youth teams, and developing local talent in the Pacific Northwest, a group of Seattle-area tech veterans has taken their...
Published :
Early Amazon engineer and serial founders raise $15M to keep AI agents in the loop
SageOx co-founders, from left: Milkana Brace, Ajit Banerjee, and Ryan Snodgrass. (SageOx Photo) SageOx, a Seattle startup building tools for teams where humans and AI coding agents work side by side, has announced $15 million in seed funding. The company launched in January. The round was led by Canaan Partners, with participation from A.Capital, Pioneer Square Labs and Founders’...
Published :
PSL’s T.A. McCann is running a startup again, as the CEO of Lev — an ‘AI co-founder’ for startups
T.A. McCann inside Pioneer Square Labs’ Seattle offices. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Serial entrepreneur and investor T.A. McCann has started companies at the front edge of every major tech wave for three decades, from the web and cloud services to mobile and social apps. Maybe it was inevitable that AI would pull him back in. After eight years as managing director of Seattle...
Published :
Microsoft’s new Xbox chief nixes Gaming Copilot for mobile and console, shakes up leadership
Asha Sharma was named Xbox CEO in February after leading Microsoft’s CoreAI group. (Microsoft Photo) Microsoft is pulling the plug on its AI-powered Copilot assistant for Xbox, winding down the feature on mobile and canceling its planned launch on consoles. The pullback, announced Tuesday by new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, comes barely a year after the company debuted the gaming chatbot as a...
Published :
Tech Moves: Amazon VP is now Chewy CTO; Smartsheet names CFO; Microsoft exec joins NetApp
Yunyan Wang. (LinkedIn Photo) — Yunyan Wang has left Amazon to become chief technology officer at Chewy, the leading online pet retailer. Wang spent more than 12 years at the Seattle-based tech giant, most recently as vice president of Commerce & Supply Chain Services. “(Wang’s) track record driving innovation at world-class companies makes her the perfect addition as we double down on...
Published :
Seattle’s CopilotKit raises $27M, as some of the biggest names in tech adopt its AI agent protocol
CopilotKit co-founders Uli Barkai, head of growth, left, and CEO Atai Barkai. (CopilotKit Photo) CopilotKit, a Seattle startup with roots in the former Techstars Seattle accelerator, has raised $27 million for technology that lets AI agents work inside existing software applications. The company created AG-UI, an open standard for how AI agents communicate with software, letting agents...
Published :
Moment Energy lands $40M to scale EV battery repurposing at planned Texas gigafactory
Artist’s rendering of Moment Energy’s planned Austin, Texas, gigafactory. (Moment Energy Image) Moment Energy, a British Columbia-based startup repurposing used electric vehicle batteries, has announced a $40 million investment to help fund construction of a massive factory in Texas and more than triple its headcount. The company, headquartered just outside Vancouver, has now raised more...
Published :
Microsoft’s new research finds an AI ‘paradox’ holding companies back
Caption: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella discusses the company’s Copilot initiatives. A new Microsoft study finds that the biggest barrier to AI at work isn’t the technology — it’s the organizations around it. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) [Editor’s Note: Agents of Transformation is an independent GeekWire series, underwritten by Accenture, exploring the adoption and impact of AI and...
Published :
Data centers at sea: Panthalassa nets $140M led by Peter Thiel for wave-powered AI
A Panthalassa wave energy system. (LinkedIn Photo) Wave energy had largely been bobbing around in the background of the U.S. clean energy sector — until now. On Monday, Oregon-based Panthalassa announced a $140 million round led by Peter Thiel. The new funding from the PayPal co-founder and others will allow the startup to finish building its pilot manufacturing facility near Portland....
Published :
Seattle schools’ new cellphone rules are in effect — what it means for different kids, and why now
(BigStock Photo) For years, the rules around cellphones in Seattle Public Schools depended largely on which school — or even which classroom — a student walked into. That ended today. The district enacted its first districtwide cellphone policy on Monday, setting a single standard for all students across every building for the first time. We broke down how the new rules work, who is...
Published :
Microsoft’s OpenClaw team takes on the personal assistant challenge
Microsoft’s unofficial Ninja Cat mascot rides the OpenClaw lobster. (Image via Omar Shahine’s blog) Bob. Clippy. Cortana. Copilot. Microsoft has been trying to unlock the personal-assistant puzzle for decades. Now a fledgling team inside the company that’s been experimenting with OpenClaw — an open-source framework that acts both a virtual assistant and platform for building and managing...
