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Amazon to pay royalties for fan fiction in new ‘Kindle Worlds’ program
By Todd Bishop at 6:55 am on 05/22/2013 | Leave a Comment
Ready to write some fan fic? Amazon may have some money for you. The company says it will license rights to popular books, games, movies and other content to let independent authors write their own stories based on those worlds, and receive royalties from sales of their fan fiction through the company's Kindle Store. The unusual initiative, dubbed "Kindle Worlds," … Read More...

Vanessa Fox sells search analytics startup Nine by Blue to RKG
By John Cook at 6:00 am on 05/22/2013 | Leave a Comment
Seattle entrepreneur Vanessa Fox has been bootstrapping her search analytics business, Nine by Blue, for the past six years. Today, the former Google employee is cashing out, in part because she's found the right partner in Charlottesville, Virginia-based search marketing firm RKG. "We've built up Blueprint as a robust enterprise-level search analytics platform and … Read More...
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Amazon increases its tuition assistance for hourly workers
By Todd Bishop at 5:46 am on 05/22/2013 | Leave a Comment
Amazon.com says it will boost the amount of tuition assistance available to its hourly employees who pursue associate degrees or vocational certificates. The company will now pay up to $3,000 a year (totaling up to $12,000 over four years), which is an increase from $2,000 a year (or up to $8,000 total) when the program began. The company announced the change this … Read More...

Xbox One: How Microsoft is trying to change the game
By Todd Bishop at 11:34 pm on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
It was great that Microsoft included several former Xbox bigwigs — Robbie Bach, J Allard, and Ed Fries — in the opening video montage at the Xbox One unveiling today. Seeing them was a reminder of just how much has changed since the game-centric early days of Microsoft's console business. In fact, the Xbox is officially not a video-game console anymore. It's an … Read More...

UW’s Ed Lazowska: ‘Washington is the ass end of the donkey in just about every aspect of education’
By Taylor Soper at 11:03 pm on 05/21/2013 | 3 Comments
The incredible talent that the University of Washington pumps out every year was on display during Tuesday's Seattle Tech Meetup, as five startups with UW ties gave five-minute pitches to the crowd at the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering. But unfortunately for the state, the UW is one of the few bright spots amidst an otherwise struggling … Read More...

Xbox One: Watch the new Kinect detect a heart rate from across the room
By Todd Bishop at 5:31 pm on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
Microsoft has significantly upgraded the sensing capabilities of the second-generation Kinect sensor that will ship with the newly announced Xbox One game console. One example: The Kinect can detect a user's heart rate optically. See the video above for a demonstration of the capability during a tour of the Microsoft Xbox campus today. The idea is to incorporate this … Read More...

These sensor-infused socks track your steps and ID injury-prone running styles
By Taylor Soper at 4:05 pm on 05/21/2013 | 1 Comment
In the past few years, you've heard of smartphones, smart-watches and most recently, smart-glasses. Now, courtesy of a Redmond-based startup, we have yet another ordinary product attached to your body that's becoming more intelligent: smart socks. Meet Heapsylon, a company founded two years ago by three Microsofties that is developing what is essentially a pedometer … Read More...

Startup lesson #1: Reid Hoffman is wrong
By Barry Chu at 2:47 pm on 05/21/2013 | 5 Comments
[Editor's note: Seattle entrepreneurs Barry Chu and Dave Cotter share some of their startup lessons in starting the new mobile app SquareHub. The three-part series is running this week on GeekWire, starting today with their thoughts about minimum viable products. In part two, they'll talk about how they determined product features. Part three, set to run Thursday, will … Read More...

Photos: Check out Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s V-2 rocket arriving at Paine Field
By John Cook at 2:36 pm on 05/21/2013 | 6 Comments
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's latest extravagance — a German-built World War II-era V2 rocket — has arrived at his Flying Heritage Collection at Paine Field in Everett. The rocket, one of only 16 remaining in the world, stands 46-feet tall (just shy of the museum's 50-foot high ceiling). The V-2 arrived in three primary sections on Monday, and has now been … Read More...

