Google hands SoftBank patents from failed balloon moonshot

A file photo of the Project Loon team launching a high-altitude balloon carrying electronic testing equipment. Google launched Loon in 2013 as an ambitious effort to blanket the globe with Internet connectivity using giant balloons drifting on currents high in the stratosphere, but was forced to close it after the unit failed to develop a viable business model. — Bay Area News Group/TNS

Google parent Alphabet Inc, which earlier this year shut down its moonshot project to beam Internet service from high-altitude balloons, is passing the baton to Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Corp.

Alphabet has transfered about 200 patents from its Loon project to the telecoms unit of SoftBank Group Corp, the Japanese company said in a statement on Thursday. SoftBank is developing its own wireless technology that uses fixed-wing autonomous aircraft as a flying base station.