A poet wanders the city and asks, “Who are all these tech people? What do they actually do?” Frances McCue is a poet, writer, co-founder of nonprofit community writing center Hugo House, and a teaching professor at the University of Washington. As she roamed Seattle’s streets, taking in the impact technology has had on the landscape, she contemplated the language of her own craft and that of the coders, who follow a similar process, playing with images and symbols to make something happen. Read her piece and listen to a special installment of the GeekWire Podcast.
Updating the COVID-19 vaccine: As the coronavirus begins to mutate and cause new worries across the globe, Fred Hutch researcher Trevor Bedford said a process to update the COVID-19 vaccine in the coming years is likely needed. “You can imagine a process like exists for the flu vaccine, where you’re swapping in these variants and everyone’s getting their yearly COVID shot,” he told The New York Times. “I think that’s what generally will be necessary.” See Bedford’s Twitter thread on the topic here.
Monday morning optimism: Get your week started with some positivity from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who offers gratitude to healthcare workers, researchers, teachers, parents, public servants, software developers, and others helping the world move forward this year despite numerous obstacles. “Seeing how people across the globe in every industry rose to the challenges of 2020 makes me optimistic about what we can collectively achieve together in the year ahead,” Nadella said.
Seattle-area impact of giant aerospace deal: Lockheed Martin will acquire Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings in an all-cash transaction valued at $4.4 billion. It marks a change of ownership for Aerojet Rocketdyne’s space propulsion facility in Redmond, Wash., one of the Seattle area’s oldest space ventures. The Redmond facility began operation in 1968 as Rocket Research, and was acquired by Aerojet in 2002. It has built thruster systems for virtually every interplanetary mission since the Apollo era. Read more.
Group14 charges up: The Woodinville, Wash.-based startup raised $17 million to expand development and sales of its silicon-carbon composite material that can replace the graphite anodes in lithium-ion batteries, dramatically improving their performance. Excitement about batteries continues to grow; earlier this month the internet buzzed with headlines about QuantumScape, a company also working to improve lithium-ion batteries that has backing from Bill Gates and Volkswagen.
Thanks for reading, wear a mask, have a great holiday week, and see all of our latest headlines below. — GeekWire managing editor Taylor Soper, taylor@geekwire.com, and Geek Life reporter Kurt Schlosser, kurt@geekwire.com.
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