NFL commish says new multi-year partnership with Microsoft will ‘change the game of football’
By Taylor Soper at 1:55 pm on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
The nation's most popular sport is about to get real geeky thanks in large part to technology from Microsoft. During today's big Xbox One launch in Redmond, Microsoft announced a new multi-year partnership with the NFL that will, according to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, "change the game of football." NFL.com is reporting that the deal is for five years and … Read More...

Official word: Xbox One requires Internet connection, but not ‘always on’
By Todd Bishop at 1:33 pm on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
Remember all that controversy over the reports of a required "always on" Internet connection in the new Xbox? First, reports surfaced that Microsoft would require a persistent Internet connection, then the word was that it wouldn't. Here's the official word from a newly published FAQ from Microsoft. Does Xbox One require an “always on” Internet connection? A: … Read More...

Startup Spotlight: Stride taps user feedback to build a CRM product with ‘love’
By John Cook at 1:22 pm on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
It took just 24 hours for the self-described "startup junkies" at Stride to get their new customer relationship management service off the ground. But they didn't stop there, and now just over a year after its formal launch, the team is still iterating and developing. The Stride app — created by Andrew Dumont, Nathan Carnes, Adrian Pike and Amiel Martin —has attracted … Read More...

Xbox One: Here is the official video from Microsoft
By Todd Bishop at 1:09 pm on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
Microsoft unveiled the new "Xbox One" console in Redmond today, with highlights including souped-up hardware, live TV integration, Skype functionality, an upgraded (and bundled) Kinect sensor, a "snap view" for multitasking, and an operating system that bridges the worlds of Xbox and Windows. The company also announced partnerships with the NFL and EA Sports, and showed … Read More...

Reactions mixed as group of 14 Xbox fans watch console launch at Microsoft Store
By Taylor Soper at 12:43 pm on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
It certainly wasn't as exciting nor populated as the Surface tablet debut or the Halo 4 launch party, but a group of 14 Xbox aficionados still managed to gather at the Microsoft Store in Seattle's University Village to watch the Xbox One launch streamed over Xbox Live. Everyone stayed to watch the hour-long presentation and as Microsoft announced several of the more … Read More...

Sorry, but Xbox 360 games won’t play on Xbox One
By Todd Bishop at 12:32 pm on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
Microsoft executives are on stage right now here in Redmond giving the rundown on the major technological changes in the new Xbox One console, unveiled by the company today. In fact, the changes are big enough that Xbox One won't be backward compatible with Xbox 360 games, company executives are acknowledging to reporters. That means that Xbox 360 game discs won't be … Read More...

Up close with Xbox One: Pics, specs and the backside
By Todd Bishop at 11:44 am on 05/21/2013 | 9 Comments
Posting from Redmond: I'm here at the Xbox One unveiling, where Microsoft gave the media an up-close look at the new console on stage following the press event in the giant tent on the Xbox campus. See above for one of the most important views of the console, showing the ports and options for connectivity. (Click for larger image.) No pricing was announced at the event. … Read More...

Commencement speech showdown: Advice to recent grads from Redfin’s Kelman and Zillow’s Rascoff
By John Cook at 11:31 am on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
It's that time of year when commencement speeches ring out across the nation, with everyone from President Barack Obama to philanthropist Melinda Gates to comedian Jimmy Kimmel offering words of wisdom to recent grads. Now, LinkedIn is taking a very special approach to the commencement speech tradition, asking several of its so-called "influencers" to … Read More...

Images: Amazon.com wants to build a massive biosphere in Seattle (perfect for workers and mature trees)
By John Cook at 9:52 am on 05/21/2013 | 24 Comments
Amazon.com is charting a new course for one of its proposed downtown Seattle office buildings, unveiling new drawings this week which show a massive spherical greenhouse-like structure capable of housing multiple forms of plant life as well as mature trees. And, yes, of course, throngs of Amazon workers will be permitted too. The new proposal, which will be discussed at … Read More...

Xbox One: Live from Microsoft’s new console unveiling in Redmond
By Todd Bishop at 9:29 am on 05/21/2013 | 6 Comments
The doors are about to open here in Redmond for the much-anticipated unveiling of Microsoft's next-generation Xbox. I'm here along with hundreds of others for the day. Follow along here as the news unfolds, and stay tuned for updates throughout the day. See this post by Xbox Live's Major Nelson for information about watching the live stream, and also see this earlier … Read More...

