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 Sept. 6, 2026.

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Most popular stories on GeekWire

Pallet shuts down after nine years of taking on homelessness with its durable micro-shelters

Nine years after setting out to tackle unsheltered homelessness with rapidly deployable, hard-panel micro-shelters, Everett, Wash.-based social purpose corporation Pallet is closing its business. Read More … Read More

Seattle VR studio Polyarc, creator of ‘Moss’ series, closes down after almost 12 years

The Seattle-based video game developer behind the award-winning virtual reality adventure Moss has closed its doors. Read More … Read More

With a headcount topping 800, Helion opens Seattle office in pursuit of fusion energy

Helion Energy has opened a downtown Seattle office as its headcount hits 800 employees, adding to its five-building Everett headquarters and its Malaga, Wash., site, where the fusion startup is building its Orion generator facility. The company, which has raised more than $1.5 billion, is racing to get Orion operational within two years to meet a contract to supply fusion energy to a Microsoft data center. Read More … Read More

General Motors to open downtown Seattle office to bring together remote technical talent

The 43,000-square-foot space at West8 in the Denny Triangle neighborhood will bring together employees across digital products, AV, IT, HR, marketing, and other teams. Read More … Read More

Opinion: It’s time for Seattle to believe in Seattle

Jacob Colker argues that Seattle has a branding problem, not a lack of talent, ambition or accomplishments. He lays out a five-step plan for the region’s tech community to start telling its own story. Read More … Read More

Amazon’s new board member is a cybersecurity founder who sold his last company to Google for $5.4B

Amazon has named Kevin Mandia, the founder of breach-investigation firm Mandiant, to its board of directors, adding security expertise a few months after former NSA director Keith Alexander stepped down. Mandia now runs Armadin, a startup that uses AI to run attacks against corporate networks as a way of testing their defenses. Read More … Read More

Tech Moves: T-Mobile appoints CFO; Microsoft and Blue Origin VPs depart; AZX and Caddi name leaders

T-Mobile named Jessica Uhl as CFO-designate, succeeding Peter Osvaldik as CFO come February. Microsoft and Blue Origin saw the departure of vice presidents, while startups AZX and Caddi added leaders, among other tech personnel changes. Read More … Read More

Seattle economic study finds strong tech assets, a risky concentration, and a tax that ‘penalizes’ hiring

An independent study commissioned by the City of Seattle says the city should protect the big tech employers it has while building a more diverse economy on top of them. The 127-page report also says Seattle’s tax structure is unique among its peers in penalizing the hiring of senior, high-compensation workers. Read More … Read More

Stoke Space raises $1B to expand its footprint and upsize its fully reusable Nova rocket

Seattle-area startup targets early 2027 for first Pathfinder launch, with bigger Nova Block 2 due for 2029 debut. Read More … Read More

Microsoft comms chief Frank Shaw to exit after nearly three decades shaping the company’s message

It’s the end of an era at Microsoft: Frank X. Shaw, the executive who oversaw the tech giant’s communications for nearly three decades, first at an external agency and for the last 17 years as one of its senior leaders, is leaving at the end of the year. Read More … Read More

Things have been a little quiet on Paramount+ lately, unless you've been deep in cover-ops land with Lioness or eagerly awaiting some renewed Harrigan madness with the coming of season two of MobLand on September 18. But on the movie side of things, things are slow, which is a perfect time for a thriller to wake you up.

As we wait patiently for more of Netflix's September crop of TV series to make their way to your algorithm, here's this weekend's lineup of bingable shows to settle in with—my top pick is still hoping for Emmy gold on Monday, and two are great shows, regardless of their age.

I don’t currently have any visible clocks on display in my house. I’m never without my watch or phone, and I decided that if I were to sacrifice some space for a dedicated timepiece, it would need to be something special, different, or interesting.

Some weeks, the easiest way to find something good on Netflix is to skip over the newest releases and instead look into its library. The platform's diverse catalog has a lot to offer, especially when it comes to movies that have swept award shows during their respective runs.

Documentaries continue to thrive on Netflix this month, as evidenced by the solid stance of the true-crime three-parter Death of the Pastor's Wife that's been holding strong in the top spot on the streamer's Top 10, as of this writing. But the hits keep on coming, with two of this weekend's picks below also occupying space on that chart, proving that Netflix knows how to doc.

Stop letting old devices rot in a drawer and bring them back to life with the help of an inexpensive microcontroller and some code. The ESP32 is perfect for this task.

As we march toward fall, it's time to start thinking about tidying up the homelab and making it a bit safer and more secure. Today's projects include two programs that help keep an eye on your homelab for you, and one that makes your information way more accessible.

What a difference a few weeks make for the state of television. During the final days of August, it was a struggle to find new and returning shows debuting on streaming services. Once the calendar hit September, it was a television overload, and this week continues that trend. HBO Max kicks off our countdown with a headline-grabbing true crime documentary.

Do you have a Raspberry Pi that isn't being used to its fullest? Well, this weekend, I have three projects for you to check out from homelab infrastructure to automatically feeding your pets when you're on vacation.

We live in an increasingly digital world, but as Olivia Newton-John said, sometimes you just need to get physical. Here are three projects that let you interact with Home Assistant in a physical way.

This week Jonathan chats with Olivier Vernin of Updatecli, the tool that helps you update everything! Need to roll out dependency updates intelligently? Or even automatically deploy to a server on changes? Updatecli can help!

