Key men close to chaebol chiefs stepping in to lead red-hot battery units suggest shift in business priority

Starting next year, subway passengers in South Korea will be able to enjoy free Wi-Fi services that are 10 times faster, the Ministry of Science and ICT said Tuesday. According to the ministry, subway commuters will be able to use Wi-Fi 6E that has a more reliable internet connection, and is 10 times faster than the current Wi-Fi speed. The upgraded Wi-Fi speed will be on par with that of private telecoms networks. Previously, the ministry had limited the transmitted signal power level in su

LG Electronics announced Tuesday it plans to release its wireless StanbyME televisions in the Asian market starting this month and heightened its production capacity by threefold to meet demand overseas. Hong Kong will be the first Asian market for LG to set its sights on, according to the electronics arm of South Korea’s fourth-largest conglomerate. Sales of the movable 27-inch TVs, powered by built-in batteries that last for three hours on a single charge, will begin within December

Samsung Electronics Co. took over the top spot in the global semiconductor market by revenue in the third quarter, a report showed Tuesday, on the back of strong memory chip sales. Industry tracker Omdia said Intel, which had been the top chipmaker for 11 straight quarters, slipped to number two behind Samsung "as the memory segment, where Samsung is the number one DRAM and NAND supplier, was the largest growth area for semiconductor" in the three months ending in September. DRAM, o

Kakao’s AI unit claims that its supergiant AI models are better for carrying out daily tasks than its rival

LG Electronics said Monday it is looking to release its newest LG UltraGear laptop for 2022 -- a high-performance model designed for gamers -- within December in Korea. The laptop features a 17.3-inch monitor with a 1080p display resolution, using an in-place switching panel of 300-hertz refresh rate, as well as DTS: X Ultra system for multidimensional sound, in order to deliver a more immersive gaming experience, according to the company. It is powered by Intel‘s 11th-generation Tiger

Samsung Electronics has reportedly launched a new China team under the direct supervision of vice chairman and Chief Executive Officer Han Jong-hee, signaling a change in its strategy to reenter Asia’s largest market that is already dominated by homegrown manufacturers. According to media reports, Samsung Electronics has kicked off a new operation, loosely translated as the China Business Innovation Team. The unit is dedicated to businesses ranging from mobile handsets to semico

Samsung Electronics said Thursday it has begun mass-producing cutting-edge memory chips for an undisclosed auto manufacturer to power a range of connected features including autonomous driving. The newest lineup of chips includes 2-gigabyte GDDR6 graphic dynamic random access memory chips, as well as 128-gigabyte universal flash storage. Both products are designed to support autonomous driving features, including advanced driver assistance systems. Samsung unveiled the industry‘s first u

A defining social network of pre-Facebook era, microblogging platform’s revival plan draws nostalgia, pessimism

A new breakthrough in semiconductor design jointly developed by global tech giants IBM and Samsung Electronics could allow phone batteries to hold a charge for a week, according to the companies on Wednesday. This architecture -- which, in essence, is to align transistors vertically on a semiconductor chip -- has the potential to reduce energy usage by 85 percent compared to a conventional scaled fin field-effect transistor by allowing greater current flow with less wasted energy, IBM said. I

LG Group’s chemicals and battery units, LG Chem and LG Energy Solution, said Wednesday that they had acquired a 2.6 percent stake in Canadian battery recycling company Li-Cycle Holdings by investing 30 billion won ($25.3 million) each. Li-Cycle, based in Toronto, operates North America’s largest lithium-ion battery recycling facility. The firm recycles waste from the EV battery manufacturing process and recovers battery metals for reuse. The Canadian firm recently issued new shar

SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won made a rare appearance in a session held by the nation’s top antitrust watchdog to defend his controversial stock purchase in 2017, when SK acquired a silicon wafer unit from its crosstown rival LG Group.  The Fair Trade Commission has reviewed the case over allegations that SK Inc., the holding company of SK Group, deliberately helped its chairman purchase the stock at a cheaper price to benefit from hefty dividends.  The deliberation session was

New memory chip features industry’s largest density tailored to data centers, servers

Kakao Brain, the artificial intelligence technology research and development subsidiary of Kakao, said Wednesday it has launched its second AI model that self-generates images, allowing the company to quickly expand its presence in Korea’s mammoth AI space. The AI model, dubbed “minDALL-E,” creates images the users wish to see, according to the company. For instance, when users type in requests such as “draw a picture in a Salvador Dali style” or “create an

New AI system, boasting a whopping 300 billion parameters, approaches “human-like” language skills