GEEK News

June 05, 2015 - 01:04 PM
Seattle biotech heavy-hitters emerge from stealth with $46M for next-gen migraine treatments

Seattle biotech heavy-hitters emerge from stealth with $46M for next-gen migraine treatments

June 17, 2026

Vedana’s lealdership team, from left: Dr. Rob Lenz, board chair; Leon Garcia, co-founder and chief scientific officer; Anurag Agarwal, co-founder and CEO; and Dr. Ernesto Aycardi, chief medical officer. (Vedana Photo) Vedana Therapeutics, a Seattle-based startup aiming to prevent migraine...

Amazon unveils new AI agents, trying to thread the needle between autonomy and human control

Amazon unveils new AI agents, trying to thread the needle between autonomy and human control

June 17, 2026

Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS VP of agentic AI, shows the Amazon Quick knowledge graph at the AWS Summit in New York. (Screenshot via live stream) Amazon Web Services is announcing a new set of AI agents for businesses, developers, and individual users, capable of everything from fixing security...

Selling sunshine from Seattle: Solius raises $23M to launch new at-home light-therapy device

Selling sunshine from Seattle: Solius raises $23M to launch new at-home light-therapy device

June 17, 2026

The Solius Pro hangs on a wall, scans a user’s skin and directs appropriate UVB light therapy. (Solius Photo) A Seattle-area startup that once asked people to step inside a glowing kiosk for light therapy is now bringing that same technology into the home. Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based...

Not just for coders: UW’s upcoming AI minor will reach beyond the computer science school

Not just for coders: UW’s upcoming AI minor will reach beyond the computer science school

June 17, 2026

Magda Balazinska, director of the UW Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, at an event last year. (GeekWire Photo) As students, teachers and employers wrestle with the demands of an increasingly AI-powered world, the University of Washington has a new proposition: an interdisciplinary...

Why startup vet Robbie Cape chose insurance — a tough VC, a trillion-dollar market and the money

Why startup vet Robbie Cape chose insurance — a tough VC, a trillion-dollar market and the money

June 16, 2026

Robbie Cape, then CEO of virtual primary care startup 98point6, accepts the award for Health Innovation of the Year at the GeekWire Awards in 2019. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) Robbie Cape has been hinting for months that something was coming. Now he’s ready to say what it is. The...

Egypt and Belgium tied, but drones grab a World Cup win over Seattle with lighted scoreboard

Egypt and Belgium tied, but drones grab a World Cup win over Seattle with lighted scoreboard

June 16, 2026

The flags of Belgium, left, and Egypt are represented in the night sky near the Space Needle in Seattle after the teams tied 1-1 in a FIFA World Cup match on Monday. (Roman Yuferev Photo) Egypt and Belgium played to a 1-1 draw in a FIFA World Cup matchup in Seattle on Monday. Fans who looked to...

Next-gen nuclear company TerraPower plants flag in UK

Next-gen nuclear company TerraPower plants flag in UK

June 16, 2026

TerraPower’s lab tests the equipment and processes for next-generation nuclear reactors. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota) TerraPower, the Bellevue, Wash.-based nuclear energy company, announced Tuesday the opening of a subsidiary office in the United Kingdom as it pursues its first...

SpaceX leapfrogs Amazon and briefly tops Microsoft in market value on Cursor acquisition news

SpaceX leapfrogs Amazon and briefly tops Microsoft in market value on Cursor acquisition news

June 16, 2026

Elon Musk celebrates the SpaceX IPO last week. (Nasdaq Photo) Shares of SpaceX surged Tuesday morning, pushing the Elon Musk-led company above Amazon and into a neck-and-neck race with Microsoft for the title of the world’s fourth-most valuable public company, less than a week after its...

Helion secures world’s first regulatory licenses for fusion power plant being built in Washington

Helion secures world’s first regulatory licenses for fusion power plant being built in Washington

June 16, 2026

An aerial view of Orion, Helion Energy’s planned fusion plant being built in Malaga, Wash. (Helion Photo) Helion Energy announced Tuesday that it’s the first company in the world to receive regulatory licenses for a fusion power facility. The Everett, Wash.-based startup broke ground last year...

