TechFlash: Microsoft acquisition schedules meetings; Amazon's voice tech summit

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Microsoft's latest acquisition will schedule that coffee meeting for you Microsoft plans to acquire an artificial intelligence-powered scheduling service to help build out Office 365 offerings and maintain its dominance in the workplace. Amazon kicks off voice technology summit with Argosy cruise, biggest investment yet The Alexa Fund – named for Alexa, the cloud-based voice service that powers Amazon Echo and other devices – was founded in June 2015 with a $100 million in venture capital for voice technology innovators. This Seattle tech was used on the Bertha project. Now it's helping Syrian refugees A Seattle-built technology used by Washington transportation workers is helping researchers in Jordan treat wastewater and produce drinking water for thousands of Syrian refugees. 'What would Amazon do?' This health insurer's plan to become customer-obsessed Insurance is not known as a customer-centric industry. Armed with an Alaska Airlines vet, Premera aims to change that. EXCLUSIVE: Marchex to lay off 40 after reporting big quarterly loss Seattle advertising analytics company Marchex is laying off 40 people, according to an internal memo CEO Pete Christothoulou sent out Wednesday and that was obtained by the Business Journal. Boeing tight-lipped on dealings with Italian supplier after issuing complaint about quality Last month, Boeing complained about the quality of parts it had received from a Dreamliner supplier. Company executives refused to comment on the status of the situation in a briefing this week. Here are the 140 Washington companies on the Inc. 5000 list The 140 Washington companies that made the list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. had combined revenue of more than $3.7 billion last year. UW researchers enable medical implants, credit cards to 'talk' with smartphones The novel "interscatter communication" technology – developed by a Seattle-based team of electrical engineers and computer scientists – enables specially encoded contact lenses, brain implants and credit cards to communicate via Wi-Fi with a smartphone. Major airlines face turbulent times ahead The aviation industry is facing a crucial need for trained workers and must come up with more than 2.1 million new employees in just three vital job positions during the next 20 years if it wants to keep up with the tremendous growth expected in the industry worldwide, according to a report by The Boeing Co. Appian CEO Matt Calkins on his big revenue milestone, Microsoft partnership CEO Matt Calkins also took a trip to San Fransisco to meet with potential IPO investors. National Tech News 500 Startups' Dave McClure says real bubble is in public companies Apple buys Silicon Valley health data startup Uber wouldn't pay more than $2 billion for Lyft, executives are reportedly telling investors

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