Smart home appliances and advanced autonomous driving will take center stage at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, the world’s biggest technology showcase, which kicks off in Las Vegas on Thursday.Korean tech firms Samsung and LG will unveil their smart home technologies, which have been a popular theme at the show for the last few years. Smart home is an environment where home appliances and electronics are all connected so users can control them from anywhere. Samsung is expected to unveil an

The fitness solution startup FITT, headed by CEO Andrew Hong, will be broadening its horizons in 2017 with the launch of a specialized healthcare platform. On Dec. 28, FITT announced that it will be launching its completely renovated website on Jan. 1 as well as converting its operations to a fitness and healthcare platform.“Our new platform offers diverse types of content, combining theory and practice as taught by sports science and healthcare professionals. And we will continue to develop con

The speed of WiFi-connected Internet services have become faster this year thanks to improved equipment, especially in subway stations, government data showed Wednesday.The average downloading speed using WiFi networks across the nation stands at 144.73 megabits per second this year, up 57.5 percent from 91.87 Mbps in 2015, according to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, and the National Information Society Agency.The pace of uploading data has increased 65.9 percent to 141.47 Mbp

South Korea’s leading mobile game company Netmarble Games is looking to capture game enthusiasts and Star Wars fans around the world with the launch of its new mobile game “Star Wars: Force Arena” in 2017. 　“Star Wars: Force Arena” is a mobile strategy game under development by Netmarble Games’ development studio and subsidiary Netmarble Monster, best known as the creator of the globally famous mobile role-playing game “Marvel: Future Fight.”The new game is slated for global release in 154 count

South Korea's antitrust watchdog on Wednesday slapped US mobile phone chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. with a record fine of 1.03 trillion won ($853.1 million) for abusing its dominant position in the mobile communications market.The Fair Trade Commission said the San Diego-based company and its two affiliates breached the country's competition act by refusing to offer licenses to chipset manufacturers and demanding high fees for patents used by smartphone makers. Qualcomm officials enter a courtroom of

Kakao, the operator of South Korea’s top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, was fined 242 million won ($200,700) on Monday for unilaterally sending out informational notification messages — which charge data usage fees — without sufficiently notifying users about the service.　Korea Communications Commission, the state-run media regulator, also slapped the company with a 100 million won penalty for failing to notify users that the URL addresses they exchanged via KakaoTalk were used in search query resu

UlalaLAB, headed by CEO is Kang Hak Ju, will soon be supplying its independently developed smart factory platform, WimFactory, to an influential Indian company. On Dec. 27, CEO Kang Hak Ju announced that the company “will be signing a business cooperation contract in the first quarter of next year with a prominent Indian company regarding WimFactory and related R&D.”As of August and September, UlalaLAB has already begun supplying WimFactory to Nike plants in Indonesia and China. This experience

Samsung Electronics Co. retained its No. 2 spot in a global ranking for industrial research and development spending for the third consecutive year, a survey by the European Commission's Economics of Industrial Research and Innovation showed Tuesday. According to the annual survey, 75 South Korean firms were among the world's top 2,500 companies that invested a large sum into research and development. A total of 837 firms based in the United States are included in the ranking, followed by 590 fi

Samsung Electronics said Monday it will showcase its creative lab projects for kids and skin care during the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show. The creative lab project is a startup business program that encourages a creative corporate culture and nurtures innovative ideas from Samsung employees.“Ideas in diverse areas from fashion and kids to beauty are being developed based on innovative technology and we will continue to seek additional ideas across a broad spectrum,” said Lee Jai-il, vice c

South Korean internet giant Naver denied reports Sunday that it has an internal policy that allows the government to demand unilateral changes to the portal website’s “current most-searched keywords” list.　According to Yonhap News Agency, government agencies can ask Naver to delete or exclude certain trending keywords from its website, signaling potential manipulation and state surveillance of public information on the web.　Naver’s current most-searched keywords list often reflects the hottest t

NHN Corp., the operator of South Korea's dominant Internet portal, has come under close scrutiny after it was found to have a rule to remove real-time search words if the government asks the portal to do so. The rule is expected to stir up controversy over whether Naver could allow the government to censor the Internet portal, although Naver claimed that it has not implemented the rule. Naver offers the Real-Time Search service, which enables users to get the most up-to-date information without

Entrepreneurship, teamwork and global vision needed for Korean start-ups, says head of Google Campus Seoul