Published :
Building belonging: How GeekWire’s STEM Educator of the Year uses Legos to bridge the tech gap
Project LEDO founder Fidel Ferrer, second from left, working with Lego robotics students in his program. (Project LEDO Photo) Through Lego robotics and a STEM curriculum, Project LEDO serves as both an inspiration and a safety net for low-income kids and students of color in Portland, Ore., and surrounding areas. “In a climate where school funds no longer cover vital STEM enrichment,...
Published :
Interlune wins $6.9M NASA contract to create system to extract helium-3 and hydrogen from moon dirt
Interlune test engineer Alex Lewandowski and mechanical engineer Jessica Wu check test equipment for the mass spectrometer system in the Regolith Lab at the company’s Seattle headquarters. (Interlune Photo) NASA has awarded a $6.9 million contract to Seattle-based Interlune for the development of a system that can extract gases such as helium-3 and hydrogen from lunar soil and rocks. The...
Published :
Amazon turns its logistics empire into a new business, taking on UPS and FedEx in freight and shipping
Amazon is opening its logistics network to outside businesses through a new offering called Amazon Supply Chain Services. (Amazon Photo) Amazon launched a new business that opens its entire logistics network to outside companies — sending shares of UPS and FedEx tumbling and marking the latest example of the tech giant under CEO Andy Jassy turning its internal capabilities into products and...
Published :
AI best practices: If at first you don’t succeed, prompt, prompt again
An AI prompt screen, as reimagined by Google Gemini. [Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series by Oren Etzioni about AI usage and best practices. See also “AI Coach or AI Ghostwriter? The Choice Is Yours,” and “How to read with AI.”] A friend asked ChatGPT for input on a professional matter and received a banal, lackluster response. I suggested she try a different approach: ask for 15...
Published :
Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of April 26, 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 April 26, 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 Microsoft says its voluntary retirement program will result in a $900 million charge in the...
Published :
Elon takes the stand, Big Tech drops big numbers, and a Seattle VC gets in on a billion-dollar deal
This week on the GeekWire Podcast: What it was like inside the Oakland federal courthouse where Elon Musk is suing OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Microsoft, with jury selection revealing just how hard it is to find anyone neutral about Musk these days. Meanwhile, Microsoft and OpenAI restructured their partnership the same morning the trial began — and less than 24 hours later, OpenAI’s models...
Published :
Seattle mayor’s ‘bye’ to millionaires who leave state over taxes is no laughing matter to some in tech
Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson makes a waving gesture while commenting on millionaires threatening to leave Washington state during her appearance at Seattle University earlier this month. (Screenshot via YouTube / Seattle Channel) Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson is being greeted with a bit of backlash over a recent “goodbye.” During a conversation earlier this month at Seattle University, Wilson...
Published :
Calculated joy: Why GeekWire’s STEM Educator of the Year built a museum to fix math trauma
Tracy Drinkwater engaging with visitors at the Seattle Universal Math Museum, which she founded. (SUMM Photo) Tracy Drinkwater bristles when people — sometimes proudly — declare they “can’t do math.” No one, she notes, would similarly boast about being bad at reading or history. But she understands the sentiment. Math education, she argues, was designed decades ago to produce NASA...
Published :
Microsoft and Amazon join Pentagon’s push to build AI-first military with classified network deals
The U.S. Pentagon in Washington, D.C. (BigStock Photo) Microsoft and Amazon joined other leading artificial intelligence companies in signing deals to deploy their technology in classified Pentagon networks, the Defense Department announced Friday, accelerating a push to build what the military is calling an “AI-first fighting force.” The agreements — which also include OpenAI, Google,...
Published :
‘Exclusion compounds’: Women in tech push to shape AI before it’s too late
Panelists during a session at the Women in Tech Regatta in Seattle on Wednesday. From left, moderator Sarah Studer of the University of Washington, Maria Martin of Nordstrom, Nandita Krishnan of Adobe, and Anya Edelstein of Highspot. (WiT Regatta Photo) Women have long been left out of the datasets and decisions shaping everything from car safety to medical diagnoses. Industry leaders warn a...
Published :
Tired of talk that goes nowhere? This Seattle startup is using AI to turn civic debate into action
Merrill Keating, left, and Doña Keating are the mother-daughter co-founders of AI startup Convexus. (Photo courtesy of Merrill Keating) While much of the debate around artificial intelligence centers on the technology’s threat to jobs and society, one Seattle-area startup is turning that anxiety on its head — using AI not as a source of conflict, but as a tool to help resolve it. Convexus...
