Weekly news round-up: UK govt publishes Facebook documents & BT blocks Huawei's 5G

France and Germany abandon EU digital tax
The proposed European digital tax on large digital organisations has been revised by France and Germany to have a narrower focus. The change is likely to see Amazon and Apple to dodge the new proposal. According to the Financial Times, the compromise abandons a wider digital services tax plan that would have raised an estimated €5bn a year.

Facebook documents reveal secret mission
The UK Parliament’s Facebook “fake news” inquiry has revealed internal documents dated from 2012 and 2013 showing senior Facebook executives including Mark Zuckerberg outlining how to “choke off” competing organisations that began to rival the social media giant. According to the Telegraph the documents are likely to raise fruther questions around Facebook’s antitrust and ethical standards. 

Korea celebrates ‘5G Day’
Korea’s three major mobile operators SKT, LG U+ and KT simultaneously switched on their commercial 5G networks based on 3GPP standards, Telecoms reported. The government urged operators to work together to avoid unnecessary competition and so the synchronisation was called ’Korea 5G Day’ marking the start of 5G becoming mainstream for consumers.   

BT blocks Huawei’s 5G
Despite its long term partnership with Huawei technology for its fixed-line network, BT has announced it will not use its 5G equipment in the UK roll out. According to the BBC, BT will still use the Chinese company’s phone mast antennas and other products deemed not to be “core” part of the service due to security concerns. 

Qualcomm unveils new 5G chip
The next generation of mobile phone processor chips that will power 5G smartphones has  been unveiled by Qualcomm as the Snapdragon 855, Reuters reported. It will be available in the US from early next year and will power Samsung 5G smartphones to enable “computer vision” supporting fingerprint sensors, facial and object recognition.    

Huawei announces “groundbreaking” 3D phone
The new phone code-named Princeton is reportedly capable of taking 3D pictures and is set to go on sale within a few weeks in a move to boost sales among consumers who are finding fewer reasons to upgrade. According to Tech Central, the technology developed by Sony enables the capturing of light that bounces off surfaces to capture 3D content.

Hulu signs deal with Sony’s Funimation
The deal will see Hulu distributing new licensed and produced Japanese-animation titles starting in 2019. It is the largest agreements the streaming service has made for anime programming to date, Forbes reported. Hulu gets first refusal on rights to streaming and on-demand standing as a firerce competitor to Netflix. 

Tumblr uses ML to scrap pornography 
In a move to “cleanse” the social media platform from pornography, Tumblr is using machine learning (ML) algorithms to flag inappropriate content starting 17 December. According to The Register the move comes after child pornography was published last month and the Tumblr app was banned from the Apple App Store.