The globally popular survival shooting game “Fortnite: Battle Royale” officially arrived in South Korea on Friday. “Fortnite” is now available on PlayStation 4 consoles and Android smartphones, with preparations underway for the game’s launch at PC cafes nationwide. The game’s launch and future service plans were formally announced by the Korean unit of US-based Epic Games on Friday during a press conference held in Seoul.(Epic Games Korea)“Fortnite” for PS4 can now be downloaded for free via th

Bluetooth-enabled pen can remotely operate frequently used apps

Naver Webtoon, the digital comics platform operator under South Korean internet business giant Naver, on Thursday announced the launch of its new unit “Studio N,” which will take charge of translating popular webtoons into new films and drama series.Formed with 100 percent funding from Naver Webtoon, Studio N will work with media production companies to develop and release films and TV dramas based on the intellectual property of popular webtoons. Naver Webtoon CEO Kim Joon-Ku (Naver)The new sub

Samsung Electronics will start taking preorders for the upcoming flagship Galaxy Note 9 smartphones one day earlier than before in order to boost its sluggish smartphone sales, according to the industry on Thursday. The South Korean phone manufacturer was set to unveil its second flagship smartphone for the year in New York at midnight on Thursday, and begin the preorder process Monday in the Korean market. Korean mobile carriers had been planning to embark on receiving reservations for the new

Kakao, operator of South Korea’s top-used mobile messenger KakaoTalk, said Thursday it posted record-high revenue in the second quarter, but its operating profit dropped 38 percent due to heightened marketing and investment costs.During the April-June period, Kakao’s revenue reached 588.9 billion won ($526 million), up 25.7 percent from the previous year. Operating profit in the quarter came to 588.9 billion won, down 38.2 percent on-year, the company said in its earnings report.Kakao attributed

Netmarble Games, South Korea's No. 1 mobile game developer and publisher, said Wednesday that its second-quarter operating income decreased 40.8 percent on-year.Operating income came to 62.2 billion won ($55.5 million) during the April-June period, and net income also shrank 15.1 percent on-year to 66.3 billion won, the company said. (Netmarble Games)Sales also decreased 7.3 percent on-year to 500.8 billion won during the cited period, while sales from overseas markets witnessed growth, Netmarbl

Pizza Hut Korea said Wednesday it has launched a test operation of a robot to serve food to customers as the company moves to strengthen its competitiveness with cutting-edge technologies. The robot, dubbed Dilly Plate, was unveiled at one of its stores in western Seoul on Monday for a two-week test run, marking the first case of adopting such technology in the country's dining industry, the company said. (Yonhap)Developed by Woowa Brothers Corp., a Korean startup that operates the food delivery

Less than a year after entering South Korea, Chinese bike-sharing giant Ofo is preparing to pull out of the Korean market in a move that appears to be motivated by shifting market priorities, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday.Ofo recently began putting most of the Korea market employees on a “suspension” as part of a general layoff, as part of steps toward an exit from the market, an industry source with knowledge of the startup’s affairs told The Korea Herald.“Though it has yet to co

Macrogen, South Korea’s leading gene sequencing service provider, said Monday that it will work with local big data company Bigster to create a blockchain-based medical big data platform where information such as gene data can be safely stored and exchanged by interested parties. The two companies plan to complete the platform by June next year, joining a number of other firms that are also working to launch a blockchain-based medical data trading platform here.Gene data, which carries critical

Galaxy Tab S4, Galaxy Tab A 10.5 compatible with Samsung desktop extension system DeX

In the world of human resources, recruiting experienced hires has long operated in two ways: Companies blindly advertise new openings through third-party job listing sites, or pay high fees to headhunting firms to seek out viable candidates for a particular position.But one South Korean startup has set out to disrupt this paradigm by introducing a new mode of recruiting with a proven track record of success -- hiring through personal referrals. Wanted has built a recruitment platform that relies

Tech titan’s smartphone business slumps amid sluggish market conditions, aims to make turnaround with Galaxy Note 9 at reasonable price

Samsung SDI’s second-quarter operating profit jumped nearly 27-fold compared to a year earlier, showing a solid recovery trend after the battery explosion crisis in 2016, according to the company’s earnings announcement Monday. The battery maker posted 2.25 trillion won in sales and 152.8 billion won in operating profit for the April to June period, the company said in a regulatory filing. The operating profit skyrocketed from 5.5 billion won in the second quarter of last year, when the company

Half of smartphones sold globally this year will have an artificial intelligence assistant, a report by an industry consulting firm showed Sunday.According to Strategy Analytics Inc., 47.7 percent of smartphones sold on the global market will be equipped with some kind of on-device AI assistant, up from 36.6 percent last year. (Yonhap)The report further finds that on-device AI is growing fast among smartphone vendors and by 2023, 89.9 percent of smartphones will have a built-in AI assistant.In 2

Lee prepares new outreach projects, job plans ahead of expected meeting with finance minister