Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, de facto chief of chip giant Samsung Electronics, spent the Lunar New Year holidays in China as part of efforts to seek new strategies in the company’s memory chip business for this year, according to the company on Wednesday. Lee left Seoul for Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province in central China on Monday, a day before China’s New Year Spring Festival began, to check on Samsung’s memory plants in the city. Samsung has been operating a NAND flash plant in Xian sinc

Without Netflix’s innovative technologies, period drama “Kingdom” might have been tough for foreign viewers to understand, as the series set in 17th century Korea features a wide range of historical and cultural elements as well as forms of language used by different social classes. But visual and voice technologies developed by Netflix have made the drama accessible to global audiences, according to the company. “We are a double helix -- both a technology company and an entertainment company,”

South Korea's top Internet portal operator Naver Corp. said Thursday that its profit dropped 17.4 percent in 2018 from a year earlier due to heavy outlays in new business sectors.Net profit reached 636.4 billion won ($568.9 million) last year, compared with 770.1 billion won tallied in the previous year, the company said in a regulatory filing. (Yonhap)Operating income reached 942.5 billion won for the whole of 2018, marking a decrease of 20.1 percent from the year before.Sales totaled 5.59 tril

Samsung raises around W59tr in operating profit in 2018 on chip boom, but memory demand and prices are forecast to remain sluggish in 2019 H1

SK Telecom’s navigation system T Map will run on vehicles of Singapore’s biggest car-sharing service provider Grab within the first quarter of the year, the South Korean mobile carrier said Wednesday. SKT and Grab have signed an agreement to set up the joint venture Grab Geo Holdings in Singapore, co-led by Grab’s service head Jerald Singh as chief executive officer and SKT’s navigation development chief Kim Jae-soon as chief technology officer. SKT CEO Park Jung-ho met with Grab co-founder and

Recent tests conducted by the Korea Consumer Agency indicated that smart bands fell short on accuracy when it came to collecting data.Smart bands are digitized fitness trackers that collect health data including the user’s heart rate, number of steps and calories burned. The accuracy of the data was tested for six of the smart bands currently on the market: the Things SmartBand 2, Samsung Gear Fit2 Pro, Xiaomi Mi Band 3, InBody BAND 2, COA Korea CK COLOR and FitBit Alta HR.  (Yonhap)In tests mea

Samsung Electronics appears to be expanding its mobile payment strategy to include blockchain technology as it reportedly is planning launch a crypto currency wallet system on the 10th anniversary phones of Galaxy S, according to industry sources Tuesday. Some leaks of alleged images of Galaxy S10 phones showed that the new gadgets offer Samsung Blockchain Keystore that is a crypto currency wallet application. Samsung had filed for related patents overseas last year.If the Galaxy S10 phones are

An event that the South Korean government dubbed “the Korean version of the Consumer Electronics Show” kicked off Tuesday for its inaugural three-day run with the participation of 35 domestic IT companies, including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, SK Telecom, Naver Labs and a number of small and midsize enterprises. The event was conceived about 10 days ago by the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups with the purpose o

LG Electronics announced Monday it is embarking on a research and development plan for the sixth generation of the telecommunications network beyond the upcoming fifth generation in order to lead the future market. LG opened a 6G research center within KAIST Institute, a research organization for technologies for the country’s economic development run by the Korea Advanced Institute of Technology in Daejeon Metropolitan City, which will be headed by Cho Dong-ho, professor of electrical engineeri

From Samsung, Naver and Kakao to government and credit card companies, diverse entities strive for mobile pay dominance

Development of sixth generation of DDR already underway; chipmaker aims to raise data transmission speed to 12 gigabits per second

Chipmaker achieves all-time high net income of W15.5tr in 2018, but Q4 figures bode ill for this year

The South Korean government on Thursday kicked off Drone Show Korea 2019 in the southern port city of Busan, with some 100 firms showcasing their latest drones and related technologies.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said the annual event, which marks the fourth of its kind, is the largest drone-related convention in Asia. It will run for three days through Saturday. (Yonhap)South Korea's top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. took part in the event, unveiling a new communication service t

Starbucks Korea announced Wednesday it will accept mobile payment service Kakao Pay from Thursday.  (Yonhap)In a special promotion until Feb. 7, those who spend 10,000 won ($8.90) or more via Kakao Pay at the coffee chain will be rewarded with special emojis for KakaoTalk. The promotion is available at Starbucks stores nationwide except at Incheon Airport and military garrisons of US Forces. (khnews@heraldcorp.com)

Samsung, LG, Huawei to introduce folding phones, gesture-controlled UI, wireless charging tech ahead of MWC 2019