‘We discover new creators and give them a bigger stage to share their works. That, in turn, would expand the emoticon business to the next level.’

SK Square invests 98 billion won for blockchain, metaverse

Samsung Electronics is poised to employ a new personnel management system starting in 2022 that could foster young executives, in a move to lay the groundwork for a “New Samsung” era under Samsung’s de facto leader Lee Jae-yong, the South Korean tech giant said Monday. Under the new system, Samsung will abolish a set of requirements before an employee gets promoted to a certain level, such as a minimum term of service that lasts roughly eight to 10 years. Instead, excellent em

ATKO Planning is the world’s first company to reuse leather for textiles

From Seoul to London, getting a cab home is a headache amid post-pandemic taxi shortage

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) said Monday it has launched a virtual center to train ship painters. The shipbuilder said the virtual training center will give painters the same experience as actual workplaces and will reduce costs. In addition to the heavy costs and time required to train painters, the current system also causes environmental problems due to the use of organic solvents, Daewoo Shipbuilding said. The virtual training system will cut costs and require l

Retail sales in South Korea surged 14.4 percent in October from a year earlier as more consumers opened their wallets amid various promotional events and cold weather, the industry ministry said Monday. The combined sales of 25 major offline and online retailers reached 13.6 trillion won ($11.41 billion) last month, compared with 12.01 trillion won a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Sales from offline stores rose 10 percent on-year in

Samsung Heavy Industries Co. said Monday it has signed a deal with Microsoft Korea to cooperate on the digitalization of its shipyard. Samsung Heavy said it plans to build up a collaboration system among each shipbuilding sector in its shipyard by using cloud computing service Azure, artificial intelligence, group chat software Teams and metaverse technologies, which will be provided by Microsoft under the deal. Samsung Heavy said the latest deal will accelerate the digitalization of its shipy

LG Energy Solution, the batteries unit of LG Group, has laid out a new $1.36 billion funding plan to drastically ramp up the capacity of its plant in the US state of Michigan in the next three years. In a regulatory filing Friday, parent company LG Chem said LG Energy Solution's Michigan arm will raise $681 million in fresh capital without rights to add new production facilities to the Michigan plant, while securing the remaining $681 million from local borrowing. The new funding aims t

Samsung Electronics said Sunday that it ranked No. 1 in the premium home cinema projector market in the United States, a year after the electronics giant entered the market with its flagship The Premiere lineup. Samsung Electronics’ high-end projectors priced at $3,000 or more accounted for 27.8 percent of the US market by sales from January to October, the company said, citing an estimate from US market intelligence firm NPD Group. In particular, Samsung’s focus on ultrashort th

Hyundai Motor has reclaimed the No. 2 spot in Australian car sales, with its October car sales outpacing those of American rival Ford and Japanese rival Mazda, according to the latest data compiled by the market tracker BestSellingCarsBlog.com on Sunday. Hyundai sold around 6,200 vehicles in October in Australia, a 3 percent increase from a year prior. For the January-October period this year, its cumulative car sales reached 61,000 vehicles, up almost 10,000 vehicles from the same period last

An LG Electronics worker is busy manufacturing washing machines ahead of a year-end spending spree at the firm’s factory in Clarksville, Tennessee, Friday.  The company’s lines of key products such as washing machines and refrigerators are running full throttle 24/7 to meet soaring year-end demand in the market. (Yonhap)

The metaverse, a kind of virtual community that lets users interact in real-time, carries potential legal risks, and requires regulations to ensure platform operators protect their users from digital crimes, experts said Friday. “Since metaverse embodies the virtual world as almost exactly the same as the real world, there are concerns on severe privacy violations. It is highly possible that data on the users’ whereabouts, medical information and political affiliations could be lea

South Korea on Friday unveiled a pangovernmental hydrogen blueprint that laid out detailed plans to realize the nation’s hydrogen economy, from authorizing self-service hydrogen fueling stations to replacing coal with ammonia at power plants. The blueprint aims to address the key weaknesses of Korea’s hydrogen ambition -- heavy reliance on foreign-made hydrogen, concerns over safety, lack of demand and price competitiveness in the hydrogen mobility sector and infrastructure, the g

South Korean e-commerce company Coupang said Friday that it will hold a special event to celebrate the Black Friday shopping extravaganza.  This year’s event, which continues through Sunday, includes offering global products at a discount for those using its “Rocket Jikgu” overseas delivery service and the Rocket Delivery category that includes directly imported goods. A limited-time sale will also take place daily. Brands that are participating includes consumer electr