Samsung Galaxy Note 7 preorders start in S. Korea

South Korea's three mobile carriers -- SK Telecom Co., KT Corp., and LG Uplus Corp. -- said Saturday they began taking preorders for Samsung Electronics Co.'s latest Galaxy Note 7, which is expected to hit the local market later this month.South Korean customers can preorder the smartphone on the operators' web sites. Preorders for the newest Galaxy phablet can also be made at the mobile carriers' local retail stores.The Galaxy Note 7 with 64GB of capacity is priced at around 988,900 won (US$880

Aug. 6, 2016

Will Apple Music rock Korean market?

Apple Inc. surprised the local music and mobile service industry Friday by abruptly launching its streaming music service Apple Music in South Korea. The tech giant simultaneously launched Apple Music in 110 countries in July of last year, but had left it unserviced in the South Korean market for more than a year.Its sudden decision to start up the service drew mixed reactions, raising questions on its impact on the music service industry here, which has so far been dominated by local firms.Kore

Aug. 5, 2016

Star designers back Apple in patent dispute

Star designers sided with Apple in a longstanding court battle with Samsung Electronics, according to news reports. More than 100 design experts told the U.S. Supreme Court that Samsung should pay the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to Apple for infringing the patented designs of iPhone, in a brief filed with the court on Thursday. The big names include Calvin Klein, Paul Smith and Alexander Wang and Lord Norman Foster, who is the designer behind Apple’s Campus 2 project.The Supreme C

Aug. 5, 2016

Powervoice in the spotlight for its speaker verification solution for e-payments

Powervoice, a voice recognition company, announced on Aug. 1 that the company and BC Card would be releasing a mobile speaker recognition service within the year.The speaker recognition service is a program that uses voice biometric software to certify e-payments through a sample of the user’s voice saved on a smartphone instead of a PIN number.Founded in 2002, Powervoice is a voice and speaker recognition solution company with annual revenues of 5.2 billion won ($4.7 million) as of 2015. Until

Aug. 5, 2016

[Photo News] Galaxy S7 Edge Olympics edition

Brazil’s water polo national team members pose on Wednesday after receiving Galaxy S7 Olympic Edition smartphones at the Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Studio set up inside the athlete’s village in Rio. Samsung is a Worldwide Olympic Partner for wireless communication equipment at the 2016 Summer Olympics.(Samsung Electronics)

Aug. 4, 2016

50 Naver, Daum, KakaoTalk accounts wiretapped in H1

South Korean Internet giants Naver and Kakao together provided the government access to a total of 50 user accounts upon the state's request to wiretap them for investigative purposes during the first half of this year, records revealed by the two companies showed Wednesday.All Korean companies are currently mandated by law to hand over personal user data, such as chat records and emails, to the government, which can request such information for serious criminal investigations, Kakao said.Naver

Aug. 4, 2016

LG unveils September launch date for V20

LG Electronics on Thursday announced plans for the worldwide launch of its premium large-size smartphone LG V20 early next month. Its first launch event is set for San Francisco on Sept. 6, with another in Seoul on Sept. 7.The South Korean electronics-maker sent out a poster invitation to local and global media titled “Play More,” featuring the image of a pop-up book and text reading “The second story begins, LG V20.”The LG V20 -- categorized as a “phablet,” a combination of a phone and tablet -

Aug. 4, 2016

Preorders for Galaxy Note 7 to begin this week

South Korea’s three network operators on Thursday said they will begin receiving preorders for the newly released Samsung Galaxy Note 7 from this weekend at the local price of 988,900 won ($890) per device. SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus announced they will open up preorders for the Galaxy Note 7 at online and offline retailers from 9 a.m. on Saturday. The device is available locally only in the 64GB version and in three colors -- blue coral, gold platinum and silver titanium.The Samsung Galaxy Not

Aug. 4, 2016

Kakao to launch selfie app this month

Kakao, the operator of South Korea’s top mobile messaging app KakaoTalk, on Thursday said it will launch a new mobile selfie application called KakaoTalk Cheez this month.　The app will allow users to take photos and videos, and decorate them with various moving stickers, filters as well as Kakao’s flagship Kakao Friends characters.  (Kakao)Some standout features will include a function which digitally decorates a user’s face to resemble a Kakao Friends character and an option through which a use