Published :
Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook, Seahawks owners? Tech moguls’ reported interest quickly spiked
Apple’s Tim Cook, left, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. (Apple, Meta Photos) Seattle Seahawks fans envisioning another tech billionaire as the new owner of the NFL team have a couple Silicon Valley-based names to consider. Or not. Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been mentioned as potential suitors for the franchise, which was put up for sale in February by the estate of...
Published :
Geeks Give Back: AI House and UW’s Center for an Informed Public to be honored at GeekWire Awards
Top: Center for an Informed Public co-founder Kate Starbird speaking at a University of Washington lecture. Bottom: AI House managing director Jifan Zhang and an AI House event. (CIP and GeekWire Photos) Each year, the GeekWire Awards celebrate the geeky endeavors making a meaningful impact across the Pacific Northwest. This year’s Geeks Give Back honorees are building community and sharing...
Published :
Microsoft puts a price on its voluntary retirement program
The night sky over Microsoft’s headquarters campus in Redmond, Wash. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Microsoft will take a $900 million charge in its current quarter for its one-time voluntary retirement program, the company disclosed in its earnings report Wednesday. Just to put that in context, it’s roughly equal to one day of revenue for the company at its current rate. Microsoft...
Published :
AWS growth climbs to 28% as Amazon’s big AI bets start to pay off
Amazon Web Services growth accelerated to 28% in the first quarter — its fastest pace in nearly four years — pushing Amazon’s results past Wall Street’s expectations and validating, at least for now, the company’s controversial $200 billion capital spending plan. Overall, Amazon posted sales of $181.5 billion, up 17%, and operating income of $23.9 billion, up 30%. Both topped guidance and...
Published :
Microsoft tops Wall Street expectations, reports accelerating Azure growth and $37B AI run rate
Microsoft’s Azure cloud business accelerated in the March quarter, growing 40% and topping the company’s own forecast, giving the tech giant a new answer to questions about its ability to translate record capital spending on AI infrastructure into stronger financial results. The company’s revenue rose 18% to $82.9 billion, beating the $81.4 billion analyst consensus, and earnings per share...
Published :
Opinion: AI is not a product — it’s an environment
(BigStock Image) Editor’s note: Bill Hilf is the former CEO of Vulcan/Vale Group, current board chair of Ai2 and American Prairie, and the author of the new sci-fi novel,”The Disruption,” which explores the topics of AI and natural ecosystems. He spoke about the book on the GeekWire Podcast, and elaborates on the themes in this companion essay. We are building AI at civilizational scale...
Published :
Tech Moves: Former Microsoft VP to lead Inteum; Veeam, mpathic add execs; past Tune CEO’s new role
Angus Norton. (LinkedIn Photo) — Former Microsoft and Amazon exec Angus Norton is now CEO of Inteum, an IP management platform for university technology transfer offices. Norton joins the Kirkland, Wash.-based company from Bodhi Venture Labs, an executive services firm focused on product management and marketing that he led for more than five years. Norton launched his career at Microsoft...
Published :
How a Seattle VC firm broke into the $1.1B seed round for a DeepMind legend’s superintelligence startup
Flying Fish Partners’ Geoff Harris, Frank Chang and Heather Redman. (Flying Fish Photo) The venture world is still digesting the eye-popping debut of London-based Ineffable Intelligence, the new startup from DeepMind legend David Silver, which announced $1.1 billion in funding at a $5.1 billion valuation this week. The deal — which CNBC called the largest-ever seed round for a European...
Published :
Zap Energy’s nuclear double play: Fusion startup adds traditional fission to its lineup, in industry first
Zap Energy’s fusion device creates a purplish glow from its hydrogen plasma. (Zap Photo) Zap Energy announced plans Wednesday to become the first company to simultaneously pursue two tracks for nuclear power: fusion, an unproven but promising technology that smashes light atoms together to produce energy, and fission, the better-known nuclear pathway that already powers reactors around the...
Published :
Game devs unionize to improve working conditions on ‘Magic: The Gathering – Arena’ team
(Official UWOTC-CWA image) The team developing a video game based on Magic: The Gathering announced on Tuesday that they’ve unionized, describing the move as part of an attempt to improve working conditions at Renton, Wash.-based Wizards of the Coast and create better games. United Wizards of the Coast, operating in partnership with the Communications Workers of America, specifically...
Published :
Log in Sign up