Is baseball ready for robot umps? We asked fans at the All-Star Game

• "Robotics would make it more consistent, but part of the fun is that mistakes happen and people are human.” — Courtney Owen, Mariners fan

• "I don’t think it can go fully robotic. I like the feel of the old school umpire behind the catcher, calling balls and strikes.” — Eddie Galvan, Cubs fan

• "I’d pick the real thing over AI. That’s the part that makes it interesting, arguing about the plays.” — Katarina Hunt, Phillies fan

• "As much as there’s calls that we don’t like, we still need that human touch.” — Sean Lightfoot, Mariners fan

• Read the story, and more GeekWire coverage of tech at the All-Star Game. 

Chris Vonderhaar, a longtime Amazon Web Services executive who left the company this spring, has joined AWS rival Google Cloud. Google did not address our question about potential constraints on Vonderhaar’s role in light of Amazon’s standard non-competition agreement. Read more. 

Blue Origin says it is taking “remedial actions” after reports emerged that one of its BE-4 rocket engines suffered a significant anomaly during testing at its West Texas facility in late June. Read more. 

The site of a defunct sugar beet refinery in Eastern Washington will be home to the state’s first commercial-scale sustainable aviation fuel facility. (Above: Gov. Jay Inslee with the co-founders of Twelve at a groundbreaking.) Read more. 

Microsoft cleared a significant regulatory hurdle this week in its bid to buy Activision Blizzard. But given the internal workplace culture issues at Activision, there’s plenty of work ahead to make the deal a success. Read more.

Hot links:

• Microsoft said Chinese hackers gained access to U.S. government email accounts in a targeted attack. (The New York Times)

• A new Xbox safety feature lets gamers record and report inappropriate in-game voice chats. (Xbox blog)