GeekWire's Most-Read Stories of the Week

Catch up on the top tech stories from this past week. Here are the headlines that people have been reading on GeekWire. [GeekWire]( SPONSOR MESSAGE: The GeekWire Gala is Coming up next week on Dec. 5: [Get your tickets today for Seattle's geekiest holiday party!]( THIS WEEK'S TOP STORIES [We’ve been wearing Amazon’s Allbirds lookalikes: Here’s how they compare to the real thing]( Amazon’s 206 Collective Men’s Galen Wool Blend Sneakers look like Allbirds Wool Runners, for less than half the price. [Seattle raises fees for Uber and Lyft rides with new tax, passes minimum wage for drivers]( The Seattle City Council unanimously passed legislation Monday that will establish a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers and raise per-ride taxes to pay for city programs. [Amazon’s Alexa can now order prescription refills and remind people to take their medicine]( Amazon’s digital brain Alexa can now refill prescriptions via voice command and remind people to take their medicine, the latest new initiative in the company’s rapidly expanding healthcare push. SPONSOR MESSAGE [This Seattle startup wants to get in bed with you]( In 2016, Amy Buckalter reimagined what the personal lubricant industry could be. Nearing menopause, she found herself suddenly relying on what the market had to offer and grew frustrated with the unimpressive options. “Lubricant came into use a hundred years ago and it’s still the same old messy, cold, inconvenient buzzkill.” Buckalter decided to solve this problem herself. [Read more…]( [Blue Origin’s expansion plans rush ahead at its Seattle-area HQ — and in Los Angeles]( Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space venture is rapidly expanding on several fronts, ranging from its headquarters facility south of Seattle to a new beachhead in California. [Slack makes the case against Microsoft Teams’ rapid growth to 20M users, further escalating rivalry]( Rivals Microsoft and Slack are sparring yet again, this time over new growth figures that show Teams pulling well ahead of its top competitor. [Allbirds calls out Amazon for ‘strikingly similar’ sneaker, urges tech giant to steal approach to sustainability instead]( Allbirds raced to a valuation of more than $1 billion on the popularity of its trendy wool shoes. SPONSORED: GEEK HOME OF THE WEEK [Final Offering at Summerwell]( [Microsoft and AT&T reveal the 1st major initiative to come out of their big cloud-5G partnership]( Microsoft and AT&T today unveiled the first big plan as part of their multi-year cloud alliance: Combining AT&T’s burgeoning 5G network with Microsoft’s edge computing services to speed up Internet of Things devices’ processing power. [Microsoft sleighs ’em again in holiday ad as girl uses translation technology to speak to reindeer]( It’s one thing to leave a note for Santa and hope for some sort of reply. [T-Mobile discloses breach exposing more than 1M customers’ personal information]( Personal information of T-Mobile’s wireless customers, including names, addresses, phone numbers and more, was exposed in a recent breach. [Seattle startup gives employees an anonymous space for voicing workplace concerns]( Seattle-based Inyore, a startup that lets employees anonymously share their concerns with employers, grew out of a disagreement between two friends. [Infarm plants its blend of vertical farming and cloud computing in QFC grocery stores]( A German startup called Infarm has begun harvesting salad greens from its vertical-farming kiosks at two QFC supermarkets in the Seattle area. [Amazon gives a Seattle brick-and-mortar business reason to smile with a busy sip, ship, shop formula]( Diana Naramore is all smiles. Maybe it’s contagious, since she’s surrounded all day by so many Amazon packages with that familiar smile logo. [Fresh Chalk lands $2M to help people find local professionals through friend recommendations]( New funding: Fresh Chalk just landed a $2 million seed round. [Microsoft resumes political spending despite ongoing employee concerns]( Microsoft has quietly started making political contributions again after suspending donations in July to address employee concerns. [Tech Moves: Microsoft vet joins Seattle office for Sweden’s Sinch; Glossier hires CTO from Amazon]( — Swedish cloud communications platform Sinch named Vikram Khandpur, a 13-year Microsoft veteran, as chief product officer. 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