Alaska Airlines reveals cause of IT outage | GM-backed electric boat startup Pure Watercraft selling assets

Rough waters for Pure Watercraft: The Seattle-based electric boating startup backed by General Motors entered into receivership and is selling off its assets. Founded in 2011, Pure raised $37 million in a bid to make quieter, more environmentally friendly outboard motors and disrupt the leisure boating industry. Read more.

• In other electric boating news: Another Seattle-based startup called Zin Boats is moving forward with plans to sell an electric tender boat designed to quickly shuttle future customers back and forth to their megayachts and other destinations. Read more.

Alaska Airlines tech outage: The airline grounded its planes at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Sunday evening due to an IT problem described by the company as a “certificate issue that impacted multiple systems.” The outage was not due to a cyberattack or unauthorized activity. Read more.

Microsoft and the ‘largest cybersecurity engineering effort in history’: The tech giant has dedicated the equivalent of 34,000 full-time engineers to follow through on its promise to make security its top priority following a series of high-profile breaches, according to a progress report released by the company Monday morning. Read more. 

Tech Moves: Madrona grows Bay Area presence; Microsoft vet returns; Veeam adds new leaders; and more key personnel changes. 

Father-son startup wants to boost battery power: Jason and Jerry Schwartz (above) are the founders of Seattle-based Ecellix, a 6-year-old company developing next-generation battery materials. Read more. 

Can Amazon change the way we watch football? The tech giant is getting geeky with its “Prime Vision” alternate broadcast feed for Thursday Night Football. Based on our experience watching, the array of digital overlays isn’t quite ready for primetime. But other aspects of Amazon’s foray into NFL streaming may have a higher potential for mainstream adoption. Read more.

Summer at GeekWire: Gillian Dohrn, our summer intern, reflects on her experience covering the ins and outs of climate technology innovation happening across the Pacific Northwest. Read more.

Hot Links:

• A new trade union report accuses Amazon, Tesla, Meta, and other companies of undermining democracy. (The Guardian)

• Expedia CEO Ariane Gorin, who took over the Seattle travel giant in May, spoke at an event about the company’s recent tech migration process. (Skift)

• Zillow data shows the most expensive housing markets in the U.S. (Fast Company)