Tech giant’s medical device business set for restructuring toward digital health care

A South Korean smartphone retailer on Thursday reported that a new iPhone 8 smartphone produced by US tech giant Apple Inc. was found to have a seemingly swollen battery, causing concerns about safety.There have been a number of reports related to battery-swelling problems surrounding Apple's new flagship smartphone since its global release in September. The iPhone 8 was launched in the South Korean market earlier this month.(Yonhap)"We found that a battery was swollen after opening a new produc

The combined cost of materials used to produce one unit of US tech giant Apple Inc.'s 64 GB iPhone X is estimated at $370, an industry tracker said Thursday."The iPhone X is the most expensive iPhone ever made, and it has the highest retail price tag of comparable flagship phones, catapulting the smartphone industry to an entirely new price point," IHS Markit said.  (Yonhap)"The X's superior screen and TrueDepth sensing set the phone apart and contribute to its higher cost," it added.The 64 GB i

Samsung Electronics remains ahead of Apple as the world’s top smartphone maker, but is facing fiercer competition with the US tech giant surpassing it in sales in the US market in the latest quarter, reports showed Wednesday.According to market researcher Strategy Analytics, Samsung maintained the first position with 21 percent of the global smartphone market share in the third quarter of this year, while Apple held steady at 12 percent share. “Samsung shipped 83.4 million smartphones worldwide

CEO Guthart says Korean surgeons’ culture of innovation was behind decision to open Korean center

US tech giant Apple Inc. said Wednesday it will begin sales of the iPhone X smartphone in South Korea on Nov. 24 -- earlier than expected -- apparently due to the sluggish performance of the iPhone 8 here.The release came as a surprise, as industry watchers expected the release to take place in December. But full-fledged sales may only begin next year due to limited supplies. The price of an unlocked 64-GB iPhone X will be 1.42 million won ($1,274) here, while the 256-GB version will cost 1.63 m

US tech giant Apple Inc., was the No. 1 player in the US smartphone market in the July-September period, data showed Wednesday, while its archrival Samsung Electronics Co. approached closer.According to the data compiled by Strategy Analytics, Apple took up 30.4 percent of the US smartphone market in the third quarter by shipping 12 million units. It was followed by Samsung Electronics, which accounted for 25.1 percent with 9.9 million units. (AP-Yonhap)Apple's share, however, fell from 32.5 per

Global tech giants are tapping deeper into so-called on-device artificial intelligence smartphones, which have dedicated application processors that enable machines to act more like human beings, industry watchers said Wednesday.US tech giant Apple Inc.'s iPhone X and Chinese Huawei Technologies Co.'s Mate 10, showcased recently, both claim to be equipped with a neural engine and processing unit for AI features, respectively.While the industry has yet to create a concrete definition for such fea

Leaders from governments, businesses and academia from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as well as South Korea, China and Japan gathered in Seoul Tuesday to examine ways to better secure jobs amid technological advances dubbed the fourth industrial revolution.The regional conference, the third of its kind, was organized by the World Bank and the Ministry of Employment and Labor under the theme "Enhancing Job Creation and Skills to Prepare for the 4th Industrial Revolution." (Yonhap)Par

Netmarble Games, South Korea's No. 1 mobile game developer and publisher, said Tuesday its accumulated sales for this year neared 2 trillion won thanks to the global popularity of its latest game "Lineage 2 Revolution."Sales for the January-September period came to 1.8 trillion won ($1.61 billion), the company said in a regulatory filing, adding that annual sales are forecast to surpass 2 trillion won for this year(Yonhap)The operating profit for the third quarter came to 111.8 billion won, up 7

South Korean mobile carrier SK Telecom said Tuesday the company has developed technology to speed up data traffic by 10 times for the fifth-generation network. Development of the technology will be crucial for commercialization of 5G, as huge data processing capabilities will be necessary, the company said. The technology enables packet switching equipment to process high-volume traffic at breakneck speed in the 5G network. In the existing Long Term Evolution network, the maximum speed for packe

Korea’s Electronics & Telecommunications Research Institute said Monday it has developed an application for smartphones that will allow the production of virtual reality content without any additional hardware. The institute designed the application with VR solution startup Nextaeon and developed an enabling technology called YouVR. By downloading the app, a smartphone user can create VR content in which objects can move 360 degrees. Considering virtual reality is growing at a slower-than-expect

With the widespread distribution of smartphones among all age groups, more than half of South Koreans that rely mostly on their smartphones in carrying out economic activities and seeking information are those in their 50s and 60s, a report by Nielsen Korea showed Monday.Dubbed the “mobile only” group, the report said that 30.1 percent of those that only used their mobile device were in their 50s, while 23.3 percent were in their 60s.Among those that rely on both their PCs and smartphones, 24.1

Chinese tech giant Baidu Inc., is expected to emerge as a major player in the field of voice-recognizing artificial intelligence programs through 2022, an industry tracker said Friday, widening the gap with Samsung Electronics Co.'s Bixby.The penetration rate of Samsung Electronics' Bixby in the field is expected to reach 5.4 percent in 2022, falling sharply from 12.7 percent posted in 2017, Strategy Analytics said. Baidu, which took up 13 percent of the market this year, is expected to become t

Google Korea rebuts Naver founder’s accusations, continued calls to publicize revenue, profits, and taxes paid here