Benjamin Romano
Benjamin is the former Editor of Xconomy Seattle. He has covered the intersections of business, technology and the environment in the Pacific Northwest and beyond for more than a decade. At The Seattle Times he was the lead beat reporter covering Microsoft during Bill Gates’ transition from business to philanthropy. He also covered Seattle venture capital and biotech. Most recently, Benjamin followed the technology, finance and policies driving renewable energy development in the Western US for Recharge, a global trade publication. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.
Recent posts
When I lifted the lid on the Glowforge laser cutter to reveal the family portrait engraved on a wooden jigsaw puzzle, it brought a smile to my face like few other... Read more »
With “Hey Google” and “Alexa” echoing from the expo halls of Las Vegas to millions of homes, the hype around voice-controlled computing is reaching a new peak in early 2018.
Voice-controlled... Read more »
Rounding out our series of perspectives and prognostications for the new year, we asked people in Xconomy’s network about trust in the tech industry.
Specifically, if you think public perception... Read more »
We asked people around the Xconomy network whether their personal patterns of technology usage changed much in response to something that happened in 2017, as part of our series of perspectives... Read more »
The $1.73 billion in venture capital raised by Seattle-area companies in 2017 was the third-highest total of the last five years, according to the Venture Monitor report out Tuesday from PitchBook... Read more »
The University of Washington will host a new computer science laboratory focused on virtual and augmented reality technologies, having attracted $6 million for the effort from Facebook, Huawei, and Google.
For... Read more »
A majority of Seattle angel investors in a recent poll by Xconomy plan to make more investments this year than in 2017, and artificial intelligence tops the list of technologies they’re... Read more »
Perhaps the biggest story in Seattle last year was Amazon’s decision to seek a second headquarters elsewhere in North America. The tech and retail juggernaut has transformed this city and its... Read more »
Xconomy asked technology and innovation leaders around our network to reflect on the most important developments in their industries during 2017, and the answers were appropriately wide-ranging.
Responses from individuals in... Read more »
Like tech employers everywhere, Sabrina Parsons is scrambling to find employees from all walks of life who have the skills her company needs, in this case to build online software tools... Read more »
They’re still putting the finishing touches on the sixth-floor offices in Bellevue, WA, where Chinese Internet giant Tencent hopes to employ as many as 20 artificial intelligence researchers by next year.... Read more »
First their friends named the new University of Washington computer science building in their honor. Now Bill and Melinda Gates have contributed $15 million to complete the fund-raising drive for the... Read more »
There’s a new network organizing the incubators, accelerators, and investors fostering innovation in the Pacific Northwest on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.
Business collaboration across the 49th parallel is having... Read more »
From its earliest days, Amazon has built its business on removing the barriers between people and the things they want to buy.
New voice computing technologies and business models unveiled at... Read more »
The Seattle area’s twin technology behemoths—Microsoft and Amazon—have pursued markedly different real estate strategies over the years, driven in part by the changing character of the region as they’ve grown.
That... Read more »
Xconomy convened an outstanding group of innovators in healthcare and artificial intelligence for a half-day conference in Seattle earlier this month. As testament to the excitement around this topic, our event was... Read more »
This video is the stuff of nightmares.
It depicts A.I.-directed drones loaded with small amounts of explosive, seeking out and killing targets autonomously. A slick tech executive makes his (for now)... Read more »
[Updated 11/10/17, 10:25 a.m. See below.] Microsoft is applying the same model it used to launch its quantum computing and chatbot efforts to innovation in healthcare, signaling the company’s... Read more »
Oren Etzioni, CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), still isn’t worried about nefarious A.I. taking over the world, but says there are real and growing concerns about its... Read more »
International money transfer business Remitly will add $115 million to its coffers through what would be the largest investment in a Seattle company in the last year.
The investment—which requires Hart-Scott-Rodino... Read more »
