NASA’s Space Launch System rocket makes the 4-mile trip to its launch pad in preparation for the Artemis 2 mission, which will aim to send astronauts around the moon. (NASA via YouTube) NASA’s massive Space Launch System rocket crept to its Florida launch pad today at a top speed of about 1 mph,...
Someone listening to last week’s GeekWire Podcast caught something we missed: a misleading comment by Alexa during our voice ordering demo — illustrating the challenges of ordering by voice vs. screen. We followed up with Amazon, which says it has fixed the underlying bug. On this week’s...
From left: Magdalena Balazinska, director of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering; Andrew Connolly, director of the eScience Institute; Robert Jones, president of the University of Washington; and Sen. Patty Murray. (GeekWire Photos / Taylor Soper) Washington Sen. Patty...
Matt Dawson, an engineer at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility in Redmond, Wash., processes a set of MR-80 rocket engines for NASA’s Perseverance rover mission in advance of its launch in 2020. (Aerojet Rocketdyne / L3Harris File Photo) A decades-old rocket factory in Redmond, Wash., is due to be...
Satish Thomas. (Microsoft Photo) Satish Thomas, a 20-year veteran of Microsoft who spent two decades at the Redmond tech giant, is taking a new job at Google. “I’m joining during what feels like one of the most consequential moments in tech history — right in the heart of the AI era,” Thomas...
A map from Microsoft’s Closing Washington’s Housing Gap report shows the estimated number of additional homes needed across the state through 2044, highlighting the scale of the shortfall in King, Snohomish, Pierce and other fast-growing counties. (Microsoft Image) A bill to open up strip malls,...
Caleb John (left), an investor with Pioneer Square Labs, and Lucas Dickey, a longtime entrepreneur, helped host the Claude Code Meetup in Seattle on Thursday. (GeekWire Photos / Taylor Soper) Claude Code has become one of the hottest AI tools in recent months — and software engineers in Seattle...
Microsoft is closing its physical libraries and transitioning to digital learning hubs. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop) The Microsoft Library in Redmond has long been a quiet anachronism in the middle of the high-tech campus, a place where authors gave talks and employees checked out...
(Meta Image) A series of layoffs across Meta’s virtual reality division has affected Bellevue, Wash.-based studio Camouflaj (Republique, Batman: Arkham Shadow). This week opened with reports that Meta had shuttered several game developers in its studio network, including Twisted Pixel...
MontyCloud CEO Walter Rogers. (LinkedIn Photo) MontyCloud, a Redmond, Wash.-based startup that helps companies optimize their cloud operations, raised a fresh Series B round to fuel growth. The company announced the funding in a press release this week but did not reveal the amount raised. A...
The newly named JPMorganChase Center in downtown Seattle, previously known as the Russell Investments Center, is home to JPMorganChase’s Seattle Tech Center. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper) One of Seattle’s tallest skyscrapers has a new name that reflects JPMorganChase’s growing banking and...
Included co-founders, from left: Raghu Gollamudi, Laura Close and Chandan Golla. (Included Photo) Seattle-area startup Included announced Wednesday that it has been acquired by Phenom, a global human resources company based in Pennsylvania. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Included...
Gov. Bob Ferguson delivered his State of the State address in Olympia, Wash., on Jan. 13. (Governor’s Office Photo) While artificial intelligence is generating all the buzz, it was Washington state’s climate tech and healthcare innovation that got shoutouts during Gov. Bob Ferguson’s State of...
Lumen Field in Seattle, home of the Seahawks. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser) It’ll surely be rocking at Lumen Field in Seattle on Saturday when the Seahawks take on the San Francisco 49ers in an NFL playoff matchup. But will it be “Beast Quake” rocking? Seismic sensors installed at...
The Gates Foundation headquarters in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper) The Gates Foundation on Wednesday unveiled a record $9 billion operating budget for 2026 — which includes a plan to reduce its workforce by up to 500 positions over the next five years, or about a fifth of its current...
Employees at OCOchem who helped produce the world’s first carbon dioxide-derived metric ton of potassium formate at the startup’s Richland, Wash., facility. It was shipped to an OCOchem customer in October. (OCOchem Photo) OCOchem, a clean tech startup turning carbon dioxide into industrial...
Downtown Seattle. (GeekWire File Photo / Taylor Soper) Tech companies are still signing leases in downtown Seattle — but it’s not enough to reverse a pandemic-era slide that pushed office vacancy to another record high, reaching 34.7% in Q4. The latest numbers from commercial real estate firm...