Two pizzas and a prototype: How agentic AI is rewiring Amazon’s teams and upending its traditions

Two pizzas and a prototype: How agentic AI is rewiring Amazon’s teams and upending its traditions

June 16, 2026

Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS VP of agentic AI, on stage at AWS re:Invent in December. (Amazon Photo / Noah Berger) [Editor’s Note: Agents of Transformation is an independent GeekWire series, underwritten by Accenture, exploring the adoption and impact of AI and agents. See coverage of our related...

Startup led by Microsoft veterans debuts the first real-time carbon tracker for AI workloads

Startup led by Microsoft veterans debuts the first real-time carbon tracker for AI workloads

June 16, 2026

Neuralwatt’s co-founders: CEO Chad Gibson, left, and Scott Chamberlin, chief technology officer. (LinkedIn Photos) Neuralwatt, a Seattle-based startup launched by two Microsoft veterans, has released what appears to be the first tool for calculating, in real time, the carbon emissions of...

UW Allen School honors Ridwell and Focused Space co-founders with 2026 alumni awards

UW Allen School honors Ridwell and Focused Space co-founders with 2026 alumni awards

June 16, 2026

From left: Allen School Director Magdalena Balazinska, alumni award recipients David Dawson and Nodira Khoussainova, and Allen School Vice Director Dan Grossman. (UW Photo / Matt Hagen) Two University of Washington alumni who built companies out of everyday frustrations — hard-to-recycle...

Five years in, new analysis links Seattle’s ‘JumpStart’ tax to downtown decline

Five years in, new analysis links Seattle’s ‘JumpStart’ tax to downtown decline

June 16, 2026

Amazon’s headquarters and neighboring towers in downtown Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Updated with comments from Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson. A new Downtown Seattle Association report asserts that Seattle’s signature tax on big employers is backfiring, five years after it went...

Amazon CEO reportedly raised Anthropic Fable concerns prior to U.S. order forcing models offline

Amazon CEO reportedly raised Anthropic Fable concerns prior to U.S. order forcing models offline

June 15, 2026

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy at an Amazon conference in 2025 in Seattle. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) Amazon CEO Andy Jassy was reportedly among the tech leaders who communicated with senior Trump administration officials about security risks in Anthropic’s most advanced AI models, before a...

Report: Seattle using AI to route certain 911 calls — without caller knowledge or public review

Report: Seattle using AI to route certain 911 calls — without caller knowledge or public review

June 15, 2026

A Seattle Fire Department truck during an emergency response. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) The Seattle Fire Department has been quietly using artificial intelligence to help triage and divert 911 medical calls for more than two years — without telling the public — The Seattle Times...

Coffee town meets its matcha: Robots help power ex-Axon leader’s Seattle beverage startup Vale

Coffee town meets its matcha: Robots help power ex-Axon leader’s Seattle beverage startup Vale

June 15, 2026

Luke Larson, founder and CEO of Vale, with one of the company’s automated matcha dispenser units in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) Luke Larson used to get a charge out of working on Tasers and body-worn cameras for law enforcement at Axon. Now he’s...

Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of June 7, 2026

Week in Review: Most popular stories on GeekWire for the week of June 7, 2026

June 14, 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 June 7, 2026. Sign up to receive these updates every Sunday in your inbox by subscribing to our GeekWire Weekly email newsletter. Most popular stories on...

Etzioni on AI: Backlash against AI-generated text mirrors the anti-GMO movement

Etzioni on AI: Backlash against AI-generated text mirrors the anti-GMO movement

June 14, 2026

(Illustration generated by Google Gemini) Wikipedia’s volunteer editors have recently banned the use of large language models to generate or rewrite articles. Gartner reported that 53% of U.S. consumers distrust AI-powered search results, and 61% want to turn the summaries off. Add the “Made by...

