The Washington State Department of Transportation is warning Good to Go! customers to be on the lookout for fraudulent emails or texts seeking payment for past due toll bills. In an email to customers on Wednesday, WSDOT said scammers are claiming to be from a collections agency working on behalf of Good To Go!, the program that allows drivers to automatically pay fees for toll roads in Washington, such as SR 520. “We would like to reassure you that under no circumstances do we disclose individual customer information for use by marketing firms,” WSDOT said. “All Good To Go! customer information, including name,… Read More
Like it or not, the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on non-competition agreements could force a change in mindset inside the companies that use them — ultimately improving their ability to hire and retain talented employees. That’s one take from critics of non-compete deals after the FTC announced a new rule Tuesday that prohibits companies from using the clauses in new employment contracts, and invalidates many existing agreements. Companies will need to keep employees “by giving them the best jobs, and helping them realize their personal aspirations, as well as helping the company realize its aspirations,” said Brian Hall, a longtime… Read More
Washington leaders on Tuesday announced a $45 million program aiming to make electric vehicles more affordable for the state’s low-income residents. The Washington EV Instant Rebates Program will provide rebates at the time of purchase for eligible consumers who buy or lease a new or used EV. The deal applies to residents earning up to $45,180 a year for a single person or $93,600 for a family of four. The state’s Department of Commerce, which is managing the program, estimated potential lease terms for lower-priced EVs, concluding that the new rebates combined with federal government incentives and deals from automakers… Read More
Seattle-based Radical says it has raised $4.5 million to support the development of solar-powered, autonomous airplanes that can beam down connectivity and imagery during long-duration, high-altitude flights. The seed funding round was led by Scout Ventures, with additional funding from other investors including Inflection Mercury Fund and Y Combinator. According to Pitchbook, Radical previously received $500,000 in pre-seed funding from Y Combinator. Radical’s co-founders are CEO James Thomas and chief technology officer Cyriel Notteboom. Both founders are veterans of Prime Air, Amazon’s effort to field a fleet of delivery drones. They left Amazon in mid-2022 to found Radical — and… Read More
Seattle-based digital healthcare startup 98point6 has conducted a new round of layoffs, the company confirmed Tuesday. 98point6 did not provide details on the number of employees affected. A number of posts from affected workers began showing up on LinkedIn last week. One affected employee told GeekWire that a majority of staff was let go. Another worker who joined the company more than six years ago called her layoff an “unplanned departure.” The company has around 100 employees in the U.S., according to LinkedIn. In a statement to GeekWire, 98point6 called the workforce reduction “part of a larger action at the… Read More
Goodbye, non-competes. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission today released its final rules addressing non-compete clauses by banning all future agreements. Non-competes have traditionally restricted workers from taking jobs with a competitor or starting a competing business. The employment clauses — which are applied to wide-ranging businesses — have been particularly contentious and polarizing in the technology sector. The FTC and others portray the clauses as stifling innovation and harming workers while some argue the agreements are necessary protections for intellectual property and trade secrets. “Non-compete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including… Read More
Bellevue, Wash.-based game publisher tinyBuild has sold the rights to Totally Reliable Delivery Service to the French corporation Atari, which intends to use the acquisition to revive a legacy brand. The game, which tinyBuild published for PC, console, and mobile in 2020, was developed by We’re Five Games in Minneapolis. It’s a deliberately chaotic party game for up to four players. tinyBuild subsequently acquired We’re Five Games in February 2021. Now, in an unusual deal, tinyBuild has sold the trademark and rights for TRDS, but not We’re Five Games, to Atari. Neither Atari or tinyBuild have disclosed the financial terms… Read More
Longtime technology industry leaders Chad Cohen and Ryan Domyancic unveiled Scala Advisors, their new Seattle-based advisory firm designed to help growth-stage companies in the public and private markets. Cohen is the former CFO at Zillow Group and Adaptive Biotechnologies; he led IPOs for both Seattle tech giants. Most recently he was CFO and COO at Earth observation data startup Capella Space. Domyancic got started in investment banking, joined William Blair as an equity research analyst, then did investor relations stints with Grubhub and Vacasa. Scala means “scale” in Latin — and it’s what the firm hopes to provide clients, using… Read More
