Meta fights state-ordered shutdown of Seattle-area R&D cleanroom

• The facility is home to Meta Reality Labs, where the Facebook parent company develops technologies for augmented and virtual reality, such as wristbands that control devices with small muscle movements, as demonstrated by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the Meta photo above, as published by CNET at the time.

• "The health and safety of our employees remains our top priority,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to GeekWire. “We’re working closely with state officials to take all precautions necessary to ensure a safe working environment.” Read more.

Washington state companies taking tech innovation to CES: The Dept. of Commerce will lead a delegation of companies to the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. More than 40 other companies will also show off their products and services. See the list.

NASA awards funds for far-out ideas: A University of Washington astronomer’s proposal to build a far-flung set of radio antennas to measure the cosmos is one of 13 concepts to receive seed funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. Read more.

Tech Moves: A veteran sports media exec is out and a former Hulu exec is in at Amazon; a longtime Seattle-area startup marketing leader departs Tenable; and more key personnel changes. 

Startup’s name change: OctoML, a 2019 spinout of the University of Washington, is now OctoAI, a switch that better reflects the company’s growing product suite and highlights the boom that’s taking over tech. Read more.

A mission to send a commercial lander to the moon, set for launch in a couple of days, will bring the fruition of projects that have been in the works for years — including projects that aim to put DNA into cold storage on the final frontier. Read more.

Closer look at the UW’s big growth plans: Portage Bay Crossing will cover 69 acres and anchor an ambitious, innovation-focused redevelopment at the University of Washington aimed at solving “some of the nation’s and the world’s biggest problems.” Read more.

VC trash talk: Ahead of Monday’s college football championship between the University of Washington and University of Michigan, we caught up with two alumni from each school who also happen to be tech investors in the Seattle region — and one played football for the Huskies. Read more in tomorrow’s newsletter. 

Hot Links:

• Is LinkedIn a dating app? Some users are looking for love on the Microsoft-owned platform. (Business Insider) 

• UW Medicine innovations: Medical researchers at the University of Washington came up with some impressive ideas last year, including a pacemaker that could recharge itself with heartbeat energy. (UW Medicine)