Microsoft launches live, interactive TV show on Xbox Live called Music Room
By Taylor Soper at 8:58 am on 05/21/2013 | 1 Comment
We're expecting to find out about some sort of entertainment-related features at the next generation Xbox reveal this morning, but Microsoft is already getting a head start in that department with the debut of a new live, interactive music show exclusively on Xbox. It's called The Music Room, a two-part program hosted by Laura Jackson featuring music from Everything … Read More...

Transforming takeout: Madrona’s Brian McAndrews named chairman of merged GrubHub and Seamless
By John Cook at 8:30 am on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
Brian McAndrews, the former aQuantive CEO who now serves as a venture partner at Seattle's Madrona Venture Group, is already playing a role in the transformation of the news business (as a board member at The New York Times) and of the mobile broadband business (as a board member at Clearwire). Now, the former online advertising executive is going to play a big role in … Read More...
Sprint boosts offer for Clearwire to $3.40 per share, delays shareholder vote to May 31
By John Cook at 7:56 am on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
Sprint is boosting its bid for Bellevue mobile broadband company Clearwire to $3.40 per share, an increase of about 50 percent over the previous offer. As a result of the increased bid, Clearwire has pushed its shareholder voter, originally scheduled for today, to Friday, May 31 at 10:30 a.m.. (Editor's note: The date of the new shareholder meeting has been updated in the … Read More...

Customer satisfaction with Microsoft software declines slightly after Windows 8
By Todd Bishop at 6:42 am on 05/21/2013 | 1 Comment
New data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index shows satisfaction with Microsoft software declining slightly this year, falling 1.3 points to a score of 74 on a scale of 100. The result follows the release of Windows 8 last fall, with a new interface that creates a learning curve for many longtime Windows users. David VanAmburg, director of ACSI, tells … Read More...

UW partners with non-profit edX to offer free online courses
By Alisa Reznick at 4:00 am on 05/21/2013 | Leave a Comment
In another attempt to help expand university-level instruction access on a wide scale, the University of Washington announced a new partnership Tuesday with edX, an online learning platform founded by MIT and Harvard that provides Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs. MOOCs are online courses that use streamed lectures, auto-graded exams and peer-led collaboration … Read More...

5 things I learned while working on the original Xbox
By Jonathan Sposato at 9:40 pm on 05/20/2013 | 7 Comments
[Editor's Note: With Microsoft preparing to unveil the third generation of the Xbox on Tuesday, we asked GeekWire Chairman Jonathan Sposato to share his lessons learned while working on the original Xbox games effort, in this installment of his Startup Jedi column.] Before Xbox was an entire division of hundreds, it started out as a ‘startup’ within Microsoft. I was … Read More...

Fast-growing HasOffers raises $9.4M, promises to keep ‘bootstrapper spirit’ alive
By John Cook at 9:01 pm on 05/20/2013 | 2 Comments
HasOffers built a pretty impressive business over the past four years, using the company's revenue to fuel expansion as it grew to 79 employees and added profits to the bottom line. Now, after bootstrapping their way to success, the team is looking to supercharge efforts. HasOffers, which helps companies manage affiliate advertising programs, just scored $9.4 million in … Read More...

How Silicon Valley VCs would react to a pitch from the greatest geek ever, Nikola Tesla
By Taylor Soper at 5:13 pm on 05/20/2013 | 3 Comments
GeekWire's Greatest Geek of All Time is making headlines again, and this time it relates directly to the startup world. Palo Alto-based Northern Imagination produced the parody video above to help promote its Kickstarter campaign for a Wi-Fi-enabled Nikola Tesla statue in Silicon Valley. It's a comical clip that sheds light on the short-attention span of … Read More...

Here’s what Microsoft is paying its new CFO Amy Hood
By Todd Bishop at 4:52 pm on 05/20/2013 | Leave a Comment
Microsoft's newly appointed chief financial officer, Amy Hood, will start at an annual base salary of $570,000, along with Microsoft stock valued around $6.5 million based on today's share price, according to regulatory filings from the company today and last week. That's in addition to a potential cash bonus based on future performance. Hood was named to the position … Read More...
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