Articles from 2026

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Amazon’s AI wearable, Booking’s return to Expedia’s backyard, and LinkedIn’s not-so-Seattle startup list

Amazon’s Bee devices can now turn things you say into shopping suggestions, Booking Holdings is launching an Seattle-based AI travel venture called Vayo, and four of LinkedIn’s top 10 Seattle startups aren’t based in the region. Plus, we open the listener mailbag. Read More

Three Bee Frontier wristbands in lavender, green and black

Amazon’s new Bee AI devices have a bystander problem, says former AWS security engineer

Jeff Williams, now chief information security officer at Sigma360, says the consent prompt and indicator light on Amazon’s Bee Frontier and Bee Eclipse reach the wearer, not the people being recorded. Amazon pointed to safeguards including automatic shutoff and reminders for users to ask permission. Read More

Illustration of a robot arm reaching out of a computer screen to slap an office worker

Etzioni on AI: The colorful and cranky language of the AI era, from slop to slap

Oren Etzioni and Dan Weld define more than 35 phrases of the AI era, from AI slop and deepfakes to bragawatts and P(doom), and coin a few of their own, including AI slap, promptatory and agentsomnia. Read More

Traffic data pioneer Inrix to be acquired by Allstate’s Arity after more than two decades

Seattle-area traffic data pioneer Inrix is selling substantially all of its assets to Arity, a mobility data subsidiary of Allstate. The acquisition ends a 22-year run as an independent tech company for the former Microsoft spinout, which had previously flirted with an IPO multiple times. Read More

Retro tech meets modern AI: Inside an Amazon developer’s garage turned working computer museum

Darko Mesaros, a distinguished developer advocate at AWS, has packed his Maple Valley, Wash., home with more than 1,000 pieces of vintage computing history — and the tattooed tech geek is repairing old machines and wiring them to chat with cutting-edge coding agents. Read More

Amazon’s NBA coverage adds Prime 360 — AI replays that ‘fly the camera through’ the action

Amazon is using AI and AWS chips to rebuild NBA plays in 3D for its second season of “NBA on Prime,” which debuts next week and also adds Yahoo fantasy stats and its first exclusive Eastern Conference Finals coverage. Read More

A two-person Seattle startup lands $1M to reinvent energy-hungry chips suitable for space

Seattle startup TriMagnetix has $1 million in new funding to build semiconductors that use electrical pulses to process data, drawing a fraction of the energy needed by traditional chips. The two-person team is setting its sights on space, where satellite companies need radiation-resistant, efficient hardware. Read More

Leaked list shows what Microsoft, Amazon and other tech giants are giving for the White House ballroom

Microsoft committed $10 million to President Trump’s White House ballroom project, and Amazon and T-Mobile each committed $5 million, according to a donor list obtained by the Washington Post. The donations aren’t subject to campaign finance limits or disclosure requirements, raising concerns that companies could be buying influence or feeling pressured to give. Read More

Microsoft’s Brad Smith pushes back on Vice President JD Vance’s visa fraud accusations

Someone “failed to inform the vice president accurately about our numbers” before blocking Microsoft from sponsoring foreign workers for permanent residency, asserts Brad Smith, the company’s president and vice chair, in an interview with Politico. Read More

Startup Spotlight: Zeacon aims to turn website visitors into buyers with AI-powered video

Zeacon uses AI to personalize website content, analyze visitor behavior and identify bot traffic, helping businesses understand what turns website visits into sales. Read More

Lime tops 10.5M Seattle rides in 2026, rolling past last year’s e-bike and scooter total two months early

Powered by a massive surge during the summer’s FIFA World Cup matches in Seattle and a record-breaking Seahawks Super Bowl parade, the milestone highlights how deeply e-bikes and scooters have embedded themselves into Seattle’s daily commute and transit network. Read More

Seattle-area innovators shine on Time’s ‘Best Inventions’ list, from tactile tablets to ultrasonic knives

Seattle-area startups like OneCourt, Yoodli, and Tin Can made the list alongside tech giants Amazon and SpaceX — while Microsoft was left off entirely. Read More

Space propulsion startup Agile Space opens Seattle-area engineering office to tap regional talent

Situated in the Sunset North office complex along Interstate 90 in Bellevue, the nearly 5,740-square-foot space will initially house a half-dozen existing employees while scaling up to accommodate an engineering team of 20 to 30 people. Read More

Amazon’s new AI devices can listen to conversations and suggest things to buy — if you opt in

