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Germany says China using LinkedIn to recruit informants; SoftBank funds OneWeb

TOP NEWS

* Germany's intelligence agency is alleging that Chinese intelligence is using fake social network profiles on networks such as LinkedIn Corp. to infiltrate the German government, The New York Times reports. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman has denied the allegations and urged German officials to "speak and act more responsibly." LinkedIn is a unit of Microsoft Corp.

* SoftBank Group Corp. will inject another US$500 million into U.S.-based satellite broadband provider OneWeb LLC, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a person familiar with the matter. The addition would bring SoftBank's total investment in the project to about US$1.5 billion, accelerating OneWeb's efforts to offer internet connections with substantially faster speeds than conventional systems, according to the report.

* NTT DOCOMO will repurchase 2.39% of its outstanding shares for ¥250 billion. DoCoMo will reacquire a total of 93,248,787 shares, wherein 74,599,000 shares will be bought from parent Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. for ¥200 billion. The buyback will see NTT's stake in the carrier unit decreasing to 61.4% from 63.32%.

* The Indian government will likely reject Apple Inc.'s request to defer a planned increase in import taxes on mobile phone parts, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

PAN-ASIAN NEWS

* Indonesian telco XL Axiata partnered with Australian telco Vocus Group Ltd. in an undersea cable construction project. The cable network, which will be operated in the first quarter of next year, will connect Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.

JAPAN

* Kin Chan, an activist investor in Toshiba Corp. and chief investment officer of Hong Kong-based Argyle Street Management, told Toshiba that the sale of its chip unit to a Bain Capital-led group was not necessary after a recent ¥600 billion capital injection, Reuters reports.

* Tokyo-based Preferred Networks Inc., a startup offering deep learning technologies for Internet of Things, raised more than ¥2 billion in a series B funding round. Hitachi Ltd., Mitsui & Co. Ltd., Mizuho Bank Ltd. and Hakuhodo DY Holdings Inc. invested about ¥500 million each. The fund will be used to expand its information systems for artificial intelligence as well as the acquisition of human resources.

* Rakuten Inc. said that its vacation rental services unit Rakuten Lifull Stay Inc. formed a business alliance with global online travel agent Booking.com to list properties on the latter's Vacation Stay service.

SOUTH KOREA

* Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., together with Swiss automation company ABB, Chinese venture capital firm Tsing Capital, and Hong Kong's investment firm Waterwood, made a US$20 million investment in Chinese machine vision-based AI company Vion Technologies Inc., Yonhap Infomax reports.

* In other Samsung news, the company's email and web-browsing apps recorded 100 million downloads, Yonhap News Agency reports. Both apps, titled Samsung Email and Samsung Internet, are pre-installed in Samsung smartphones.

* Naver Corp.'s technology affiliate Naver Labs applied for 56 patents in 2017, Seoul Daily reports. The company focuses on technologies related to robots, autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence, and plans to apply for machine learning-related technology patents overseas in 2018.

* The first Apple Store in South Korea will open in the Gangnam area of Seoul on Dec. 30, ET News reports.

* Afreeca TV's pilot season for popular game Playerunknown's Battlegrounds League officially began at the company's open studio in Seoul with 18 South Korean teams and two Chinese teams competing to win 200 million South Korean won, Money Today reports.

CHINA, HONG KONG AND TAIWAN

* Baidu Inc.'s Baidu Ventures will partner with the Rain Fund of Funds to set up China's largest fund in the artificial intelligence sector worth 2 billion yuan. The fund will be used to build a venture center, global technology transfer area and an industrial demonstration area in Guangzhou Development District in Guangdong province, Yicai Global reports, citing Southern Metropolis Daily.

* Taiwan-based data center service provider Quanta Cloud Technology will set up a telecom lab with Intel Corp. and RedHat, DigiTimes reports. Located in Silicon Valley, the lab, which will be in place in February 2018, will focus on cloud solutions for 5G central offices.

* Lenovo Group Ltd. launched the Industrial Big Data Application Alliance, China Money Network reports. Under the alliance, over 80 companies from the fields of AI, big data, Internet of Things, cloud computing, augmented reality, virtual reality and robotics will aim to standardize industrial big data.

* Ericsson AB won a $75 million settlement in a patent case filed against Chinese handset maker TCL Corp. after a U.S. court ruled in its favor, Affärsvärlden reports.

* Meanwhile, TCL CEO Li Dongshang said the company will work with Cisco Systems Inc. on industrial networking and smart manufacturing. The Chinese company also plans to integrate its display business with its TV chip and mobile phone units, according to Yicai Global.

INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA

* Tata Communications Ltd. will soon spin off its property holdings into a separate company, Mint reports. The Indian government, which holds a 26% stake in the telco, and existing shareholders will get shares in the soon-to-be-listed new entity.

* Chinese smartphone maker Oppo received the green light to set up a mobile manufacturing unit in Greater Noida, India, for 22 billion rupees, a senior government official told The Economic Times (India).

* Tez, the mobile payment service of Google Inc. in India, is working on getting small merchants and stores to use the app for payments, The Economic Times (India) reports. Google also announced the launch of the Posts feature in India to give users timely updates directly from verified users such as celebrities, brands and organizations.

* Balaji Telefilms Ltd.-owned streaming service ALTBalaji is offering its original shows in three regional languages – Malayalam, Telugu, and Tamil, according to Television Post.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

* Singtel and Ericsson conducted a joint trial of Licensed-Assisted Access technology to boost the Singaporean telco's LTE services. The two companies managed to achieve a 1.1Gbps of peak speed, which was faster than the previous LTE peak speed.

* Thailand-based telco Total Access Communication Public Co. Ltd., or Dtac, will request a one-year extension of its 850MHz and 1800MHz concessions if the telecom regulator fails to auction the bands before Dtac's concessions expire in Sep. 2018, the Bangkok Post reports.

* Malaysia's U Mobile Sdn Bhd reported a positive EBITDA but recorded 458 million ringgit in losses this year, Edge Markets reports. The company plans for an IPO next year after Malaysia's 2018 general election.

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

* The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is threatening to sue TPG Telecom Ltd. if it does not follow the lead of Singtel Optus Pty. Ltd. and Telstra Corp. Ltd. in compensating NBN customers who were overcharged for internet packages that failed to achieve promised speeds, The Australian reports. Optus offered to compensate more than 8,700 of its customers who were misled about maximum speeds.

* News Corp Australia Pty. Ltd. will cease reporting print sales of its Australian newspapers and will instead issue data that combines print and online readership, The Australian Financial Review reports.

* European ride-sharing service Taxify is launching in Australia, according to The Australian Financial Review.

FEATURED NEWS

Data Dispatch: US tax reform a mixed bag for tech giants: With a final tax reform bill moving closer to passage by Congress, analysts said the legislation has a mixed appeal for large U.S. technology companies, some of which already pay effective tax rates below the proposed 20% federal rate.

Diversity Spotlight: Advertisers navigate fragmented audiences, social backlash: As advertisers navigate fragmented audiences and vocal consumers on social media, diversity has transitioned from being an issue of compliance to a business-critical engine for success, ad executives and experts said in interviews.

FEATURED RESEARCH

The Best Of: Kagan research and analysis, editor's picks: Presenting the editor's top picks from Kagan's exclusive research and analysis for the week ended Dec. 8.

Nozomi Ibayashi, Nicole Shiwon Kim, Frances Wang, Kevin Osmond and Wil Hathaway contributed to this reports. The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 7 a.m. Hong Kong time. Some external links may require a subscription.