Samsung Engineering Co., a major South Korean industrial plant builder, said Thursday that its joint venture secured a $3.1 billion deal to upgrade an oil refinery in the United Arab Emirates.Under the deal with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Samsung and Netherlands-based CB&I will introduce crude processing flexibility at Ruwais oil refinery, the builder said.The refinery modifications -- set to be completed by the end of 2022 -- will enable ADNOC's Ruwais Refinery-West complex to process

Conglomerate hunts for new opportunities in ICT, chipmaking, oil refinery

SK Telecom has ambitious plans for its voice-activated assistant Nugu, which it hopes will become the epitome of a customized life powered by artificial intelligence, with services ranging from basic information about traffic and weather conditions to shopping and delivery.First rolled out in September 2016, the voice-activated speaker is rapidly expanding its service capabilities in conjunction with SK Telecom’s existing strengths in its car navigation system Tmap and e-commerce platform 11st a

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. is pushing to build a second chip-production line near Seoul, industry sources said Tuesday, amid rising demand for semiconductors.The tech giant is in talks with officials in Pyeongtaek over a new chip-production line in that city, an insider said, although no specific size or timing of investment has been determined.The city is located some 70 kilometers south of Seoul, and is already the home of Samsung's chip-production line. The production lin

The founder of mobile game company Netmarble said Tuesday that Korean game companies need to take the initiative and begin developing new games early in order to stay competitive against Chinese game makers.On the same day, the games giant revealed its sales for 2017 reached a record high of 2.42 trillion won ($2.2 billion) mainly driven by the global popularity of its latest game product, “Lineage 2 Revolution.” Sales jumped 61.6 percent on-year, the company said in a regulatory filing, while o

The PyeongChang Winter Olympics Committee has introduced a Q&A chatbot on Facebook Messenger that converses with you in text to provide automated answers to Olympic-related inquiries, Facebook said Tuesday.　Those interested in the service can visit the PyeongChang Olympics’ official Facebook Page and click “send message” to begin conversing with the chatbot via Facebook Messenger. The chatbot is available only in English and Korean. The Olympics chatbot can provide answers to simple topics such

The number of cryptocurrency-related app users has continued to go down in the past two weeks, shortly after it topped 2 million.Wiseapp, which tracks mobile apps, said Tuesday that it had analyzed approximately 23,000 Android smartphone users in Korea over a span of 14 weeks, from Oct. 30, 2017 through Feb. 4. The number of people using smartphone apps which show cryptocurrency exchange rates and market analysis have surged more than 14-fold from 140,000 in the first week of November to 2 milli

KT Chief Executive Hwang Chang-gyu speaks in Seoul to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam at the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota, host of this year’s Super Bowl, on Monday through a 5G video call. The two companies connected their wireless fifth-generation networks using equipment built by Samsung Electronics. KT executives tested out Verizon’s 5G virtual stadium, while Verizon executives tried out KT’s omni-view app over the connection, according to KT. (KT)

HWASEONG, Gyeonggi Province -- SK Telecom and the Korea Transportation Safety Authority successfully test-drove two autonomous vehicles Monday at K-City in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, using technology that allowed the vehicles to communicate with each other in real time.In addition to the self-driving capabilities of the cars themselves, Monday’s test focused on the ability of the two cars to send and receive real-time information about driving conditions. A screen displays a real-time HD map o

South Korea's top mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. said Monday its fourth-quarter net profit rose 39.1 percent from a year earlier due mainly to increased competitiveness in Internet businesses.Net income reached 660.6 billion won ($606 million) in the October-December period, compared with a profit of 474.7 billion won for the same period the previous year, the company said in a regulatory filing.For the whole of 2017, net profit came to 2.65 trillion won, up 60 percent from 2016.Operating profit

Russia’s 15-year-old figure skating sensation Alina Zagitova performs a fast triple lutz-triple loop combination on the ice. The moment passes by so quickly, and it’s hard to see what’s going on from your seat in the back of the stadium.　Propping on your 5G-enabled virtual reality headsets, you get a 360-degree view of the entire rink. On a smartphone, you slide your finger across the screen to view a particular jump to see how it was exactly performed in the split of a second.On a 5G-connected

Korea has seen a major shift to smartphones for internet activities over the last five years, with a corresponding decrease in the use of desktop PCs, according to government data Friday.A study by the Ministry of Science and ICT showed that between 2012 and 2017, the proportion of households that owned smartphones rose from 65 percent to 94.1 percent, while those that owned computers dropped from 82.3 percent to 74.7 percent, with a 20.1 percentage point drop in desktop PC ownership.Part of the

Over 2.3 million drivers of SE Asian version of Uber to use Samsung smartphones, tablet PCs for customized rides

South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT plans to deploy 13,000 trash cans made with its proprietary paper recycling technology at the PyeongChang Olympics to spotlight the country’s efforts to promote environmental protection.It will also donate 6,000 boxes of A4 paper produced through its waste paper recycling technique for use at the International Broadcasting Center during the games, according to the ministry.The Korean government has been funding basic research for a number of fundamental

One in 10 workers in South Korea have started to apply key technologies of the “fourth industrial revolution” such as artificial intelligence, big data and Internet of Things in their daily work, a survey by the Korea Employment Information Service showed.The survey also showed that men in their 30s and younger with a bachelors degree tend to make more use of advanced technologies.As the eight key technologies, the KEIS selected AI, big data, cloud, IoT, robotics, virtual reality, 3-D printers a