Special Report: A corporate Scrooge no more? Amazon’s philanthropy reshapes its reputation — to a point

Read the latest tech headlines from GeekWire [View this email in your browser]. December 14, 2016 [Top Stories] [Find a Job] [GeekWire Events] [GeekWire 200] [Become a Member] EMP Museum is now MoPOP [On 11/19, EMP officially changed its name to Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP)] Today's top stories [A corporate Scrooge no more? Amazon’s philanthropy reshapes its reputation — to a point] By Lisa Stiffler Amazon has been making headlines recently — and not just for the stories you’d expect. [Alaska Air makes its takeover of Virgin America official with a blue-red Boeing jet] By Alan Boyle Alaska Air Group completed its acquisition of Virgin America, celebrating the rise of the nation's No. 5 air carrier with a co-branded jet in blue and red. Sponsored Post [How to Use AWS to Accelerate Innovation and Growth] Amazon Web Services has been a key partner for us at Smartsheet as we’ve grown from a startup to where we are today, a leading collaborative work management and automation SaaS platform. I’ve been our Director of Infrastructure for the majority of the journey, and I can confidently say that we wouldn’t… [Chinese genomics giant BGI announces new Seattle office] By Clare McGrane BGI, the Shenzhen, China,-based genomics giant, announced today that it has opened a Seattle office as part of a major expansion in North America. [Postmates speaks out on dispute with Washington state over workers’ comp payments] By Nat Levy Yesterday, we reported on Postmates' dispute with Washington's Department of Labor & Industries over an audit that determined the San Francisco based startup that also operates in the Seattle area owed more than two years of workers' compensation payments for more than 3,000 couriers from 2013 to 2015. Home of the Week - Sponsored Post [The first Five-Star Built Green cottage community ever to be built in Kirkland. The Juanita Farmhouse Cottages starting at $859,000.] This boutique development of 8 single-family homes is within walking distance of Juanita Village, Lake Washington, and the beach. The efficiently designed homes feature a Community Barn for entertaining, covered porches, a pet area, old growth trees, and geothermal heating and cooling. The Cherry features… [Madrona Labs hires startup vet Jay Bartot as VC incubator focuses on ‘deeper’ technical ideas] By Taylor Soper Madrona Labs, the “startup studio” housed inside of Madrona Venture Group, wants to focus on deeper, more technical startups — and now it’s getting some help from Jay Bartot to do so. [Jeff Bezos among tech leaders arriving at Trump Tower for meeting with president-elect] By Kurt Schlosser With the all-important Kanye West Summit behind him, President-elect Donald Trump moved on to the business of meeting with some of the biggest leaders in technology on Wednesday in New York. [Syrian crisis puts Spaceflight Industries’ BlackSky satellite data platform to the test] By Alan Boyle Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries is providing a preview of its online BlackSky satellite imagery platform, which links pictures to a wide range of data. [Donald Trump’s advisory board adds Elon Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick ahead of tech summit] By Monica Nickelsburg The chief executives of Uber and Tesla are joining an advisory board of 19 business leaders who will have the ear of president-elect Donald Trump. [Amazon Web Services expands yet again, this time in London, as cloud movement thrives] By Dan Richman Amazon Web Services has opened a London region, offering UK-based companies and their end-users lower latency than they may have experienced using more distant regions, and keeping sensitive data local. [Competition between Amazon and Netflix heats up as Prime Video expands to 200 countries] By Monica Nickelsburg Amazon Prime Video is now available in more countries than Netflix. [New b8ta store in Seattle’s University Village gives smaller tech companies their own Apple Store] By Nat Levy Tomorrow, a new store called b8ta, which lets people test out products from a variety of smaller tech companies, will have its grand opening, joining the Microsoft and Apple stores at the mall [Inside Pluto VR: First look at this Seattle startup’s communication platform for virtual reality] By Taylor Soper John Vechey greets me at the door of a strikingly spacious one-floor office in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, just off the water at Salmon Bay. [Wynn Las Vegas to equip 4,748 hotel rooms with Amazon Echo: It’s ‘seamlessly delicious,’ Steve Wynn says] By John Cook Alexa, open the curtains? You may soon be able to ask that question when traveling to the Wynn Las Vegas hotel, which announced today that it will place Amazon’s Echo device — powered by the voice assistant Alexa — in all 4,748 hotel rooms. [Coding Dojo expands developer bootcamp with new Berkeley and Orange County campuses] By Taylor Soper Coding Dojo is expanding. The Bellevue, Wash.-based 14-week developer bootcamp is opening two new campuses in California: one in Berkeley and another in Orange County. [Video: Amazon makes first Prime Air drone package delivery, offers glimpse of new aircraft design] By Todd Bishop Amazon said this morning that it completed its first-ever package delivery from a Prime Air drone to a customer in Cambridge, England, on Dec. [Starbucks taps ‘Simpsons’ writers for new animated series, expanding lineup of original content] By Taylor Soper Starbucks, meet “The Simpsons.” The Seattle-based coffee giant today unveiled its first-ever animated series, co-written by “The Simpsons” writers Joel Cohen, John Frink and Rob LaZebnik. [Docker donates a core piece of its container technology, an effort to fuel innovation by others] By Dan Richman Docker, the venture-backed maker of the most popular offering for creating containerized applications, is donating a vital piece of its software to a community project administered by five public-cloud companies, in an effort to promote the creation of non-Docker container products. [Photos: Seattle Sounders fans celebrate team’s first MLS Cup victory with march and rally] By Kevin Lisota Photo gallery from the Seattle Sounders MLS Cup celebration in Seattle. Fans marched with the team through Seattle and held a rally at Seattle Center. [Victory for V2V: Connected car technology gets Transportation Department’s vote] By Alan Boyle The U.S. Department of Transportation lays out its proposal for enabling cars and light trucks to connect to each other through wireless V2V communications. [NASA’s Curiosity rover fleshes out geological picture of Mars’ past habitability] By Alan Boyle Scientists put together the puzzle pieces provided by NASA's Curiosity rover to get a better picture of Mars' ancient habitability. [This year’s Arctic Report Card heats up international concern about climate change] By Alan Boyle The latest update on Arctic climate shows that temperatures are increasing at twice the global rate, leading to record lows in snow cover and sea ice. [Bad news, good news: Boeing trims back 777 jet production while raising dividend] By Alan Boyle The Boeing Co.'s decision to trim back production of its wide-body 777 jet is likely to bring bad news for employment at its plant in Everett, Wash. [Google Home meets Snapchat Spectacles on a new episode of the GeekWire Podcast] By Todd Bishop Can Google Home take on Amazon Echo? Can Nintendo make a console comeback? [Size? Color? Nordstrom eGifting helps shoppers send a gift and recipients fill in the details] By Kurt Schlosser Nordstrom is adding a new shopping option called eGifting that makes it easy to send a gift this holiday season — and also takes the pressure off knowing such details as size and color of an item or the shipping location for the person on the receiving end. [A first look inside the cutting-edge Bezos Family Immunotherapy Clinic] By Clare McGrane Stephanie Florence is the image of optimism. [New version of container orchestrator Kubernetes advances support for Windows containers] By Dan Richman Just weeks after Amazon Web Services entered the container-management space with Blox, the leading open-source container-management product, Kubernetes, has moved to version 1.5. 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