GeekWire

The 2026 World Cup has added AI and computer vision to the officiating crew — a sensor inside the ball, semi-automated offside calls, and 16 tracking cameras per stadium. Oren Etzioni explains how the systems work, what they deliberately leave to human referees, and what it says about automation more broadly. Read More

See the technology stories that people were reading on GeekWire for the week of June 14, 2026. Read More

Anthropic took its two newest AI models offline to comply with a U.S. order, with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reportedly among those who raised the concerns behind it. The GeekWire Podcast also digs into agentic AI's effect on Amazon's culture, an AI-driven school opening near Seattle, and the sensor-packed World Cup ball. Read More

Carrying bullhorns and signs depicting Amazon executives as war criminals, about two dozen people protested outside the Spheres in Seattle on Thursday evening, calling on the company to stop providing technology to Israel for what they described as genocide in Gaza. Read More

An employee group filed a complaint against Amazon with the City of Seattle, alleging the company is wrongly investigating three engineers for testifying before the City Council in favor of regulating data centers. Amazon says the probe is focused on whether employees followed its procedures for speaking as company representatives. Read More

Seattle's Yoodli used a cardboard sign to get its name and web address on Fox Sports' live broadcast of FIFA World Cup festivities from Pier 62 on the waterfront. Read More

Seattle-based Apacendo Health is building AI agents that read incoming faxes and enter patient data into electronic health records for nephrology practices, aiming to cut the administrative work that consumes hours of clinic staff time each day Read More

After leadership roles at Microsoft, Amazon and Google, Brian Hall joins Mistral; Amazon's VP of Alexa Domains retires; Dropzone AI names a head of product. Read More

The incubator was founded in 2014 inside the Allen Institute for AI — the Seattle research institute created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen — long before artificial intelligence became a household term. Its mission has been to help founders with the early work of company building. Read More

Gradial says it's raised over $110 million in the past 16 months, calling it "a testament to the rapid growth" it's seen across its business. Read More

Dan Lewis, who led the Seattle freight marketplace Convoy before it shut down in 2023, has left Microsoft to start a stealth company focused on running AI models more efficiently, extending a career spent at the intersection of AI and logistics. Read More

Devplan, a Seattle startup building software to coordinate product and engineering work, is emerging from stealth with $2.5 million in seed funding led by AI2 Incubator. Read More

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the video game developer is the buyer of a waterfront estate north of Miami. Read More

Vedana Therapeutics emerged from stealth with a $46M Series A. Led by local biotech veterans, the Seattle startup is developing next-gen, at-home migraine injections. Read More

AWS used its New York Summit to roll out AI agents that act on their own — from fixing security vulnerabilities to triaging email — while trying to keep humans in control of how far they go. Read More

Founded in 2013, Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based Solius Labs received FDA clearance for its $2,995 Solius Pro, a device which calculates and delivers a personalized dose of UVB light. Read More

The University of Washington is developing an interdisciplinary AI minor, open to students across all majors and co-led by an anthropologist and a computer scientist. Set to launch in spring 2027, it's part of a broader push to expand AI education across the university. Read More

The Seattle tech entrepreneur revealed on Tuesday that he's building a new startup to reimagine the insurance industry, launching The Instrument with backing from Pioneer Square Labs. Read More

Visit Seattle calls the lighted display the first-ever drone scoreboard, and the destination marketing organization plans the activation for five more matches that will be played in Seattle. Read More

TerraPower, the Bellevue, Wash.-based nuclear energy company, announced the opening of a subsidiary office in the UK as it pursues its first international deployment. Read More