LG Electronics on Wednesday announced its performance improved last year, although its mobile device unit performed worse than a year earlier.  　According to a regulatory filing, LG said it posted 55.4 trillion won ($47.5 billion) in sales and 1.34 trillion won in operating profit in 2016. 　While its annual sales dropped 2 percent on-year, LG saw a 12.2 percent gain in its operating profit, owing to the largest-ever profits from its home appliance and TV businesses. 　The company’s home appliance

SK Telecom has developed an identity verification technology using smart watches and won an international certification from the Fast Identity Online Alliance, the company said Wednesday. The FIDO certified technology enables users to replace existing USB flash drives or one-time password tokens with a smart watch for verification required for online financial transactions.  (SK telecom)All a user needs to do is tap the screen of his or her smart watch that has been registered for verification w

More than 2.83 million South Koreans are presumed to have downloaded the popular augmented reality game "Pokemon Go" on the first day of its official launch in the country, a survey showed Wednesday.On Tuesday, Pokemon Go was officially released in the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store in South Korea, six months after becoming a global hit. (Yonhap)According to the survey of 17,400 smartphone users conducted by an app analytics company WiseApp, 2.83 million people are presumed to have down

SK’s surprise takeover of LG’s wafer business was welcomed by market watchers Tuesday, as it raised expectations of the country’s third-largest conglomerate fortifying the semiconductor business.SK Holdings, the holding unit of SK Group, revealed in a regulatory filing Monday that it has agreed to acquire a 51 percent stake in LG Siltron, a wafer manufacturing unit owned by LG Corp. for 620 billion won ($531.6 million).(Yonhap)According to market watchers Tuesday, SK’s deal with LG reflects SK G

Game developer Niantic says it used publicly accessible data sources to build up its map system

LG Display Co., a flat panel maker, said Tuesday that it swung to the black in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, largely thanks to a rise in panel prices and a diversified product portfolio.Its net profit reached 825 billion won ($706 million) in the October-December period, compared with a loss of 13.5 billion won a year earlier, it said in a regulatory filing.Operating income shot up to 904 billion won in the fourth quarter from 60.6 billion won a year earlier, and sales increased 5.9 pe

Samsung Electronics Co. said Tuesday its operating profit for the fourth quarter of 2016 jumped 50.11 percent on year, thanks to rising prices of semiconductors and display panels. Operating profit, which excludes income from subsidiaries, stood at 9.2 trillion won ($7.89 billion) for the October-December period last year, compared with 6.14 trillion won for the same quarter in 2015, Samsung said in a regulatory filing.  (Yonhap)Compared with a quarter earlier, fourth-quarter operating profit su

Samsung Electronics on Monday admitted its mistake and provided a detailed explanation about the technical faults of its flagship smartphone, in an apparent effort to regain trust from consumers across the globe and start afresh. At a lengthy press conference, the tech giant’s CEO Koh Dong-jin made a public apology about the battery defect in the Galaxy Note 7, with overseas experts endorsing the test results along with him. It was the first time for Samsung to disclose research jointly carried

Samsung Electronics has blamed battery malfunctions for the Galaxy Note 7 catching fire, ending widespread speculations that the explosions were caused by the device’s hardware or software.Since sales of the fire-prone Note 7 were discontinued in October, there have been several media reports attributing the device’s hardware design to the explosions -- alongside battery faults -- as Samsung excessively squeezed too many parts, such as a bigger battery, waterproof and dustproof features and iris

IBM’s Watson stirs controversy in Korean hospitals

South Korea’s No. 1 mobile carrier SK Telecom has purchased Long Term Evolution network equipment produced by China’s Huawei Technologies for testing before signing a final deal, amid concerns over hacking risks and Korean suppliers losing competitiveness, according to sources Sunday. An industry source familiar with the matter told The Korea Herald that SKT ordered the Digital Unit and Remote Radio Head, known as DU&RRH in industrial terminology, from Huawei last month to conduct a set of quali

Toshiba’s possible spin-off of its chip business will narrow the technology and market share gap with its bigger rival Samsung Electronics, Mirae Asset Daewoo Securities predicted Friday. Toshiba, which is struggling from massive losses in its nuclear business, is mulling spinning off its lucrative NAND flash unit and selling the stake to its bigger chip rival Western Digital, according to news reports.  (Toshiba)“If the spin-off is confirmed, the financial condition of Toshiba’s chip unit will

Korean tech firms and telecom operators are filling in the gap left by flagship smartphones with their low cost products. The next premium smartphones, including Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and LG’s G6, are scheduled to launch after February.Samsung Electronics said it began sales its low cost Galaxy A5 on Thursday for 550,000 won ($467) in Korea. This is around half the price of its flagship smartphone Galaxy S series, which are sold for around 1 million won. Despite the low price, the device still fea

Samsung Electronics has launched its signature wind-free air conditioner in Europe, the company announced Thursday. European consumers try out the wall-mounted wind-free air conditioner by Samsung Electronics at The Mall in Milan, Italy on Wednesday. (Samsung Electronics)The South Korean home appliance maker introduced the wall-mounted wind-free air conditioner that won the Innovation Award at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month to European consumers at a launch ceremony at The Mall