[Exclusive] Samsung close to developing 5G phone: SKT CTO

BARCELONA, Spain -- Samsung Electronics has made significant progress in its 5G technologies and the tech giant is expected to produce a 5G phone in the “not so distant” future, according to Chief Technology Officer Park Jin-hyo of SK Telecom.“It is not so far for Samsung either in coming up with a 5G device,” Park told The Korea Herald while attending the Mobile World Congress 2018 on Monday in Barcelona, Spain.　The comments came as China’s up-and-coming Huawei announced its first 5G chipset Ba

Feb. 26, 2018

[MWC 2018] Camera is top feature of Galaxy S9: Samsung CEO

BARCELONA, Spain -- DJ Koh, head of Samsung Electronics’ smartphone business, said Sunday that the cameras of the flagship Galaxy S9 and S9+ smartphones are what he wants to highlight the most. After coming down from the stage of the “Unpacked 2018” event, Koh met with The Korea Herald and pinpointed key features of the new phones.“I would definitely put the camera first among others,” he said. “Then I also want to highlight the stereo sound and preloaded SmartThings platform on both Galaxy S9 a

Feb. 26, 2018

[MWC 2018] World’s biggest mobile show pictures a better future with 5G

BARCELONA, Spain – ‘The 5G world is just around the corner’ is the key message from the Mobile World Congress 2018 which kicks off Monday for a four-day exhibition in Barcelona, Spain. Under the main theme of “Creating a Better Future,” mobile operators, vendors and policymakers from around the world will be showcasing their up-to-date 5G technologies and services for life and society at Fira Gran Via and Fira Monjuic. Compared to last year’s show that concluded the 5G world was yet too distant

Feb. 26, 2018

Samsung, Vodafone announce IoT strategic partnership

Samsung Electronics and Vodafone Group on Monday announced a strategic partnership in certain European markets to create a range of Internet of Things-based smart home products and services. The suite of products and services will bring together Samsung’s SmartThings open platform and the V by Vodafone consumer IoT system.  SmartThings Home Monitoring Kit from Samsung (Samsung)By connecting devices to the phone, including security cameras and smoke detectors, users of the V-Home by Vodafone syst

Feb. 26, 2018

[Tech Brunch] SKT aims for more complex quantum cryptographic techs

Tech Brunch breaks down how complex technologies work. -- Ed. Quantum cryptography, the science of utilizing quantum mechanics to perform cryptographic tasks, is rising as an essential data security technology to replace existing security solutions in the upcoming era of 5G network and Internet of Things. In an interview with The Korea Herald last week, Cho Seok-beom, Ph.D manager at Quantum Tech. Lab of South Korean mobile carrier SK Telecom, said keys encrypted with photons are “highly sensiti

Feb. 26, 2018

[MWC 2018] SKT takes over world’s top quantum cryptographic firm IDQ

BARCELONA, Spain -- SK Telecom announced Monday it would acquire the world’s No. 1 quantum cryptographic business, based in Switzerland, as a move to strengthen data security in the next-generation network. The Swiss company acquired by SKT is IDQ, which announced the world’s first quantum random number generator in 2002 and launched the first quantum key distribution service in 2006. The South Korean mobile carrier announced the acquisition on the opening day of the Mobile World Congress 2018 i

Feb. 26, 2018

Entertaining features stand out in Samsung Galaxy S9 series

BARCELONA, Spain -- At first sight, Samsung Electronics’ newest flagship Galaxy S9 and S9+ smartphones have few design or display features to amaze. But the ninth edition of its luxury Galaxy line has a handful of significant changes inside. The latest Samsung smartphones debuted Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, are more entertaining, immersive and personalized. The South Korean tech giant has applied augmented reality technology to emojis -- digital images used to express ideas and emotions -- for t

Feb. 26, 2018

LG upgrades V30 smartphone with AI camera

BARCELONA, Spain -- Instead of revealing a new flagship G series model for the first half of this year, LG Electronics unveiled Sunday an upgraded version of last year’s V30 smartphone with camera functions based on artificial intelligence. Named “V30S ThinQ,” the latest LG smartphone is the first mobile device to adopt the firm’s AI platform ThinQ, which was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the company said on the eve of the opening of the Mobile World Congress 2018 in Ba

Feb. 25, 2018

[Photo News] LG unveils new smartphone at MWC

MWC DEBUT -- Models showcase LG Electronics’ premium smartphone V30S ThinQ enhanced with artificial intelligence-based camera functions in Barcelona, Spain, Sunday, ahead of the opening of the Mobile World Congress 2018. (LG Electronics)

