A Kennewick tech startup is transforming the way businesses process their payment transactions, even as coronavirus shutdowns and restrictions threatened its business model.“It’s interesting because we’re focused on brick-and-mortar transactions, so when Covid hit, we thought we were dead,” said Jeff Payne, BlockChyp’s chief technology officer. BlockChyp designs payment terminals...
Terry Brown and his wife, Annie Ackerman-Brown, didn’t develop a business plan or research how they could best help young people in mental anguish when they launched BlessedbyKess.Faith led them to create the nonprofit, which uses virtual reality, or VR, technology to help Tri-Citians reduce stress and improve mental health....
The greater Tri-Cities enjoys a strong technology pulse, but the most readily accessible statistics are scant on the evidence. Brenton-Franklin Trends data, for instance, doesn’t carry one “technology” indicator out of the 175 available. This state of our knowledge is largely due to the difficulties in measuring the economic impact...
A material science pioneer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is one of three to be named a 2020 distinguished scientist fellow by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.James “Jim” De Yoreo’s award includes $1 million in DOE funding over three years to pursue new research.De Yoreo is...
The pandemic has altered daily life in many ways, some of which may long outlive the current shutdowns.Technological innovations over the past several years have allowed employees to work from home — a shift that was already well underway before the pandemic, but one that has been kicked into hyperdrive...
A $1 million Battelle donation aims to improve STEM education to better prepare the next generation of scientists in the greater Tri-City area.The grant will help launch a regional STEM Nexus that will develop and fund experiential learning programs for underrepresented, underserved students in rural communities.A science, technology, engineering and...
Three Tri-City public school districts won’t be throwing open their actual doors to welcome back students in the fall because of high coronavirus rates in Benton and Franklin counties.But they will be ready to greet them online when school starts Sept. 1.The Kennewick, Richland and Pasco school districts are offering...
Virtual doctor’s visits becoming more widely available – not just for routine illnessesTri-Citypatients are connecting with medical specialists for more types of care, thanksto the growing use of telemedicine, or telehealth, which can allow a providerto make some diagnoses of a critical patient without even being in the sameroom. “Telehealthstarted...
By Byron Martin and Ty MulhollandWhen asking people for aword to describe the Tri-Cities, some of the answers that you hear might bewine, water sports, Hanford, agriculture or tumbleweeds. The last thing youwould expect to hear is “technology.” What most people don’t realize is thatthe Tri-Cities has a long and...
By Andrew KirkThemultitude of desktop apps to help business owners run their companies arenothing short of miraculous, but how many of those apps have good mobileversions? Andhow many of those “there’s an app for that” ideas are actually worth thedownload and time to learn? You’renot alone in wondering. There are...
