Hyundai Motor to create more jobs for underprivileged

Hyundai Motor Group on Thursday pledged a new investment plan worth 32 billion won ($28 million) over the next five years that would support “social enterprises” and create more jobs for young job-seekers and underprivileged people. As part of the plan, the Korean auto giant said it would create 750 jobs by 2017 through a venture start-up program that inspires young people to start a new business that benefits society as well as seeking profits.  The carmaker, in cooperation with the Labor Minis

IndustryMarch 21, 2013

Samsung preparing wristwatch as it races Apple for sales

Samsung Electronics is developing a wristwatch as Asia’s biggest technology company races against Apple Inc. to create a new industry of wearable devices that perform similar tasks as smartphones. “We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long,” Lee Young-hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business, said during an interview in Seoul. “We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them.” Lee had no co

TechnologyMarch 21, 2013

KRX aims to become world’s No. 7 exchange-traded fund operator by 2020

The Korea Exchange is closely competing with bourses in major countries in the “exchange-traded fund” market.According to the nation’s main bourse operator, also called the KRX, Seoul ranked 10th in the world’s ETF market last year as the net asset value of the funds hovered around 14 trillion won ($12.8 billion).An ETF, or exchange-traded fund, refers to an investment fund traded on stock exchanges and represents a basket of stocks that reflect an index. It provides small and institutional inve

March 21, 2013

Coffee guru teaches tasting skills to professionals

A man wearing a black apron savors the aroma of a cup of coffee, and then loudly slurps the liquid so it spreads to the back of his tongue. He is one of five active Q Grader instructors in the world, and visited Seoul this week to supervise a test to accredit professional coffee tasters, or Q Graders.With Korea consuming the most coffee per household in Asia, a Q Grader is an emerging career.“Worldwide, there are close to 2,000 Q Graders now and about 15 percent of them are in Korea,” Mane Alvez

IndustryMarch 21, 2013

Hands-free toothbrush developed

Two Canadians have developed a new type of toothbrush that works by the movement of the tongue.The gadget, named “T2T” (meaning “tongue to teeth”), was created by boilermaker Adel Elseri and his friend, Said Fayad, both aged 26.They claimed that users can brush their teeth with the gizmo mounted to their tongue and coated with toothpaste.The newly developed tool is more hygienic than existing toothbrushes, Elseri and Fayad claimed.A Facebook page and Twitter account have been made to promote the

TechnologyMarch 21, 2013

Children who drink skim milk fatter

U.S. children ages 2-4 who drank skim milk or 1 percent milk had higher body mass index than those drinking whole milk, researchers say. Rebecca Scharf and Mark DeBoer, both of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and Ryan Demmer of Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University said the study involved 10,700 pre-school children. At age 2 the children body mass index was calculated and parents were asked what type of milk they gave their children. The children, a representative

TechnologyMarch 21, 2013

New 3-D method developed for mobile phones

Mobile phone users may soon be able to enjoy 3-D pictures and videos on their devices.Researchers at Hewlett-Packard Co. said that they had developed a new way of putting glassless 3-D video onto mobile phones.Although Nintendo has already adopted 3-D technology for a handheld gaming console, users can enjoy 3-D displays only by centering their eyes on the screen.The newly developed technology portrays a 3-D object by creating 64 different points of view, allowing users to see its every angle on

TechnologyMarch 21, 2013

Digital ‘talking head’ speaks for computer

A digital talking head named “Zoe” could be a first step toward a new era in human-computer interaction, British engineers say.　The virtual “talking head” can express a full range of human emotions and could be used as a digital personal assistant or to replace texting with “face messaging,” the University of Cambridge reported Tuesday.　Researchers at Toshiba‘s Cambridge Research Lab and the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering said the lifelike face can display emotions such as h

TechnologyMarch 21, 2013

[Graphic News] Chinese tourists outnumber Japanese for first time

The number of Chinese travelers to Korea exceeded Japanese travelers for the first time in February, the Korea Tourism Organization said Wednesday.KTO data revealed that about 219,400 Chinese tourists flew to Korea in February, a steep 61 percent increase compared to 132,900 in February, 2012. This indicates that three out of every 10 foreign tourists to Korea are Chinese, the KTO said. The data showed that the number of Japanese tourists who entered the country by flight between January and Feb

March 20, 2013

KFS to expand overseas plantation projects

New Korea Forest Service Minister Shin Won-sop revealed that the government agency will soon launch a “carbon sink” program through forestation.In a written interview with The Korea Herald, the minister also explained the importance of forests and the history of the nation’s policy change on tree-planting, stressing the benefits forests give to the public.He said the KFS has been also enhancing overseas tree-planting activities with the aim of increasing long-term domestic timber supply, securin

March 20, 2013

Korea celebrates International Forest Day

Thursday marks the first International Forest Day that the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed in December last year to encourage all U.N. member countries to organize forest-related activities, including tree-planting campaigns.This new annual global celebration of forests builds on the success of the International Year of Forests in 2011 and provides a platform to raise awareness of the importance of forests and trees outside forests.On the first International Day of Forests, countries

IndustryMarch 20, 2013

Korean consortium wins Uzbek power plant order

Daewoo International Corp., a trading company affiliated with steelmaker POSCO, won an $819 million contract to build a thermoelectric power plant in Uzbekistan, company officials said Wednesday.The company, in a consortium with Hyundai Engineering & Construction, signed the deal with state-run Uzbekenergo on Tuesday. The three-year project involves the construction of two 450-megawatt steam power generation complex units in the southern Talimarjan area. The construction will be implemented on a

IndustryMarch 20, 2013