SK Telecom announced Friday that the company would spin off its mobility platform and start a new joint venture with US ride-hailing company Uber Technologies. SKT plans to spin off the unit by Dec. 29, according to the regulatory filing. The company’s shareholders would vote on the plan at a general meeting scheduled on Nov. 26. In the spinoff, tentatively named T map Mobility, Uber will invest around $50 million, according to the telecommunications firm. The South Korean telecommunic

SK Telecom Co., South Korea's largest mobile carrier, said Friday it will spin off its mobility platform business into a separate entity as it partners with US ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc. in a move to strengthen its focus in the connected mobility sector. The business -- tentatively called T map Mobility Co. -- will be wholly owned by SK Telecom and become a separate company on Dec. 29, the mobile carrier said in a regulatory filing. In a joint statement with Uber, SK Telecom s

LG CNS has rolled out an online platform that provides artificial intelligence services, through which users can select AI services and pay based on the level of use, the company said Thursday. The new platform by LG CNS includes 10 different types of AI engines that can process both verbal and visual information. The company’s computer vision service, for instance allows manufacturers to detect potential defects in their production lines. LG Chem is currently using the computer vision

South Korean telecom giant LG Uplus Corp. said Thursday it opened a seven-story product showroom in southern Seoul by partnering with local popular establishments as part of its broader efforts to capture young customers. The seven-story building, including its underground floor, in the posh southern district of Gangnam houses a cafe, a bookstore and a photo studio popular among South Korean millenials and the younger Generation Z, or those born after the mid-90s. LG Uplus said the store allow

LG Innotek, the high-tech parts making unit of LG Group, said Wednesday the company has developed a “highly efficient” ferrite material to be used for ultra slim TVs and vehicles. Ferrite, made of iron oxide power, is used to change voltage in power modules for TVs and on board chargers in vehicles. As home appliances including TVs and electric vehicles go slimmer and lighter, the ferrite has become a viable material. LG’s ferrite can make power modules for TVs as thin as

Samsung Electronic Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong met top executives of Dutch semiconductor equipment provider ASML, the company said Wednesday. Lee held a meeting with Peter Wennink, ASML’s chief executive officer, and Martin van den Brink, chief technology officer, in which they discussed supply and operation plans for extreme ultraviolet equipment that is needed for production of chips on 7-nanometer processes and below. They also talked about increasing cooperation on next-generation

SK Telecom Co., South Korea's largest mobile carrier, said Wednesday it will develop smart ports using 5G network services by partnering with the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Busan Port Terminal Corp. Under the memorandum of understanding signed between the three parties, they will develop a test bed for a smart port that uses 5G-powered services. A smart port refers to ports that use Internet of Things (IoT) devices to track and analyze the movement of cargo and workers to improve

Wcoding focused on providing international coding education programs for Korea and Asia

South Koreans' card payments to Netflix reached a fresh high of 46.2 billion won ($40.2 million) last month, data showed Tuesday, a nearly twofold jump from a year earlier. An estimated 3.36 million people here spent the record amount in September on the popular video streaming platform, according to app tracker WiseApp's data based on local payments made through credit and debit cards on Netflix. Last month's figure marks a jump from the 24.1 billion won spent in September last year by an est

Storywiz Co., a webcomic unit of South Korean telecom giant KT Corp., said Tuesday it will spend 10 billion won ($8.7 million) on content creation, heating up competition in the growing local web fiction market. Storywiz, established in February this year after KT spun off its web fiction business, specializes in publishing online serial novels and comics. Its web novel platform Blice competes with larger local rivals, such as KakaoPage of the country's top messenger operator, Kakao Corp. KT's

  South Korean mobile messenger giant Kakao has officially launched live commerce service “Kakao Shopping Live“ on its messenger application, the company announced Monday. The new service embedded in KakaoTalk allows sellers to promote their products via live streaming on the messenger application. Customers could directly engage with vendors through the livestream and make purchases on the messenger, the company explained. Kakao said the company plans to air at least one li

SK Telecom, South Korea‘s top mobile carrier, has launched an artificial intelligence-powered voice call application, the company announced Monday. The company’s new voice call application has integrated the company‘s existing voice-activated assistant Nugu, which was previously used in its AI speaker of the same name. SKT’s new application will allows its 1.2 monthly active users to use a wide range of features powered by the telecommunications firm’s AI engine

Samsung Electronics on Thursday announced an earnings surprise for the third quarter of this year, posting the largest operating profit in two years. The South Korean tech giant said in its preliminary earnings report that it would register 66 trillion won ($57.01 billion) in revenue and 12.3 trillion won in operating profit for the July to September period. It was a surprise, since the financial market’s profit forecasts hovered around 10 trillion won. If confirmed, the Q3 revenue

Joint venture Motional to test fully driverless system later this year

South Koreans are estimated to have spent nearly 30 hours on YouTube in September, a report showed Thursday, far surpassing other popular social media apps. South Korean users spent an average of 29.5 hours on Google's video-sharing app last month, compared with 12 hours on KakaoTalk, the country's top messenger app, according to data from local market tracker IGAWorks. Local users spent an average of 11.7 hours on global social media app Facebook, followed by 10.2 hours on Naver, South Korea'