We’re excited to announce a new GeekWire event for 2026: “Agents of Transformation: Inside the AI Shift.” This half-day summit will be held the afternoon of Tuesday, March 24, in Seattle, exploring how agentic AI is reshaping work, creativity, and leadership. The event, presented by Accenture,...
The Washington Post building in Washington, D.C. (Ron Cogswell Photo via Flickr) FBI agents searched the home of a Washington Post reporter on Wednesday morning as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. The Post...
An artist’s conception shows a spacecraft with robotic arms preparing to grapple the Hubble Space Telescope. (Orbital Robotics Illustration) A space startup founded by veterans of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is recruiting partners in its quest to build robotic arms powered by...
The Legislative Building in Olympia, Wash. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) This story originally appeared on Real Estate News. The debate over private listings and pre-marketing in Washington state could soon reach a turning point if a bill requiring the public marketing of residential...
Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman at the 2018 GeekWire Summit. (GeekWire File Photo / Dan DeLong) Glenn Kelman, the longtime CEO of Redfin and one of the most recognizable leaders in the U.S. real estate industry, is stepping down. Kelman’s departure comes six months after Redfin completed its $1.75...
A rendering of the future Amazon superstore outside of Chicago, from an Orland Park, Ill., planning document. Amazon has spent two decades trying to disrupt Walmart’s dominance. Now, it appears the e-commerce giant is taking those efforts to a whole new scale. A new proposal for a massive,...
Jon Pollock. (Acumatica Photo) — Jon Pollock is now chief product officer of Acumatica, the Bellevue, Wash.-based enterprise software giant that was acquired last year by Vista Equity Partners. Pollock joins Acumatica from childcare management software company Procare Solutions, where he was...
In an image captured by Momento, fans react in the stands at Lumen Field in Seattle as the Seahawks beat the Los Angeles Rams on Dec. 18. (Momento Photo) For every action during Saturday’s Seattle Seahawks vs. San Francisco 49ers NFL playoff game, there will hopefully be an equal and positive...
(Coinme Image) Coinme, a Seattle-based cryptocurrency startup that got its start more than a decade ago with a network of bitcoin ATMs, has agreed to be acquired by blockchain payments company Polygon Labs. Polygon said it also plans to acquire wallet provider Sequence as part of a combined...
Microsoft’s Fairwater data center near Atlanta is part of the company’s broader AI expansion. (Microsoft Photo) President Trump was right about Microsoft — but he only leaked part of the story. Microsoft is changing its approach to building massive data centers for artificial intelligence,...
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (Meta File Photo) Meta is planning to lay off around 10% of the employees in its Reality Labs division, The New York Times reported Monday. The division — which employs roughly 15,000 people — has a strong presence in the Seattle area and is responsible for the...
(Google Image) Google is making a key push into AI-powered shopping with the unveiling of Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), a new open technical standard aimed at letting shoppers buy products directly through AI chatbots and search interfaces. The protocol has backing from major retailers and...
The Legislative Building in Olympia, Wash., is home to the state’s Legislature. (GeekWire Photo / Lisa Stiffler) Washington state lawmakers are taking another run at regulating artificial intelligence, rolling out a slate of bills this session aimed at curbing discrimination, limiting AI use in...
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 Jan. 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...
This week on the GeekWire Podcast: Amazon and Microsoft are racing to define the next era of consumer AI, on multiple fronts. We discuss Amazon’s attempt to upgrade Alexa into a true generative AI home chatbot — complete with a new web portal and updated Alexa app — while Microsoft tries to win...
Marcelo Vargas-Fernandez (left), a former Expedia Group employee, stands with his attorney, Court Will, during his sentencing hearing Friday in King County Superior Court in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop) A former Expedia Group employee who amassed 20 terabytes of illicit footage of...
Microsoft’s headquarters campus in Redmond. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper) Microsoft’s decision to renew a large swath of office space in Redmond is emerging as a key stabilizing force for the Eastside office market near Seattle. That’s one takeaway from a new report by commercial real...
A Rad Power Bikes e-bike owned by Eric Stahl of San Francisco, parked in his garage next to a DIY battery containment solution made out of cinderblocks that he hopes would help contain a battery fire if one started. (Photo courtesy of Eric Stahl) A Rad Power Bikes rider, alarmed by reports of...