The Korea Herald

Hyundai Motor gives W1.6b to Olympic archery team

IndustryAug 22, 2012

Hyundai Motor Group said Wednesday that its chairman Chung Mong-koo has awarded 1.6 billion won ($1.4 million) to the national archery team who won three gold and one bronze medal during the London Olympics. The auto giant, together with the Korea Archery Association, held a welcoming dinner at a Seoul hotel on Wednesday, with some 400 guests including the archers and their families as well as Culture and Sports Minister Choe Kwang-shik. Hyundai Motor vice chairman Chung Eui-sun, who took over h
Major privatization projects in doldrums

IndustryAug 22, 2012

Privatization of Incheon Airport, KDB Financial hangs in the air due to political resistance The Lee Myung-bak administration’s plans to privatize public institutions including the sale of a state-owned stake in Incheon International Airport have been put on hold due to opposition from politicians.Plans to privatize KDB Financial Group and find a private company to run the KTX bullet train from Suseo in southeastern Seoul also face delays or suspension.The government decided not to submit a rev
Bluebird Soft aims to strengthen business fundamentals

TechnologyAug 22, 2012

Korea’s No. 1 industrial smartphone maker eyes IPO to boost global recognitionWhen Lee Jang-won set out to establish his first venture tech firm in 1995, he built a company named Bluebird Soft that developed messenger software for enterprises.But its early tech products were “far ahead of its time,” said Lee, the founder and CEO of Bluebird Soft.“We were, then, making communication software for VoIP, and mobile and PC messengers that can be seen as today’s Kakao Talk,” Lee said.“Soft” is part o
Kakao Game Center an instant hit

TechnologyAug 22, 2012

Kakao, the creator of Korea’s most-used mobile messenger Kakao Talk, is seeing rapid growth in its mobile gaming platform business.Since the launch of Kakao Game Center on July 30, two games released via Kakao’s gaming platform have topped the charts on Google Play, an app market for Android-based smartphone users.“Anipang,” developed by Kakao’s strategic partner Sundaytoz, has become the top grossing game in Korea, edging over the popular “Rule the Sky” by JCE, part of Korea’s biggest gamer Nex
Samsung, Apple anxiously await court verdict on patent battle

TechnologyAug 22, 2012

Seoul court’s ruling may be deferred after U.S. jurors come up with conclusion early SaturdayThe world’s two global IT giants ― Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc. ― will face crucial court rulings this week to end their fierce patent fight as they came short of reaching an eleventh-hour compromise.The outcomes of their multibillion-dollar patent battles in the U.S. and Korea are scheduled to be released on Friday and Saturday.The two firms each completed their two-hour closing arguments at the c
S. Korean researchers find new way to watch 3-D movies

TechnologyAug 22, 2012

Researchers in South Korea have created a convenient way to watch 3-D movies without the glasses, according to news reports.Humans see the world in three dimensions because of the spacing between our eyes. The brain takes in the visual input from both eyes and is able to generate depth perception. The trick to achieving 3-D movies is to slightly offset the images for each eye. Therefore, in typical 3-D theaters, two different projectors display two images on the same screen. This is why the movi
Cosmetics from jellyfish’s collagen?

ScienceAug 22, 2012

The government unveiled on Wednesday an unusual plan to fight the threat of jellyfish to the country’s bathers: turning the sea creatures into cosmetics. The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said that it aims to eradicate the jellyfish by exploring ways to extract collagen from the creatures to produce commercial cosmetics.To that end, the ministry has asked the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute to conduct research to find a way to carry out the plan. If
Star Wars slowly becoming a reality?

TechnologyAug 22, 2012

The hoverbike made famous by the “Return of the Jedi” has been recreated and tested by California firm Aerofex, according to news sources. The vehicle is made from two ducted fans facing the ground. Pilots can move it by controlling the angle of these fans with two control sticks and can control the direction of flight by simply leaning in the desired direction.Initial plans to recreate the hoverbike were called off because of the complex control system. However, Aerofex was able to create a sys
Samsung secures over 10 pct share of global semiconductor market

IndustryAug 22, 2012

Samsung Electronics Co., the world‘s top memory chip maker, extended its share of the global semiconductor market to more than 10 percent in the second quarter of the year, a U.S. market researcher said Tuesday.According to market information provider iSupply, Samsung accounted for 10.1 percent of the global semiconductor market in the April-June period, or US$7.57 billion, to rank second among the world’s major chip makers.It marks the first time that Samsung‘s global market share has topped th
Working-level talks held for Northeast Asia FTA

BusinessAug 21, 2012

South Korea, China and Japan on Tuesday held their second round of working-level meetings in the Chinese city of Qingdao to discuss launching free trade talks within the year, Seoul's foreign ministry said. During the talks, trade officials from the three countries agreed to continue efforts for arrangements required for the launch of the trilateral free trade negotiations by the year-end, accordi
Toyota strives to placate angry consumers

IndustryAug 21, 2012

Consumers preparing to file class action suit over fuel efficiencyToyota Motor Corp.’s Korean unit is grappling to block a possible class action suit by a group of consumers arguing that the automaker fabricated the fuel-efficiency figures of some hybrid cars.This comes as some local owners of eco-friendly vehicles from Toyota and Lexus, the premium brand of the Japanese company, are inviting similar complaints on a website for a joint litigation.The angry consumers claim that the “high fuel-ef
Production in Gaeseong park rises

Aug 21, 2012

Despite little progress in inter-Korean relations, production in North Korea’s Gaeseong Industrial Complex, which houses South Korean factories is increasing, data showed.According to a report released by the Unification Ministry in Seoul, production in the first half of this year in the GIC located in the border city of Gaeseong soared 23 percent from the same period last year.The number of North Korean workers in the industrial park, which amounted to 46,194 in January last year, rose to 51,31
Korea’s external debt hits record high in Q2

Aug 21, 2012

Korea’s external debt hit a fresh record high in the second quarter as its short-term foreign debt spiked due to increased overseas borrowing by local branches of foreign banks, the central bank said Tuesday.The country’s external debt totaled $418.6 billion as of the end of June, up $6.1 billion from three months earlier, according to the Bank of Korea.Korea’s foreign debt rose for the third straight quarter in the second quarter. The country’s foreign debt surpassed the $400 billion mark for t
Watchdog cracks down on food-product price fixing

IndustryAug 21, 2012

The nation’s antitrust watchdog has launched a large-scale investigation into whether local food companies were involved in shady deals before recent price hikes of their key products. The Fair Trade Commission picked some processed food items such as instant noodles, canned tuna, beverages and pre-cooked rice, whose prices rose almost simultaneously in recent weeks. “The market dominance of top players is very powerful within the food industry. Considering their price hikes were carried out wit
Chinese firms say technology level on par with Korea

Aug 21, 2012

About 40 percent of Chinese companies in Korea believe that Chinese technology has enhanced enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Korean technology, according to a survey released on Tuesday.The survey was conducted by the state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, which interviewed 502 Chinese companies doing business in Korea and 320 Korean companies doing business in China from July 19 to July 31.The majority, or about 66.6 percent, of Korean firms in China responded that Korean t