Aug. 4, 2016

Park visits nursing home to promote telemedicine

President Park Geun-hye on Thursday visited a provincial nursing home to promote a pilot telemedicine program designed to offer the elderly and others in hard-to-reach areas easier access to quality medical services, her office Cheong Wa Dae said.Her visit to the nursing home in Seosan, a city 151 kilometers south of Seoul, was the latest in the recent series of on-site tours to promote various government policies and evaluate whether they have been properly implemented.Park met with those who r

Aug. 4, 2016

K-ITC Born2Global Center and its Members ⑦ KukuDocs

On July 28, the cloud office company KukuDocs (CEO: Lee YuHo) announced that, with the recent elimination of ActiveX programs, demand for a cloud-based HTML5 viewer is increasing rapidly. “Until now, ActiveX had served as an impediment to the introduction of a cloud environment. But now that the government, financial institutions, and corporations are all removing ActiveX, the demand for a cloud-based office system, of which an HTML5 viewer is a major part, has increased significantly,” KukuDocs

Aug. 4, 2016

New Galaxy Note to excel its predecessor in sales: top official

The Galaxy Note 7, Samsung Electronics Co.'s latest high-end smartphone, is likely to sell better than its predecessors, which may help the world's largest maker of smartphones log decent earnings in the current quarter, industry sources said Thursday.Samsung unveiled the phablet, the successor to the Note 5, in New York on Tuesday in a bid to keep up the momentum of its smartphone sales. The launch of the Galaxy Note 7 came ahead of the latest iPhone launch, expected in the autumn, and days aft

Aug. 4, 2016

Science festival kicks off for 4-day run

A science festival showcasing the latest technology and the leading edge in science kicked off in Seoul on Thursday.Hosted by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, the annual Korea Science Festival 2016, the 20th of its kind, commenced its four-day run in southern Seoul.Visitors will be able to experience the development of science technology over the past 50 years, the organizer said.State-of-the-art technology will also allow visitors to see what it could be like in next 100 years,

Aug. 4, 2016

Samsung said in talks to buy assets of Fiat auto parts unit

Samsung Electronics Co. is in advanced talks to buy some or all of the operations of auto-parts maker Magneti Marelli from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, according to people familiar with the matter.Samsung is particularly interested in Magneti Marelli’s lighting, in-car entertainment and telematics business and could consider an acquisition of the whole company, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are private. The deal could be worth more than $3 billion with a goal o

Aug. 3, 2016

Galaxy Note 7 shows off bolstered security, stunning design

[THE INVESTOR] NEW YORK -- Since its 2011 launch, not many expected that Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Note smartphone would survive the tough competition with smaller-size peers including Apple’s iPhone, the most popular option at the time.The Note lineup, which had its latest and sixth model Note 7 unveiled Tuesday in New York, has evolved and gained a great deal of popularity for itself along the way, so much so that almost all global smartphone makers that used to look down on the Note phablet

Aug. 3, 2016

Samsung SDS steps up mobile security business in Europe

Samsung SDS, the IT solutions affiliate of Samsung Group, is expanding its mobile security solution business into the European market, company officials said on Wednesday. The tech firm recently partnered with the U.K. banking and financial services company Barclays to back the development of digital banking services together with Samsung Electronics. Under the partnership, Samsung Electronics is set to provide its mobile security platform KNOX while Samsung SDS plans to offer its mobile authent

Aug. 3, 2016

[Photo News] LG promotes Korea in Time Square

LG Electronics started this week to run promotion videos of Korean cultural heritage in Times Square, New York. The company said the 60 second video ad that portrays 11 cultural heritages and Bulguksa Temple will be displayed throughout August. Cultural Heritage Administration.

Aug. 3, 2016

Samsung expands biosimilars business with new affiliate

South Korean tech giant Samsung Group is working to expand its biosimilars business beyond Samsung Bioepis, the group’s drug developing unit specializing in making biosimilar drugs, according to industry sources on Wednesday. 　Archigen Biotech Ltd., a joint venture between Samsung BioLogics and U.K.-based AstraZeneca, on June 20 applied for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval to initiate phase 3 clinical trials for SAIT101, a biosimilar drug referencing Biogen’s Rituxan (rituximab).

Aug. 3, 2016