GEEK News
June 05, 2015 - 01:04 PM
Institute led by UW Nobel winner uses AI to build molecular scissors targeting disease proteins
Anqi Chen, left, and Hojae Choi, are lead authors on two Nature papers from UW Medicine 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 Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease. The...
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LinkedIn just released its list of the top 10 Seattle startups: One problem, nearly half aren’t based in the region
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 of the wrong reasons. Let’s just say: We know a thing or two about Seattle-area startups around...
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‘What is fusion?’ Helion Energy harnesses the power of television with a ‘Jeopardy!’ mention
“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 “Jeopardy!” clue board. During Tuesday evening’s episode, the $800 clue was featured in a category titled...
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Prime Intellect acquires Moondream, a vision AI startup founded in Seattle by AWS vets
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 startup founded in Seattle by Amazon Web Services veterans that makes small, open-source AI models for...
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Tech Moves: Brinc Drones, Fred Hutch, Acumatica, Convera add to C-suites; LinkedIn director departs
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 praised the Brinc team, saying, “They’re passionate about what they do with a vision that will change the...
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Steve Ballmer’s USAFacts pits Ben Shapiro against Scott Galloway in YouTube debate special
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 initiative founded by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer — is stepping out of its usual...
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Microsoft’s wild ride: Stock hits new record after a year of ups and downs
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 to its market value. The tech giant’s stock has gained about $1.4 trillion in value since early...
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Booking Holdings unveils AI travel startup Vayo, based in Seattle, with a planned $100M investment
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 a better job of planning and managing trips than general-purpose assistants from the likes of...
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Humanly acquires CareerArc to connect recruitment marketing with AI hiring
(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 interview systems with CareerArc’s social media recruiting and career-site mapping platforms. The...
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Getty Images to keep Seattle HQ as it goes private through bankruptcy
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 intended to cut its debt and take the company private. A Getty spokesperson confirmed the plans in an...
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Seattle voters view economy as weakening in survey that reveals short-lived World Cup euphoria
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 wave of economic euphoria when the FIFA World Cup came to town this summer, but according to new...
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Microsoft forms ‘Xbox Labs’ to explore game remixes, ports and other new frontiers
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 have traditionally worked. Microsoft Xbox CEO Asha Sharma announced Xbox Labs on Tuesday in a memo...
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Apple challenges Amazon’s Echo and Ring with its new smart home lineup
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 directly with Amazon’s Echo Show, along with a lineup of cameras, a video doorbell and a smart lock...
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Microsoft’s top science exec is leaving to fulfill a childhood dream: Joining a Formula 1 team
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 out, comes with a pit crew. The longtime Microsoft Research leader, who is leaving his post as...
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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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