Korean game developers are seeking to follow webtoons’ successful jump to films and global streaming platforms. According to South Korean game developer Krafton, “Bystanders,” a short film based on the company’s renowned battle royale game, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, recorded over 1 million views on the “PUBG: Battlegrounds” YouTube channel as of Monday. The two-part project surprised both local and global viewers when its first short film, &ldquo

Samsung Biologics has won the 2022 CMO Leadership Awards in all six performance categories of capabilities, compatibility, expertise, reliability, quality and service, the company said Tuesday. The awards, presented by Life Science Leader, Outsourced Pharma and Industry Standard Research, recognize the world’s top contract manufacturing organizations based on ratings and feedback from companies that utilize outsourcing services. The latest recognition marked the ninth consecutive year

Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman is set to perform in Korea in the coming weeks after a couple of delays in ticketing. The celebrated pianist will visit Korea later this month with some changes in the schedule, according to Mast Media, the organizer of Zimerman‘s recitals. Previously, it was unclear whether Zimmerman, who travels with his own instrument, would be able to make it to the country as the recent surge in COVID-19 cases got in the way of transporting his piano. Amid the uncer

Asan Medical Center, one of South Korea's five major hospitals, said Tuesday it will open a separate infectious disease facility to better battle the pandemic. The Center for Infection Control (CIC), located next to the general hospital's main wing in Seoul, will begin operations Thursday. It marks the first time for a private hospital to open a separate building wholly dedicated to infectious diseases. "We will actively work to overcome the national crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic,"

Gaming giant Krafton said Tuesday it has released artificial intelligence-based virtual human characters, who will appear as hyperreal game show hosts and virtual friends on the metaverse platform. The virtual human characters show human-like skin and hair, facial expressions and eye movements, according to the company. In Krafton’s virtual human demo video, a female character shows realistic wrinkles on her nose, forehead and around her eyes as she squints. “Unlike other local ga

Seohyun of K-pop girl group Girls’ Generation has shed her image as a girl-next-door in her debut film “Love and Leashes,” a rom-com directed by Park Hyun-jin. “When I first read the script, it was fresh and shocking. It was a role that made me want to take up the challenge as an actor,” Seohyun said during an online press conference held on Tuesday. “Not only did it (the script) have a unique topic, it also showed how a man and a woman come to understand the

Controversy helps widen Yoon Suk-yeol's lead in ongoing race

South Korea’s daily COVID-19 infections stayed above 35,000 for a fourth straight day for the 24 hours of Monday, government data showed Tuesday. According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the country’s daily COVID-19 cases for the day marked 36,719, raising the total to 1,081,681. The daily infections Monday was a twofold increase from the same day of the prior week, when the country’s COVID-19 cases reached 18,340. The figure is also around four times

Korean Air customers flying on domestic routes can now pass through the boarding gate empty handed -- as the airline has adopted palm vein scanning to verify passengers’ identities.  According to the air carrier on Tuesday, those aged above 7 with Korean nationality can register their biometric information at Korean Air kiosks in Gimpo International Airport’s departure area. Passengers who do so can simply scan their palms at the boarding gate without having to show their board

President Moon Jae-in called Tuesday for measures to guarantee voting rights of virus patients and people in self-isolation in the upcoming presidential election amid concerns that the ongoing COVID-19 crisis could prevent hundreds of thousands of voters from casting their ballots. Under current election rules, it is virtually impossible for those who are diagnosed with COVID-19 after the early voting period that falls on March 4-5 and people who go into self-isolation just before the March 9

No message toward Seoul or Washington was delivered amid escalated tensions on the peninsula after NK’s barrage of missile launches

Some 400,000 people were found to have left Seoul to move to neighboring metropolitan areas last year, government data showed Tuesday, with surging housing prices being cited as the key reason behind the exodus. According to Statistics Korea, a total of 406,975 people submitted change-of-address requests from Seoul addresses last year. Of the total, 362,116 moved to Gyeonggi Province, while 44,859 left for Incheon. The latest data corresponds with the Seoul city government’s data relea

An association of disability groups in South Korea is continuing their protest actions at subway stations, disrupting operations during the morning rush hour for the fourth weekday in a row. On Tuesday, some members of the Solidarity against Disability Discrimination staged a rally at Chungmuro Station at around 7:30 a.m., demanding the government do more to help disabled people. “The protest by the disability rights group, which was held on the morning of Feb. 8, ended at 10:18 a.m.,

LG CNS said Tuesday it has signed a strategic agreement with cloud giant Amazon Web Services to expand cloud services for corporate clients. Under the agreement, the two companies aim to meet demand for application modernization, by updating old software and modernizing their computing platform for clients in the fields of finance, manufacturing and e-commerce. Clients will be encouraged to build cloud-native applications independently to optimize their applications on cloud infrastructure pr

South Korea's finance minister said Tuesday global credit appraisers are concerned about the growth pace of the country's national debt, which could negatively affect its sovereign rating over the medium term. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki also reiterated his opposition to political parties' push for sharply jacking up a proposed extra budget of 14 trillion won ($11.7 billion), citing concerns about fiscal soundness. Ahead of the March presidential election, political parties are calling for a