Having sex in space would be tricky, but having kids in space is riskier

Having sex in space would be tricky, but having kids in space is riskier

June 14, 2026

Researchers say the mechanics of having sex in space would be easier to manage than the biology of pregnancy and fetal development in a reduced-gravity environment. (Credit: ID 309694213 © Anna Ivanova | Dreamstime.com) Sex in space is the perfect subject for levity and double entendres, and the...

What a longtime Google AI leader told UW computer science students at their graduation

What a longtime Google AI leader told UW computer science students at their graduation

June 13, 2026

Jeff Dean, Google’s chief scientist and a UW alum, addresses Allen School graduates Friday at Alaska Airlines Arena. (UW Photo / Matt Hagen) Jeff Dean was a University of Washington graduate student in the 1990s, optimizing software compilers for object-oriented programming languages in a...

Following through in Cleveland: A GeekWire trip report, plus data center ‘theater’ and the SpaceX IPO

Following through in Cleveland: A GeekWire trip report, plus data center ‘theater’ and the SpaceX IPO

June 13, 2026

Scenes from GeekWire’s visit to Cleveland, where John Cook and Charles Fitzgerald spent several days reporting on the city’s comeback, including a stop at the abandoned Westinghouse light bulb factory where they recorded this week’s podcast. (Charles Fitzgerald and John Cook Photos) John Cook...

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Xbox: ‘We have to turn this into a sustainable business’

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Xbox: ‘We have to turn this into a sustainable business’

June 12, 2026

Microsoft has spent years subsidizing Xbox rather than profiting from it, CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged this week, as he addressed the gaming division’s need for a new approach. His comments came during a Wednesday evening taping of The New York Times’ “Hard Fork” podcast, released...

Tech Moves: Microsoft exec departs Azure; Xealth gets first CRO; Slalom names Pacific NW leader

Tech Moves: Microsoft exec departs Azure; Xealth gets first CRO; Slalom names Pacific NW leader

June 12, 2026

Marcus Fontoura, Microsoft technical fellow and CTO for Azure Core, with his new book, A Platform Mindset, during a recent conversation at the company’s Redmond campus. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) — Microsoft technical fellow Marcus Fontoura is leaving the company after serving as Azure...

Oregon data center battery maker ZincFive to go public via SPAC deal valued at $600 million

Oregon data center battery maker ZincFive to go public via SPAC deal valued at $600 million

June 12, 2026

One of ZincFive’s stacked battery units. (ZincFive Photo) ZincFive, an Oregon company providing nickel-zinc batteries for data centers, announced Thursday that it’s partnering with SparkLabs Group to go public through a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company). The deal is valued at $600...

As graduates push back on AI, UW’s Nobel-winning commencement speaker takes different approach

As graduates push back on AI, UW’s Nobel-winning commencement speaker takes different approach

June 12, 2026

Mary E. Brunkow, Nobel Prize-winning scientist and the UW’s 2026 commencement speaker. (Institute for Systems Biology Photo) This year’s University of Washington commencement speaker has decades of experience in a field that increasingly benefits from AI and machine learning — but unlike some of...

Opinion: SpaceX is no Tesla

Opinion: SpaceX is no Tesla

June 12, 2026

Elon Musk rings the opening bell for the SpaceX IPO on Friday morning. Imagine missing the Tesla IPO. I understand the pull to invest in SpaceX (SPCX). But SpaceX at a $1.75 trillion valuation is a different ball game. Tesla went public at a valuation a thousand times smaller. And the Musk...

What we learned in Cleveland about Seattle’s future: Advice from a Rust Belt city on the rise

What we learned in Cleveland about Seattle’s future: Advice from a Rust Belt city on the rise

June 12, 2026

Some of the Cleveland leaders who shared their advice during GeekWire’s visit to northeast Ohio. (GeekWire Photos / John Cook) CLEVELAND, Ohio — A century ago, this city was booming. By 1920, it was the fifth-largest metropolis in the United States, fueled by manufacturing, immigration,...

