Starbucks should ‘reinvent’ mobile ordering, former CEO Howard Schultz says

There’s “A Better Way to Go” when it comes to toilets and sanitation, according to a new exhibit at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Discovery Center in Seattle. Flush with education and innovation, interactive displays provide the scoop on poop, and how technology can improve the lives of billions. Read more. 

• Related: Gates Foundation joins Novo Nordisk, Wellcome on $300M global health effort

Is there room for e-bikes on the golf course? Seattle startup Fairway Bikes is rolling out a unique method of transportation for golfers. We took it for a ride. 

Tech for disaster planning: The University of Washington hosted an “Urban Resilience Hackathon” to co-develop testable “resilience pilot projects” that could help Seattle be more prepared for future disruptions. Here were the ideas that came out of the hackathon.

Hot Links:

• Microsoft is training its own AI model “large enough to compete with state-of-the-art models from Google, Anthropic and OpenAI itself.” (The Information)

• Former Microsoft Windows chief Steven Sinofsky sparked a bit of a debate about whether downtown Seattle’s recovery is being slowed by buses on Third Avenue, as the street has “decayed to a hostile state.” (The Seattle Times and X)

• A bigger, faster autonomous vehicle is being tested as part of DARPA’s Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program, with help from Seattle startup Overland AI and the University of Washington. (LinkedIn and DARPA)

• Redfin will pay $9.25 million as part of real estate industry’s buyer-agent commission settlement, putting the issue behind it even though the Seattle-based company says it “never belonged in this litigation.” (Real Estate News)

• A cat from Utah ended up in California after it snuck into an Amazon returns box and was shipped off, only to be discovered at a package warehouse. (The New York Times)