South Korea’s Incheon Airport has adopted an employee identification system using iris scanning technology, with aims to expand the biometrics ID system to all general airport users by as early as 2020, according to local news reports Sunday. 　If applied to the airport’s passenger check-in system, the system would allow people to pass customs and board airplanes via iris scanning, removing the need to present a physical passport. As of this month, Incheon Airport has reportedly installed an iris

Line, the Japan-based mobile messenger under South Korean internet giant Naver, has announced plans to launch five new decentralized apps, or DApps, running on its proprietary blockchain network, Link Chain. The company said Friday that DApps focusing on various service categories including prediction, question-and-answer, product review, food review and location review will be introduced in the coming weeks, kicking off Line’s efforts to build up a token economy system.As part of the move, Line

NEW YORK -- For users, Facebook’s revelation of a data breach that gave attackers access to 50 million accounts raises an important question: What happens next?For the owners of the affected accounts, and of another 40 million that Facebook considered at risk, the first order of business may be a simple one: sign back into the app. Facebook logged everyone out of all 90 million accounts in order to reset digital keys the hackers had stolen -- keys normally used to keep users logged in, but which

Samsung BioLogics will transfer Samsung Bioepis’ shares to US-based biotech firm Biogen on Oct. 30, completing a call option a month later than initially planned, it said in a regulatory filing on Friday. Due to the announcement, the call option exercise price will rise from about 748.6 billion won ($675.3 million) on Sept. 28 to 757.3 billion won on Oct. 30. A BioLogics official said, “The transfer is being postponed due to administrative procedures for reporting the merging of enterprises betw

South Korean home appliance makers LG and Samsung Electronics both ranked among the top three companies in a US survey on customer satisfaction, an annual report showed Friday. The annual report of the American Customer Satisfaction Index showed that LG came in second place, after Bosch, with a score of 82 out of 100 for the home appliance sector. Samsung soared from seventh place to third this year with a score of 80.  (Yonhap)LG slipped from the top spot, which it had held for three years stra

Word is spreading that Samsung Electronics might be planning to outsource production for some of its mid- and low-end Galaxy-series phones destined for the Chinese market, industry sources said Thursday. According to some news reports, Samsung’s mobile business executives led by Executive Vice President Roh Tae-moon visited China’s Wintech, Xiaomi’s original design manufacturing branch, to discuss the possibility of manufacturing Samsung phones at Wintech’s factory. Samsung’s public relations of

Four out of 10 South Korean users of YouTube spend an hour or more watching videos on the platform on a daily basis, according to survey results recently released by local pollster Embrain.Of 1,000 Korean YouTube users aged 19-59 surveyed, 42.58 percent responded that they spend at least one hour on the video platform each day. The proportion of those who were spending more than three hours on YouTube was 5.2 percent.By demographic, the majority of those who responded they were watching more tha

South Korean cybersecurity service provider Raonsecure said Thursday that its FIDO biometrics authentication solution has received FIDO2 certification from the FIDO Alliance, an organization that standardizes and promotes interoperability among authentication devices.　Raonsecure obtained the FIDO2 certification in two categories. The company’s TouchEn OnePass system was certified for the server section while the Raon FIDO Dongle was certified in the authentication device area.TouchEn OnePass is

Kwon Young-soo, second in command of LG Group, headed for Poland to visit an electric vehicle battery plant operated by LG Chem, according to multiple sources Wednesday.The vice chairman arrived in Wroclaw on Tuesday with LG Chem’s top executives. The group includes LG Chem‘s Energy Solution‘s President Kim Jong-hyun.Kwon’s trip appears to be part of the vice chairman’s recent moves to check out the current statuses of key businesses, they said.LG Chem built the EV battery plant in nearby Kobier

Global pharmaceutical companies operating in South Korea locally invested a combined 271 billion won ($242 million) in clinical research and development in 2017, marking a 5.9 percent increase in R&D funding from the previous year, according to the Korea Research-based Pharma Industry Association.　KRPIA is a business association consisting of the Korean units of 28 foreign pharma companies, including Allergan, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Bayer, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Pfize

(Yonhap)Samsung Electronics is in talks with Japan’s Nipro to sell off its in-vitro diagnostic unit, as part of efforts to streamline its medical equipment business, according to the industry on Thursday. Jeon Dong-soo, president of the medical device division at Samsung, reportedly held a briefing about the sell-off plan for employees recently, the company said.An IVD refers to a medical device that diagnoses diseases by examining patients’ tissue, blood and urine. The IVD unit belongs to Samsu

Kakao Pay, the mobile pay solutions unit of South Korean mobile messaging giant Kakao, said Wednesday that its QR code payment option is now available at more than 100,000 partner stores nationwide.　The feat was achieved within just three months of launching its QR pay service, Kakao Pay said. QR code pay is a mobile payment and acceptance method through which customers can make payments by scanning a QR code, instead of paying with cash or a credit or debit card. Of the merchants that have adop

Riot Games has opened an esports arena and culture entertainment complex for its hit online battle arena game “League of Legends” in Seoul. The US game maker said it had invested around 100 billion won ($88.9 million) in the new space, dubbed LoL Park, which is located on the third floor of the Gran Seoul building in Jongno, central Seoul. The space includes an esports arena for “League of Legends” players that can seat 400 spectators. It will host the 2018 LoL World Championship next month and

KT Corp., South Korea’s leading wireless and fixed-line services provider, said Tuesday it has been named the official provider of telecom services for the media during the inter-Korean summit this week.Under the agreement with the summit preparation committee, KT is providing telecommunication services at the press center established in Seoul for South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s three-day trip to Pyongyang, from Sunday to Thursday, including network services for TV broadcasting, according t

Kakao, the operator of South Korea’s most popular mobile messenger KakaoTalk, has officially adopted a new feature that lets users delete sent messages within five minutes of their delivery. The update has been applied as of Tuesday.　However, once a user deletes a message, the phrase “this message has been deleted” appears in place of the removed message on both the sender’s and receiver’s chatroom, leaving a conspicuous record of the deletion.　To delete a message, users can long-press a given m