With $54M and a SpaceX playbook, Seattle’s Endurance races to tap deep-sea volcanic power

With $54M and a SpaceX playbook, Seattle’s Endurance races to tap deep-sea volcanic power

June 11, 2026

A geothermal energy demo device built by Seattle startup Endurance being tested in the Mariana Islands. (Endurance photo via LinkedIn) Endurance Energy, a Seattle-based startup developing technology to extract energy from the heat beneath the ocean floor, has raised $54 million. The team —...

Amperity founders take on co-CEO roles, say they’ll carry the ‘soul’ of the startup forward

Amperity founders take on co-CEO roles, say they’ll carry the ‘soul’ of the startup forward

June 11, 2026

Amperity co-founders and co-CEOs Kabir Shahani (left) and Derek Slager. (Amperity photo). Amperity is putting its founders back in charge. The Seattle-based customer data startup announced this week that co-founders Derek Slager and Kabir Shahani will serve as co-CEOs, taking over leadership...

Bezos’ AI startup Prometheus raises $12B at $41B valuation, and the CEOs explain what they’re doing

Bezos’ AI startup Prometheus raises $12B at $41B valuation, and the CEOs explain what they’re doing

June 11, 2026

Prometheus co-CEOs Vik Bajaj and Jeff Bezos speak with CNBC’s David Faber in San Francisco on Thursday, June 11, 2026. Jeff Bezos has bankrolled his Blue Origin space venture on his own, selling shares of Amazon stock to get the company to orbit and beyond, but others are chipping in for his...

Inside Lime’s Seattle warehouse, where 15,000 bikes and scooters are prepped for a World Cup surge

Inside Lime’s Seattle warehouse, where 15,000 bikes and scooters are prepped for a World Cup surge

June 11, 2026

Rows of Lime’s new LimeBike electric bicycles are ready to be deployed in Seattle from the company’s warehouse in Georgetown on Wednesday. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser) As Seattle is set to welcome the world this month for FIFA World Cup matches, the city’s sole micromobility operator is...

Former AWS CEO Adam Selipsky to lead new $10B AI data center venture

Former AWS CEO Adam Selipsky to lead new $10B AI data center venture

June 11, 2026

Adam Selipsky is now CEO of Helix Digital Infrastructure. (GeekWire photo) Former Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky is returning to the world of cloud infrastructure as co-founder and CEO of Helix Digital Infrastructure, a newly-launched company backed by more than $10 billion. The...

Amazon claims data centers are 7-times more water-efficient than rivals as Seattle pauses new builds

Amazon claims data centers are 7-times more water-efficient than rivals as Seattle pauses new builds

June 11, 2026

Pipes carrying reclaimed water for cooling at an Amazon Web Services data center. (AWS Photo) Amazon Web Services on Thursday announced that efforts to curb water use at its data centers have made it seven times more water-efficient than the industry average. The company says it’s 75% of the...

How the SpaceX IPO effect could send the Seattle area’s space industry to a higher orbit

How the SpaceX IPO effect could send the Seattle area’s space industry to a higher orbit

June 11, 2026

SpaceX’s Seattle connection dates back to 2015, when CEO Elon Musk announced at Seattle Center that the company’s satellite operation would be based in the region. “What this represents is the official opening of SpaceX Seattle,” he said at the time. (GeekWire File Photo) SpaceX’s initial public...

‘This cannot continue’: Microsoft Xbox CEO calls for reset amid reports of looming job cuts

‘This cannot continue’: Microsoft Xbox CEO calls for reset amid reports of looming job cuts

June 11, 2026

Microsoft’s restyled Xbox logo. (Microsoft Image) Xbox CEO Asha Sharma, roughly 100 days into her tenure, delivered a blunt assessment of Microsoft’s gaming business in a memo to employees Wednesday, saying that heavy spending with thin profit margins and declining revenue “cannot continue.”...

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