Bee, the AI wearables startup Amazon acquired last year, will turn products people mention in everyday conversations into shopping suggestions on Amazon.com for users who opt in and subscribe to Bee Pro. Amazon also unveiled two new Bee devices and a connection to its Alexa+ assistant. Read More

Institute led by UW Nobel winner uses AI to build molecular scissors targeting disease proteins

Led by Nobel laureate David Baker, researchers at UW Medicine’s Institute for Protein Design have used AI to engineer reusable molecular “scissors” capable of repeatedly destroying target proteins linked to diseases like Alzheimer’s and ALS. Because these proteases chop up targets repeatedly instead of clinging to just one, they could treat complex conditions at far lower doses. Read More

LinkedIn just released its list of the top 10 Seattle startups: One problem, nearly half aren’t based in the region

LinkedIn’s list of Seattle’s hottest startups includes companies headquartered in California and Texas. We did a little digging and found a geography problem hiding in plain sight. Read More

‘What is fusion?’ Helion Energy harnesses the power of television with a ‘Jeopardy!’ mention

David Kirtley, CEO of the Everett-based startup, celebrated the mainstream moment on LinkedIn after the company was featured in a Y Combinator category on the game show. Read More

Prime Intellect acquires Moondream, a vision AI startup founded in Seattle by AWS vets

Former AWS tech leaders Jay Allen and Vik Korrapati, Moondream’s co-founders, will lead inference work at Prime Intellect, the $1 billion AI cloud company. Prime Intellect is buying the startup largely for its technology for making AI models run faster. Read More

Tech Moves: Brinc Drones, Fred Hutch, Acumatica, Convera add to C-suites; LinkedIn director departs

Brinc Drones, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, Acumatica and Convera add to their C-suites. A former Smartsheet CMO joins Motive; a LinkedIn director departs; and other Pacific Northwest personnel changes. Read More

Steve Ballmer’s USAFacts pits Ben Shapiro against Scott Galloway in YouTube debate special

With the former Microsoft CEO running the “Fact Desk,” the debate centered on whether free markets or government policies are better equipped to preserve the American Dream amid a growing cost-of-living crisis. Read More

Microsoft’s wild ride: Stock hits new record after a year of ups and downs

Microsoft’s stock has gained about $1.4 trillion in value since late June, lifting the company’s market value just above $4 trillion. The rebound accelerated after Microsoft reported 43% growth in Azure, its cloud platform. Read More

Booking Holdings unveils AI travel startup Vayo, based in Seattle, with a planned $100M investment

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 OpenAI and Meta. Read More

Humanly acquires CareerArc to connect recruitment marketing with AI hiring

The deal announced Wednesday brings together Humanly’s automated chat and interview systems with CareerArc’s social media recruiting and career-site mapping platforms. Read More

Getty Images to keep Seattle HQ as it goes private through bankruptcy

Getty Images says it expects no impact on its roughly 300 Seattle employees as the Getty family and Koch Equity Development invest up to $533 million to cut the photo company’s debt and take it private. Read More

Seattle voters view economy as weakening in survey that reveals short-lived World Cup euphoria

The eleventh edition of The Index, a semiannual survey tracking voter sentiment commissioned by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, reveals a sharp erosion in public confidence regarding the city’s economic trajectory. Read More

Microsoft forms ‘Xbox Labs’ to explore game remixes, ports and other new frontiers

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. Read More

Apple challenges Amazon’s Echo and Ring with its new smart home lineup

Apple’s $299 HomeView smart display goes up against the Echo Show, and new LG-made cameras, a video doorbell and a smart lock compete with Amazon-owned Ring. Apple has 7% of U.S. smart speaker owners, compared with about two-thirds for Amazon. Read More

Microsoft’s top science exec is leaving to fulfill a childhood dream: Joining a Formula 1 team

Peter Lee, the longtime Microsoft Research leader, plans to join the Mercedes Formula 1 team in a newly created AI advisor role. He’ll work on physics problems for the team’s car, predictive models and how F1’s regulators might govern AI. Read More

UW receives $12M gift from Taiwan-based chip company led by alumnus Arthur Chiao

Taiwan-based Winbond Electronics, led by University of Washington alumnus Arthur Chiao, is giving $12 million to the university’s College of Engineering. The fund will support scholarships, research, and faculty hiring across high-impact fields including semiconductors, AI, quantum tech and advanced manufacturing. Read More

Flexport and AI startup Freightmate settle trade secrets suit ahead of trial

Freightmate, an AI startup co-founded by two ex-Flexport employees, settled Flexport’s trade secrets suit. The founders acknowledged acquiring about 2,000 confidential Flexport shipping documents and using some, but denied their product was built on them. Read More