Feb. 25, 2018

Samsung diversifies board as Lee Jae-yong prepares for return

Samsung Electronics brought on a foreign executive and female board member Friday, in its first meeting of the board since Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was released from jail on Feb. 5.At the meeting held at the company‘s Suwon headquarters Friday, the board agreed to name Jeong Kim, chairman at Kiswe Mobile, Kim Sun-wook, former president of Ewha Womans University, and Park Byung-gook, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Seoul National University, as independent directors of the

Feb. 23, 2018

KMPC aims to build infrastructure for gene function analysis

The Korea Mouse Phenotype Consortium is seeing the fruits of its efforts to discover and interpret human gene functions. The KMPC helped a breakthrough in the field of genetics as part of the International Mouse Phenotype Consortium, which published its research on “Nature Genetics” in June 2017. The study revealed previously unknown functions of 3,328 human genes that traditional genetic testing could not identify. Professor Seong Je-kyung from Seoul National University, who is the director of

Feb. 22, 2018

Aruba to push growth in 2018 through ‘big deals’

HPE Aruba is planning to pursue aggressive market share growth in Korea in 2018 by focusing its energies on landing big enterprise deals, according to the company‘s country manager for South Korea on Thursday.“I believe that Aruba is the only vendor in the networking field that can compete against Cisco for big deals,” said Charles Kang, country manager for Korea at a press conference Thursday in Seoul.HPE Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, is a leading provider of next-generation netw

Feb. 22, 2018

Samsung to showcase Galaxy S9 using augmented reality: sources

Samsung Electronics Co. will unveil its new Galaxy S9 smartphone using augmented reality technology at its launch event next week, industry sources said Thursday. Samsung is set to take the wraps off the Galaxy S9 smartphone in Barcelona at 6 p.m. Sunday on the eve of the opening of the Mobile World Congress, the world's largest gathering for the mobile communications industry.During the event, the South Korean tech giant will allow attendees to visualize the new smartphone with Unpacked 2018, a

Feb. 22, 2018

Naver investing heavily in marrying search and AI, but it's a rocky relationship

Korea‘s largest search engine platform Naver is focusing its energies in 2018 on marrying its core business of search with the customizing capabilities of artificial intelligence, but there are many hurdles ahead, according to the company’s chief executive Wednesday.At the annual Naver Connect 2018 conference, where Naver reaches out to creators and small business owners who operate on their platforms, Naver Chief Executive Han Seong-sook told reporters that the largest change to the company thi

Feb. 21, 2018

SKT upgrades IoT connectivity with LTE Cat.M1

SK Telecom said Wednesday that it is expanding its Internet of Things hybrid connectivity with the addition of a new nationwide network called Long-term Evolution Cat.M1, to be commercialized starting in April. An image of SK Telecom's booth at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona starting Feb. 26. (SK Telecom)The new network will supplement the existing LoRa and LTE Cat.1 networks, handling mid-tier data between the small data handled by the LoRa network and the larger data connected

Feb. 21, 2018

Samsung chases after TSMC with new 7-nanometer foundry plant

The world’s top memory chip provider Samsung Electronics is set to break ground this week for a new foundry plant equipped with cutting-edge process technologies in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, in a bid to catch up with Taiwan’s foundry business TMSC. According to Samsung on Wednesday, the company is scheduled to hold a ceremony with around 100 local residents in Hwaseong on Friday to mark the ground-breaking of the new plant. “The new plant is so far planned to be used largely for foundry produ

Feb. 21, 2018

LG Uplus applies drones to city’s emergency monitoring system

LG Uplus said Tuesday the company had established a drone-based video system to monitor emergency situations in the Secho district in southern Seoul. The latest establishment tells the company has started to apply drones to social infrastructure that improves public safety, the mobile carrier said. A camera-equipped drone will record at emergency sites that are hard for rescue teams to approach and send the footage in real time to smartphones, PCs and internet protocol TVs via the company’s Long

Feb. 20, 2018

Are AR games still relevant?

Despite continuing developments in augmented reality technologies, AR games -- the most common way consumers have experienced augmented reality -- have gone stagnant following the explosive popularity of Niantic’s “Pokemon Go” last year. Models test out virtual reality gaming systems at VRIGHT, a virtual reality theme park from KT and GS Retail set to open March 1. (KT)According to a recent survey from digital research firm DMC Media, just 6.4 percent of respondents said that they had installed

Feb. 20, 2018

KT, KIST succeed in one-to-many quantum encrypted communication

KT, KIST succeed in one-to-many quantum encrypted communicationTelecom company KT and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology said Monday that they had succeeded in sending one-to-many quantum encrypted communication on KT‘s commercial network. KT employees test the one-to-many quantum encryption network at the company’s research lab in Seocho-gu, Seoul. (KT)The test was the first time that the company succeeded in one-to-many transmissions using quantum encryption. Last year, KT and KIST

Feb. 19, 2018