Samsung hails ITC's ruling on patent infringement by Apple

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest smartphone maker, Wednesday welcomed a decision by a U.S. agency to ban imports of iPhones into one of the world's major smartphone markets.The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) said on Tuesday in Washington that Apple Inc. infringed on some of Samsung's patents in making smartphones and tablet computers, and issued an order prohibiting Apple, based in California, from importing wireless communication devices, portable music and data processin

June 5, 2013

Modified charger can hack iPhone: researchers

A group of security researchers in the United States claimed that a modified charger can instantly hack into an iPhone or iPad, raising questions over the perception that Apple’s devices are better protected. Jang Yeong-jin, Billy Lau and Chengyu Song from Georgia Institute of Technology said they have found a way to break into Apple’s current-generation devices, running on the latest operating systems, through a malicious charger. The charger, once connected to an Apple device, is designed to i

June 4, 2013

Top Dutch court rejects Apple’s sales ban request against Samsung

The top Dutch court has dismissed Apple Inc.’s request to ban sales of tablets made by Samsung Electronics Co., ruling in favor of the South Korean smartphone maker in its legal battle with the iPhone maker. The Supreme Court of the Netherlands did not agree with the U.S. firm’s accusation that its Korean rival infringed its design patents, the court said on its website on Friday.The California-based tech giant filed an injunction against Samsung, claiming it had copied Apple’s designs in its Ga

June 2, 2013

Work stress increases number of bipolar patients

The number of bipolar disorder patients in South Korea has surged in recent years, a survey showed on Sunday. According to data released by the National Health Insurance Service, the number of patients who received hospital treatment for bipolar disorder grew by 26 percent, or 12,000, over five years. Some 46,000 patients were found to have the mental illness in 2007, whereas the number climbed to 58,000 in 2011. Medical expenses for bipolar disorder treatment also increased from 55 billion won

June 2, 2013

Users welcome Facebook’s new verified pages

As Facebook launched verified pages for celebrities starting from Wednesday, users welcomed the social network’s move.Facebook started to put a small blue circle with a white check mark to indicate that the page has been authenticated. The symbol is seemingly inspired by the icon used by Twitter. Pages of high-profile figures like Barak Obama that have already gone through the verification process have the blue icon right next to their names.Facebook users welcomed the company’s new measure that

May 31, 2013

Russians find mammoth carcass with liquid blood

A perfectly preserved woolly mammoth carcass with liquid blood has been found on a remote Arctic island, fueling hopes of cloning the Ice Age animal, Russian scientists said Thursday.The carcass was in such good shape because its lower part was stuck in pure ice, said Semyon Grigoryev, the head of the Mammoth Museum, who led the expedition into the Lyakhovsky Islands off the Siberian coast.“The blood is very dark, it was found in ice cavities bellow the belly and when we broke these cavities wit

May 31, 2013

Radiation on trip to Mars near lifetime limit

Astronauts who travel on future missions to Mars would likely be exposed to their lifetime limit of radiation during the trip, not to mention time spent on the Red Planet, scientists said Thursday.The measurements were made aboard the Mars Science Laboratory, an unmanned NASA rover and mobile lab that set off for Mars in 2011 before landing 253 days later in August 2012, said the report in the US journal Science."In terms of accumulated dose, it's like getting a whole-body CT scan once every fiv

May 31, 2013

U.S. vs. European hurricane model: Which is better?

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (AP) ― When forecasters from the National Weather Service track a hurricane, they use models from several different supercomputers located around the world to create their predictions.Some of those models are more accurate than others. During Hurricane Sandy last October, for instance, the model from the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting in the United Kingdom predicted eight days before landfall that the large storm would hit the East Coast, while the A

May 30, 2013

Study reveals man’s rocky road to upright walking

PARIS (AFP) ― The rugged landscape created by volcanic eruptions and tectonic plate shifts in east and south Africa millions of years ago may be what prompted our human ancestors to start walking on two legs, a study said.The research published in the journal Antiquity challenges the commonly-held theory that early hominins (members of the broad human family) were forced onto two feet on the ground because climate change reduced the number of trees they lived in.According to the new hypothesis,

May 30, 2013

Moon may harbor alien minerals: study

PARIS (AFP) ― Minerals found in craters on the Moon may be remnants of asteroids that slammed into it and not, as long believed, the satellite’s innards exposed by such impacts, a study said Sunday.The findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, cast doubt on the little we knew of what the Moon is actually composed of.It had long been thought that meteoroids vaporize on impact with large celestial bodies.Unusual minerals like spinel and olivine found in many lunar craters, but rarely o

May 30, 2013

Smoking causes 56% of lung cancers: study

Smoking causes nearly 56 percent of lung cancer in men, a medical team in Seoul said in its report on Thursday.The study which observed about 14,600 males in Seoul for the last 16 years also revealed that smoking increased the risk of lung cancer by fourfold in comparison to those who didn’t smoke at all.Based on the percentage of male smokers in the Korean population, which is 41 percent, the team estimated that smoking may have caused 55.6 percent of lung cancer cases in men. “These results hi

May 30, 2013

‘Happy chemical’ may affect sexual preference: study

A lack of serotonin, a chemical substance known to affect a person’s mood, may affect sexual preference in mice, a new study by Chinese scholars suggested.Yi Rao of Peking University in Beijing and his colleagues conducted a study where they genetically engineered female mice so that they could not make or respond to serotonin. The researchers found that the mutated mice preferred female genital odor over that of male and generally preferred females over males as their mating partners.“We demons

May 30, 2013

Leaked image of Windows 8.1 reveals ‘Start‘ button

A leaked image of Microsoft’s Windows 8.1 is circulating on the Internet, suggesting that a start button might be included in the new minor upgrade version. Some of the leaked screenshots of Windows 8.1’s home screen have been posted on The Verge, an online tech news site on Wednesday. According to The Verge, Windows 8.1 is expected to feature a “Start“ button in an unadorned form of a Windows 8 logo on the left bottom side of the home screen, as it had been adopted on the previous versions of W

May 30, 2013

Samsung Electronics explores new design

The management team from Samsung Electronics Co. held a strategy meeting focused on design on Wednesday. At Samsung Electronics headquarters in Seocho-gu, Seoul, the whole entourage of executives, including top managers Yoon Boo-keun and Shin Jong-kyun, joined the meeting to discuss the company‘s plans for their new design.“During the conference, new ideas on current design trend in the electronics market and strategies were exchanged,” Yoon said. “Everyone at the meeting agreed that consumers s

May 29, 2013