• https://www.updatecli.io/
• https://github.com/updatecli/updatecli/

Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or have the guest contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.

If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.

Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

The most-watched movie on Paramount+ right now is the new Scary Movie, which critics have taken a baseball bat to. It may have a 24% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but folks keep pressing play on the Scream spoof, and honestly, I'm here for it because movie lovers can't go by critics alone.

Even though the weather's getting cooler, the movies on Netflix are starting to heat up for U.S. subscribers, with The Whisper Man still holding court at the top of the streamer's charts. If you're into documentaries, maybe you've already checked out the wild-ride story of Australian Olympic breakdancer Rachael Gunn in Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly.

It's a new week, which means many of the major streaming services will be adding movies to their respective services. At HBO Max, one of the most divisive superhero movies in recent memory finally makes its streaming debut. Netflix has a pair of new releases: one comes from Tyler Perry, and the other is based on a beloved comedy series.

Last week, I recommended watching The Whisper Man, an exciting new thriller starring Robert De Niro and Adam Scott. The movie is now the No. 1 movie on Netflix in the U.S. for the past week, so hopefully you're getting in on the discussions, especially involving the polarizing ending.

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 Aug. 30, 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

UW pays $600K to settle lawsuit with computer science professor over parody land acknowledgment

Stuart Reges was disciplined by the University of Washington after including a parody land acknowledgment in a course syllabus. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found university officials violated Reges’ academic freedom rights. Read More … Read More

Two familiar Seattle tech figures turn up on Seahawks co-owner list as sale is finalized

Nestled among a newly revealed co-owner lineup were a couple familiar names for the Pacific Northwest tech community: former Apptio CEO and longtime Seattle entrepreneur Sunny Gupta, and Nader Naini, managing partner at Seattle-based healthcare private equity firm Frazier Healthcare Partners. Read More … Read More

Rivian spinout Also lands in Seattle, with REI vet leading micromobility startup’s new office and retail hub

The 17,459-square-foot space at the north end of Lake Union is situated at the epicenter of the city’s bike culture along the busy Burke-Gilman Trail. Chief Commercial Officer Ben Steele is heading up the office. Read More … Read More

New Seahawks co-owner with deep Seattle tech roots says, ‘I’m the 12th man … I want to represent that’

“I would have never considered investing or being in ownership in sports other than the Seahawks,” Sunny Gupta told GeekWire. “This is a dream come true of something I love so much. The city I love so much, fan base, the team.” Read More … Read More

Amazon lays off 121 workers across corporate and fulfillment jobs in Washington state

The largest single concentration of cuts is at the SEA106 building in Bellevue, where 49 employees — ranging from entry-level software development engineers and applied scientists to a vice president of legal and senior software managers — were notified. Read More … Read More

AI wealth fuels San Francisco’s housing boom while tech layoffs weigh down Seattle

A new Redfin report reveals a sharp divide between the West Coast’s top tech hubs: as OpenAI and Anthropic fuel a housing resurgence in San Francisco, Seattle real estate stalls amid widespread job cuts across the regional tech ecosystem. Read More … Read More

What if Rivian spawned an e-bike? We test rode the new two-wheeler from the EV maker’s Also spinoff

From pedal-by-wire mechanics to regenerative braking, the micromobility startup’s TM-B treats hardware like software — and flattens Seattle’s steepest hills. Read More … Read More

Tech Moves: Microsoft names execs; DAT, Oracle and Hiya departures; new Zillow policy lead

Microsoft is shuffling leadership, naming Aneesh Raman chief economic opportunity officer and promoting Jenny Lay-Flurrie to CVP of the Trusted Technology Group. Zillow has a new policy lead while Oracle, Hiya and DAT Freight & Analytics see departures. Read More … Read More

Kids go from curious to frustrated playing with AI-stuffed toys, UW study finds

Today, plush toys aren’t just stuffed — they’re stuffed with artificial intelligence, and new research from the University of Washington reveals that when these “smart” toys start chatting, kids quickly go from curious to frustrated to outright hostile. Read More … Read More

Startup takes on AI hallucinations with $25M and an HQ rooted in a small Washington town

Resect AI, an artificial intelligence startup led by a team of scientists and engineers in Washougal, Wash., launched out of stealth Thursday. Read More … Read More

With Labor Day landing on the 7th this year, this weekend comes with a bonus Monday with absolutely no obligation to do a dang thing with, other than watch movies. If you're like me, more often than not I lean towards a good thriller. And if you're a Paramount+ customer in the U.S., the streamer is no stranger to the dark and intense.

Four of the best series to watch on Netflix this weekend came to the service in a 50/50 split—two from the back end of August, and two newbies just dying to make an impact on the Netflix Top 10.

This week Jonathan chats with Benjamin Samuels of Trail of Bits! The conversation focuses on Patch the Planet, a new initiative to help Open Source projects deal with the fallout from AI coding and vulnerability research. What’s the unexpected dichotomy driving the polarized response to LLMs? And what does the future look like for Open Source in the age of AI? Watch to find out!

• https://trailofbits.com/patch-the-planet/
• https://blog.trailofbits.com/2026/07/02/field-reports-from-patch-the-planet/

Did you know you can watch the live recording of the show right on our YouTube Channel? Have someone you’d like us to interview? Let us know, or have the guest contact us! Take a look at the schedule here.

Direct Download in DRM-free MP3.

If you’d rather read along, here’s the transcript for this week’s episode.

Theme music: “Newer Wave” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License