South Korea’s Netmarble Games said Wednesday that it has invested 201.4 billion won ($190 million) toward acquiring a 25.71 percent stake in Big Hit Entertainment, the agency behind the globally popular K-pop group BTS.The investment makes Netmarble the second-largest shareholder of Big Hit Entertainment, according to the Korean game maker.“Big Hit Entertainment is a fast-growing company which is already cooperating with Netmarble,” said Netmarble in a statement. “We hope that this investment wi

Kim Yoon, head of the newly created AI Research Center at SK Telecom, vowed to develop human-centered artificial intelligence technologies and create new insights and knowledge that cannot be produced by humans at a press conference Wednesday. “A key approach to develop such human-centered AI will be creating a human-focused user interface so that people can use the AI platform intuitively with no need for additional explanations,” Kim said. Kim was a former developer of Apple’s voice assistant

As the cryptocurrency boom continues to sweep the world, hacking activities aimed at mining cryptocurrencies have emerged as the top internet security threat of the year, shows a new report released by global cybersecurity firm Symantec.According to Symantec’s “2018 Internet Security Threat Report” released this week, cryptojacking — the act of hacking a computer system to mine cryptocurrencies without the owner of the machine knowing — was the biggest trending attack of 2017.(123RF)Coin mining

Neofect, a South Korean medical technology startup specializing in smart rehabilitation solutions, is officially stepping into Japan’s rehab market in partnership with Japanese medical equipment maker Nihon Kohden, officials said Wednesday.　Under the distribution partnership signed this week, Nihon Kohden will begin selling Neofect’s Rapael smart rehabilitation devices and solutions -- designed to help stroke survivors and patients with neurological and musculoskeletal injuries regain key motor

Unidentified hackers have been attacking users of South Korea's two major portals in recent months to get their passwords and other personal information, an industry source said Wednesday.The hackers are using phishing emails that entice users to click on a link to bring them to a fraudulent website, EST Security Corp., a cyber security firm, said. (Yonhap)The hackers named "Daum Post" sent phishing emails to some users of Daum, South Korea's No. 2 portal, saying their Daum accounts will be clos

Over the past year or two, Park Ji-yoon, a 28-year-old office worker in Seoul, has gradually stopped carrying her wallet when going to most places, be it a convenience store, a restaurant or a bar.There is no need to do so, Park says, as she is an avid user of mobile payment services that allow her to make transactions using just her smartphone, both in the offline and online world.“At offline retailers, I just have to activate my mobile pay service on my smartphone and place the device next to

LG CNS, an information technology services provider under South Korea’s LG Group, has launched smart factory platform Factova equipped with artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and big data processing technology solutions, the company said Tuesday. Short for a combination of “factory” and “value,” Factova aims to optimize a factory’s overall operations -- including product planning, design, production and logistics -- by leveraging AI and big data analytics, LG CNS said.The firm built its

Korean game developers protest FTC’s penalty for deceptive promotion of randomized in-game items

Leaks also suggest G7 will adopt ‘notch design’ and AI switch

South Korea’s mobile carrier LG Uplus said Monday it has sent out technical details needed for development of mobile devices running on the upcoming fifth-generation network to the country’s major handset makers Samsung and LG Electronics. The telecom firm highlighted that it was the first among the three local mobile operators to send the technology specifications and standards that will help produce optimal devices for the 5G network, a significant move towards early commercialization of the n

South Korea’s state-run media regulator has begun a formal investigation into Facebook’s user data collection practices, joining the wave of worldwide probes into the firm's worst data breach crisis to date, while also adding other social network platforms to its inspection list.The Korea Communications Commission confirmed Friday that it will embark on an investigation into the private data collection policies of Korea’s major social networks including Facebook, Instagram, KakaoTalk and Naver’s

GALAXY S9 IN RUSSIA -- Samsung Electronics features its latest Galaxy S9 smartphone series at the “Galaxy Studio” experience zone inside a shopping mall in Moscow, Russia, on Sunday. The space will remain open until mid-April. In addition to Russia, Samsung has opened Galaxy S9 experience zones in other cities around the world including Guangzhou, New York and London throughout this month and early May. (Yonhap)

Three online game makers were fined for providing misleading information of their games and ordered to take correction measures, the country's corporate watchdog said Sunday.Nexon Korea Co. and two other game makers were fined a combined 1 billion won ($939,500) for allegedly prodding their customers to purchase game items with false or misleading information, according to the Fair Trade Commission. Mabinogi, one of Nexon`s games (Nexon)The FTC also ordered them to take corrective actions agains

Romantic relationships change with new technology, shifts in social norms

As the global market anxiously awaits the release of the first commercial foldable smartphone, Samsung Electronics is seen mulling designs for its first such device, it appears from the latest patent issued to it by the US Patent and Trademark Office.According to the database of the USPTO on Friday, Samsung won a patent for a new design of a portable electronic device that has a foldable part attached to the main body of the device with a hinge.The patent was applied for in August 2015.According