Alex Popken was a longtime trust and safety executive at Twitter focusing on content moderation before leaving in 2023. She was the first employee there dedicated to moderating Twitter’s advertising business when she started in 2013. Now, she’s vice president of trust and safety at WebPurify, a content moderation service provider that works with businesses […]
BALTIMORE (AP) — April Hurley’s attacker entered her apartment after identifying himself as the building maintenance man — a job he should never have obtained, according to a lawsuit filed Monday that accuses the property owner and management company of engaging in negligent hiring practices. Once inside the apartment, Jason Billingsley tortured Hurley and her […]
A tipline set up 26 years ago to combat online child exploitation has not lived up to its potential and needs technological and other improvements to help law enforcement go after abusers and rescue victims, a new report from the Stanford Internet Observatory has found. The fixes to what the researchers describe as an “enormously […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Barely missing its midnight deadline, the Senate voted early Saturday to reauthorize a key U.S. surveillance law after divisions over whether the FBI should be restricted from using the program to search for Americans’ data nearly forced the statute to lapse. The legislation approved 60-34 with bipartisan support would extend for two […]
A hack that caused a small Texas town’s water system to overflow in January has been linked to a shadowy Russian hacktivist group, the latest case of a U.S. public utility becoming a target of foreign cyberattacks. The attack was one of three on small towns in the rural Texas Panhandle. Local officials said the […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — A voting technology company targeted by bogus fraud claims related to the 2020 presidential election settled a defamation lawsuit Tuesday against a conservative news outlet. The settlement between Florida-based Smartmatic and One America News Network is the latest development in a larger legal pushback by voting equipment companies that became ensnared in […]
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft is investing $1.5 billion in a technology firm based in the United Arab Emirates and overseen by the country’s powerful national security adviser. Microsoft and the technology holding company G42 announced the deal Tuesday. As part of the agreement, Microsoft’s president, Brad Smith, will join G42’s board of directors. The […]
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A supervisor who managed security at a South Carolina prison accepted more than $219,000 in bribes over three years and got 173 contraband cellphones for inmates, according to federal prosecutors. Christine Mary Livingston, 46, was indicted earlier this month on 15 charges including bribery, conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering. Livingston […]
As their rivalry intensifies, U.S. and Chinese military planners are gearing up for a new kind of warfare in which squadrons of air and sea drones equipped with artificial intelligence work together like a swarm of bees to overwhelm an enemy. The planners envision a scenario in which hundreds, even thousands of the machines engage […]
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft said they will delay their planned exit from Minneapolis after city officials decided Wednesday to push back the start of a driver pay raise by two months. The Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to implement the ordinance on July 1 instead of May 1. Some council […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Much like nutritional labels on food products, “broadband labels” for internet packages will soon tell you just what is going into the pricing of your service, thanks to new rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission this week. “If you’ve ever shopped for home or mobile internet, you can understand how […]
Two tribal nations are accusing social media companies of contributing to the disproportionately high rates of suicide among Native American youth. Their lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles county court names Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta Platforms; Snapchat’s Snap Inc.; TikTok parent company ByteDance; and Alphabet, which owns YouTube and Google, as defendants. Virtually […]
SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — Tesla has settled lawsuit brought by the family of a Silicon Valley engineer who died in a crash while relying on the company’s semi-autonomous driving software. The size of the settlement was not disclosed in court documents filed Monday, just a day before the trial stemming from the 2018 crash […]
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee’s GOP-dominant Senate on Monday unanimously signed off on legislation requiring minors to have parental consent to create social media accounts. The bill is similar to pushes currently being made across the United States as concern grows over young people’s internet usage. Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Utah have all passed measures […]
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — In a story published April 6, 2024, The Associated Press did not include a statement from TikTok regarding efforts underway in states to ban the app. The story should have included the following statement: “Bans on state government devices and networks prevent state agencies from reaching a wider audience. Bills like […]
