REPORTING FROM OAKLAND: It was a regular break in the action during the first quarter of Tuesday’s NBA playoff game at Oracle Arena when a familiar voice — at least here in Silicon Valley — echoed through the building. “Hey Google, turn down the lights.” Google’s popular voice assistant helped set the mood as the dance team took the floor for a quick performance before the postseason battle resumed. Such was the scene during Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals as Google, with its massive headquarters located just south of here, spent big dollars on a unique sponsorship with… Read More
Plenty of professional athletes fancy themselves as tech geeks in some fashion or another, whether they’re into gadgets or video games or they like launching startups and Twitter tirades. Doug Baldwin is the type of thoughtful, nerdy and genuinely interesting guy that made him — just like he was as a receiver for the Seattle Seahawks — a go-to guy for GeekWire. With the news Thursday that Baldwin’s playing career with team had come to an end, it was hard not to remember how many times we tossed it to No. 89 ourselves. We sought his perspective on everything from… Read More
Football is still America’s game in American high schools, drawing more than a million athletes each year. But concerns over the lasting effects of concussions have caused youth participation in the sport to dip in recent years. Vicis, a Seattle startup, wants to help preserve the game for younger athletes with a high-tech helmet that recently ranked first in Virginia Tech’s inaugural youth football helmet safety ratings. But many programs are finding it difficult to pay the $495 price tag, sparking questions of fairness: should the safest helmet only be available to those who can afford it? Five Seattle-area high… Read More
Deion Sanders may have been “Prime Time” during his playing days in the NFL, but Russell Wilson is a prime player when it comes to Amazon. The Seattle Seahawks QB has taken stock in the guys who helped him become the highest paid player in the NFL by actually purchasing Amazon stock for his offensive linemen as a “thank you” for protecting him every Sunday. TMZ reported Monday that Wilson sent a letter to 13 linemen, informing them that he was gifting them each $12,000 in stock in the Seattle-based tech giant. Wilson spent a total of $156,000 — a… Read More
Game on at the University of Washington. A state-of-the-art Esports Arena & Gaming Lounge at the UW’s Husky Union Building is up and running after an official ribbon cutting on Thursday and a week of events that helped usher in a new era of competition and learning at the university in Seattle. The 1,000-square-foot gaming center makes the UW the largest public, higher education institution in the nation to have such a dedicated facility and the first university in the state of Washington to have such a space. Aimed at casual and competitive gamers, and funded in part by the… Read More
