Faced with a lack of demand for educational robots on the domestic front, two Korean mobile carriers and major players of the smart robot market are turning their eyes toward overseas markets. Releasing its first and second smart robots named Kibot 1 and 2 in Korea two years ago, KT, the second largest mobile service provider, tried to capitalize on the new market. The telecom firm, however, has suffered from slow sales and stock is piling up. Almost 20,000 units are in stock and not being sold,

July 22, 2013

Within 50 years, climate change will probably wipe out the world’s most endangered feline, the Iberian lynx, even if the world meets its target for curbing carbon emissions, biologists said on Sunday.The gloomy forecast, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, says that without a dramatic shift in conservative strategy, the charismatic little wildcat seems doomed.The lynx ― Latin name “Lynx pardinus” ― grows to about a meter in length, weighs up to 15 kilos, and is characterized by its s

July 22, 2013

GENEVA (AP) ― After a quarter-century of searching, scientists have nailed down how one particularly rare subatomic particle decays into something else ― a discovery that adds certainty to our thinking about how the universe began and keeps running.The world’s top particle physics lab said it had measured the decay time of a particle known as a Bs meson into two other fundamental particles called muons, which are much heavier than but similar to electrons. It was observed as part of the reams of

July 21, 2013

How long does it take for hackers to break into the secure network of a commercial bank in South Korea? A team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, under an agreement with the bank, managed to unlock its security protection in just a couple of weeks. The simulated cyber attack, led by Lim Chae-ho, professor of information security at KAIST, worked as follows: When an official of the bank opened an email sent by the hackers, malware hidden in the email quickly infiltrated

July 19, 2013

South Korea is taking belated-yet-necessary-steps to train more cyber security experts following a series of disruptive hacking attacks that paralyzed broadcasters, banks and government agencies. Ominously, many of the attacks reportedly originate in North Korea, which is technically still at war with the South. “Generally, the defense military force needs to be about three or four times bigger than the attacking army. North Korea produces about 300 cyber attackers annually, but we are only at t

July 19, 2013

A string of cyber attacks have bombarded South Korea in recent years, leading to massive leaks of personal information stored in banks, government agencies and corporations. In January 2008, hackers stole the personal data of some 18.6 million users of online shopping mall Auction. Three years later, SK Communications, which runs the online search engine Nate.com and social network service Cyworld, fell victim to data theft of its combined 35 million users ― roughly 70 percent of South Korea’s t

July 19, 2013

An elderly lady in her early 60s came into the hospital. She had experienced sharp pain in her left breast for two to three days, together with cold symptoms. Previously, she had taken cold medicine and used heat patches from the local pharmacy to ease the pain. However, the pain gradually worsened and became so severe that she had difficulty breathing. After removing the heat patches the next day, she noticed small blisters on the skin which she thought were an allergic reaction to the patches

July 18, 2013

To have the best summer vacation, travelers should put together personalized first aid kits and learn how to properly use medications as well as deal with emergencies, health authorities and doctors said Thursday. Also, vacationers should take necessary steps to keep food safe and remove contact lenses and hearing aids when swimming, they added.According to a list of health recommendations released by the Ministry of Food and Drugs, travelers should prepare personalized first aid kits in accorda

July 18, 2013

LG Electronics has officially ditched the Optimus brand, announcing on Thursday its decision to name its latest flagship smartphone “LG G2.”The name change was perceived mostly as an attempt to revamp brand image, and even LG conceded that it was time for a change as LG smartphones have been associated with mainly mid-end devices. “Without the Optimus brand, we believe that the G series will be more competitive in the global premium handheld market,” an LG official said. Built with Qualcomm’s 2.

July 18, 2013

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) ― Researchers in Utah said Wednesday they discovered a new type of big-nosed, horned-faced dinosaur that lived about 76 million years ago in the area of what is now the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.The discovery of the creature, named “Nasutoceratops titusi,” was described in the British scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and by officials at the National History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City.The dinosaur was a wide-bodied plant-eater, said

July 18, 2013

Dell used to be known as a PC-and-laptop company. But in Korea, one of the most wired countries in the world, the company has successfully completed a transformation into a computing solution firm.“We are now a stable and valuable member in the infrastructure and solution industry, and we have a significant stake in cloud computing, big data, data centers, and so on. Dell is now a part of all of this,” said Kim Kyeong-deog, president of Dell Korea. Enterprise solutions and services are the top a

July 17, 2013