Business news in brief

Sources: Sprint, T-Mobile in merger talks

Sprint Corp. has started preliminary conversations to merge with T-Mobile US Inc., the latest attempt to consolidate in a market watched closely by U.S. regulators, according to people familiar with the matter.

Executives of SoftBank Group Corp., Sprint's largest shareholder, and Sprint itself have had informal contact with T-Mobile owner Deutsche Telekom about a transaction, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.

Merger talks in the wireless industry had been on hold for almost a year because of a government spectrum auction that required participants to avoid negotiating deals with each other until April 27.

SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son and Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Officer Tim Hoettges separately told investors last week that they'd be open to discussions about consolidation.

Banks haven't been formally hired, although financial firms are jockeying for roles if a deal comes together, the people familiar with the matter said. Representatives for Sprint, SoftBank, T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom, which owns about 65 percent of T-Mobile, declined to comment.

-- Bloomberg News

Microsoft names home speaker 'Invoke'

SEATTLE -- Microsoft's would-be rival to Amazon's Echo home speaker has a name: Invoke.

The cylindrical tower, built by speaker and electronics firm Harman International, was promoted by the Samsung subsidiary and Microsoft in short blog posts last week. The speaker will come in black and white when it is released in the U.S. this fall. Pricing details haven't been announced.

The gadget is the clearest Microsoft response yet to the success of Amazon's Echo, which is powered by the Seattle company's Alexa digital assistant. The Echo functions as a speaker and can answer a range of voice commands, from toggling audio tracks to adding items to a shopping list and reading the news, among others.

Analysts have said the Alexa software could radically change how people interact with machines in the home and become a profit engine for Amazon.

Google got in on the action in 2016, a year after the Echo, with a similar device, Google Home, which uses the company's own take on voice-activated software.

-- The Seattle Times

Uber creates artificial intelligence team

Uber Technologies Inc., in the midst of legal battle with Alphabet Inc. over self-driving car technology, is building a new artificial intelligence team in Toronto to help improve its autonomous vehicle software.

The city of Toronto has seen many researchers defect to the U.S. To prevent further brain drain, it set up an urban innovation hub, called the MaRS Discovery District, to attract companies and encourage investment in Canadian startups. Uber will be putting its artificial intelligence offices there.

"The University of Toronto has long been considered a global leader in artificial intelligence research. That's why we're so pleased to see Professor Raquel Urtasun, one of the world's leading researchers in the field of machine perception, take on this incredibly exciting role," Meric Gertler, president of the University of Toronto, said in a statement.

Allegations that Uber has been using self-driving car technology stolen from Google were referred to the U.S. attorney's office for a potential criminal investigation by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco late last week.

-- Bloomberg News

Gambling hub adds face scans to ATMs

HONG KONG -- Macau is stepping up security checks at ATMs in the Asian gambling hub by requiring facial scans and ID card verification for cash withdrawals using China's main payment network.

The government said in a statement that the new measures would eventually be rolled out to all automated teller machines in the former Portuguese colony, especially those inside casinos or nearby. It didn't give a specific time frame.

The specially administered region, an hour by ferry from Hong Kong, is the only place in China where casino gambling is legal.

The measures apply to users of UnionPay bank cards issued in mainland China, in a sign that authorities are targeting mainland visitors. UnionPay is China's homegrown payment network rivaling the Visa and MasterCard systems.

It's the latest move by authorities in Macau and Beijing as they try to stem the outflow of capital from the mainland.

Macau is the world's biggest gambling market, and its monthly casino revenues have expanded for nine straight months after a two-year slump. The city's casinos have raked in $10.4 billion so far this year.

-- The Associated Press

U.K. virtual reality firm gets $502M lift

LONDON -- A British startup founded five years ago by Cambridge University computer science graduates has received $502 million to develop large-scale virtual reality projects in a funding round led by Japan's SoftBank.

The investment gives SoftBank, a telecommunications and energy company, a noncontrolling stake in London-based Improbable.

Improbable Chief Executive Herman Narula said Friday that "the emergence of large-scale virtual worlds" would be the next major phase in computing.

The company, which employs about 200 people, creates virtual worlds for multiplayer games and is researching real-life applications in fields including cybersecurity and traffic control. SoftBank managing director Deep Nishar said Improbable's technology "will help us explore disease, improve cities, understand economies and solve complex problems on a previously unimaginable scale."

-- The Associated Press

Germany: Won't auction more wind blocs

Calls from industry lobbies and utilities including Vattenfall AB for Germany to auction more offshore wind blocs are unlikely to fall on sympathetic ears until voters elect a new parliament.

Germany's maiden offshore auction, which wrapped up last month with the winners willing to forgo subsidies for the first time, is spurring calls to raise tender caps as developers seek yields through economies of scale. While the calls have garnered backing in the Environment Ministry, the prospects of amending auction limits are zero, lawmaker Bernd Westphal said.

"You can forget lifting the caps before the election in September," the Social Democrat's spokesman for energy said in an interview at a wind conference in the port of Bremerhaven.

Industry lobbies including the Offshore Wind Foundation are asking why Germany needs offshore auctions at all if utilities are ready to build for free, seeking investment returns in competitive prices for wind power in the open market.

-- Bloomberg News

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