Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say they've developed an automatic "intelligent co-pilot" for cars that can help drivers avoid obstacles.The system can cause a vehicle to steer itself automatically around an obstacle, transitioning control back to the driver once the danger has passed, an MIT release said Friday.The semiautonomous safety system uses an onboard camera and las

TechnologyJuly 15, 2012

Three foreign law firms have been allowed to offer foreign legal consultancy services in South Korea for the first time, the Justice Ministry said Sunday.   The three firms permitted to open branches in Seoul to provide international law-related consultancy services are Ropes & Gray, Sheppard Mullin and Clifford Chance, the ministry said, noting they registered themselves as foreign legal consulta

July 15, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) -- Visa, MasterCard and major banks agreed to pay retailers at least $6 billion to settle a long-running lawsuit that alleged the card issuers conspired to fix the fees that stores pay to accept credit cards. As part of the settlement, announced late Friday, stores from Rite Aid to Kroger will be allowed to charge customers more if they pay using a credit card.The pact, which is bein

BusinessJuly 14, 2012

LG Display Co., the world's No. 2 maker of liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels, said Friday it has agreed to pay US$380 million to settle a U.S. class-action lawsuit over alleged price-fixing in the LCD market.LG Display agreed to pay the amount to U.S. consumers and eight state governments, including the states of California and New York, to settle the case that was lodged in 2007, the company sa

IndustryJuly 14, 2012

South Korea’s central bank said Friday that it has revised its projection on the nation’s GDP growth rate for 2012 to 3 percent.The figure is lower than the Bank of Korea’s earlier prediction of 3.5 percent in April and 3.7 percent in December 2011.The BOK’s GDP outlook is even bleaker than that forecast by the Finance Ministry last month, which was 3.3 percent. In its “Economic Outlook for Second Half of 2012,” the bank said that growth levels are projected to be 2.7 percent for the first half

July 13, 2012

Major foreign investment banks expect South Korea to cut its key interest rate one more time within the year to buttress the faltering economy weighed down by the eurozone jitters, a report showed Friday.Foreign IBs, including Nomura and HSBC, predict the central bank to slash the benchmark rate by 0.25 percentage point to 2.75 percent as early as September or by the end of this year at the latest, according to the report by the Korea Center for International Finance.The Bank of Korea on Thursda

July 13, 2012

Sales of cars fueled by liquefied petroleum gas surged 20 percent in the first five months of this year mainly due to high gasoline prices, a report showed Friday.According to the Korea LPG Association report, sales of cars that run on the liquefied mixture of propane, butane and other chemicals, reached 76,209 units in the cited period, up from 63,303 an year earlier.In contrast, sales of gasoline-powered cars dropped 15 percent on-year to 286,922 units, while diesel car sales remained virtuall

July 13, 2012

Ssangyong Motor dismissed the allegation that the company sought to lay off a group of employees by rigging its financial statements in 2009.In a statement on Friday, the automaker said financial regulators had already completed their probe into the allegation of fraudulent accounting, which had been raised by some lawmakers.“The Financial Supervisory Service has also notified us that it has not found any critical misstatements in our accounting books,” a Ssangyong spokesman said.He said the FSS

IndustryJuly 13, 2012

Public companies providing exclusive services should be cautious when making price hike decisions and consider possible effects such action could have on inflation and the overall economy, South Korea’s top economic policymaker said Friday.“Public companies, unlike private ones, usually provide exclusive services. They have to make decisions (on prices) by taking into consideration their ripple effect on the whole economy,” Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan told an anti-inflation meeting.He admitted

July 13, 2012

LG Electronics Inc., the world’s No. 2 TV maker, said Thursday it has agreed with Spain’s biggest phone company Telefonica SA to provide content via its smart TVs as it moves to dominate the Latin American TV market.Under the deal, the South Korean tech behemoth will pack its cinema three-dimensional smart TV sets with more than 500 videos provided by Telefonica, which enjoys the largest share in Latin America’s telecom service market, according to LG.The company plans to launch the service in A

IndustryJuly 13, 2012

South Korean stocks jumped 1.54 percent on Friday as investors were relieved by China’s not-so-bad economic data and optimistic about a further rebound, analysts said. The local currency gained ground against the U.S. dollar.The Korea Composite Stock Price Index climbed 27.5 points to finish at 1,812.89, snapping a five-day decline. The main bourse plunged more than 40 points during the previous session.Trading volume was moderate at 344.2 million shares worth 4.67 trillion won ($4.06 billion),

July 13, 2012

Two major labor unions, the nation’s largest labor unions in their sectors, said they would strike in July. The Korean Metal Workers’ Union, the nation’s largest industrial union, has set up a nationwide one-day strike calling for better working conditions, members said Thursday. The move comes four years after the Korean Metal Workers’ Union has staged a collective labor action 2008. The union estimates about 130,000 workers from 211 companies will participate in the strike, making it the large

IndustryJuly 13, 2012

South Korean stocks started higher on Friday, led by gains in blue-chip shares, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) climbed 9.16 points, or 0.51 percent, to 1,794.55 in the first 15 minutes of trading.On Thursday, the KOSPI dropped 2.24 percent to close at 1,785.39 points on growing concerns over a slowdown in Asia's fourth-largest economy.Most shares gained groun

July 13, 2012

South Korea's central bank on Friday sharply cut its 2012 economic growth outlook to 3 percent as exports are feared to lose steam amid the protracted eurozone debt crisis.The downward revision by the Bank of Korea (BOK) is compared with its earlier estimate of 3.5 percent made in April. In the second half, Asia's fourth-largest economy is expected to grow 3.2 percent, picking up from a 2.7 percen

July 13, 2012

A team of South Korean scientists has developed a new substance that helps track and even prevent the spread of cancer cells from a primary tumor to adjacent organs, the science ministry said Thursday.The team, led by Prof. Lee Seong-wook of Dankook University, has developed an RNA aptamer that binds to colorectal cancer cells in a peculiar way that makes the cancer cells easily identifiable, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.Easily detectable cancer cells in turn ma

TechnologyJuly 12, 2012