The Korea Herald

KEPCO-led consortium bags $2.3b Vietnam power deal

Mar 21, 2013

An international consortium led by state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. clinched a $2.3 billion deal to build a thermal power plant in Vietnam, KEPCO said Thursday.Under a build, operation and transfer deal, the consortium will build the coal power plant with a generation capacity of 1.2 million kilowatts by 2018 and operate the plant for the next 25 years before it is transferred to Vietnamese government.KEPCO and Japan’s Murabeni Corp. will have a 50 percent stake each in the power plant.The d
Meritz Fire to raise W55.5b through rights offering

Mar 21, 2013

Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance Co., a South Korean nonlife insurer, said Thursday it plans to raise 55.5 billion won ($49.6 million) via a rights offering in a bid to improve its financial soundness. A total of 4.63 million new shares will be issued at 11,990 won each, of which 4.57 percent will be allotted to the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., a Singapore sovereign wealth fund, the company said in a regulatory filing. Meritz Fire had been pushing for issuing new shares in a bid to im
LGE asks Samsung to pay for patents

Mar 21, 2013

LG Electronics Inc. on Thursday accused Samsung Display Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. of illegally using its technology and demanded the two companies pay for the patents, the latest development in the Samsung-LG display feud.Samsung Display and LG Display Co., the world’s two biggest display makers, have been embroiled in a patent tussle over organic light-emitting diode and liquid crystal display technologies that later expanded to their TV-making affiliates Samsung Electronics and LG Electr
Samsung preparing wristwatch as it races Apple for sales

Mar 21, 2013

Samsung Electronics is developing a wristwatch as Asia’s biggest technology company races against Apple Inc. to create a new industry of wearable devices that perform similar tasks as smartphones. “We’ve been preparing the watch product for so long,” Lee Young-hee, executive vice president of Samsung’s mobile business, said during an interview in Seoul. “We are working very hard to get ready for it. We are preparing products for the future, and the watch is definitely one of them.” Lee had no co
Hands-free toothbrush developed

Mar 21, 2013

Two Canadians have developed a new type of toothbrush that works by the movement of the tongue.The gadget, named “T2T” (meaning “tongue to teeth”), was created by boilermaker Adel Elseri and his friend, Said Fayad, both aged 26.They claimed that users can brush their teeth with the gizmo mounted to their tongue and coated with toothpaste.The newly developed tool is more hygienic than existing toothbrushes, Elseri and Fayad claimed.A Facebook page and Twitter account have been made to promote the
New 3-D method developed for mobile phones

Mar 21, 2013

Mobile phone users may soon be able to enjoy 3-D pictures and videos on their devices.Researchers at Hewlett-Packard Co. said that they had developed a new way of putting glassless 3-D video onto mobile phones.Although Nintendo has already adopted 3-D technology for a handheld gaming console, users can enjoy 3-D displays only by centering their eyes on the screen.The newly developed technology portrays a 3-D object by creating 64 different points of view, allowing users to see its every angle on
Digital ‘talking head’ speaks for computer

Mar 21, 2013

A digital talking head named “Zoe” could be a first step toward a new era in human-computer interaction, British engineers say.　The virtual “talking head” can express a full range of human emotions and could be used as a digital personal assistant or to replace texting with “face messaging,” the University of Cambridge reported Tuesday.　Researchers at Toshiba‘s Cambridge Research Lab and the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering said the lifelike face can display emotions such as h
New iPhone lock screen bug surfaces

Mar 21, 2013

A new bug has popped up in Apple's iOS 6 operating system a day after it was updated to address an iPhone lock screen vulnerability, Arstechnica reported.While the security flaw is different from the passcode bug targeted by Tuesday's iOS 6.1.3 update, it results in the same risk -- that of giving unauthorized access to an iPhone's contact list and photos -- tech site said Wednesday.The process, demonstrated in a YouTube posting by user videosdebarraquito, involves ejecting the phone's SIM card
Samsung to drop LCD patent suit against LG Electronics

Mar 20, 2013

Samsung Display Co., the world’s biggest display maker, has decided to drop a patent suit against LG Electronics Co. over liquid-crystal display technologies, paving the way for both sides to end a long-running legal battle, industry sources said Wednesday.The two display giants have been embroiled in a patent tussle over organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and LCD technologies that broke out on the heels of a police investigation into an alleged leak of technologies from Samsung Display to LG D
Patent disputes overshadow electronics industry

Mar 20, 2013

Major brands tangled in money-guzzling legal disputes over patent infringements
Gov't seeks to set up 2nd operator of bullet trains

Mar 20, 2013

The government has decided to establish a second public firm to operate the country's KTX high-speed trains in an effort to inject greater competition into the railway system monopolized by the state-run Korea Railroad (KORAIL), officials said Wednesday.The move is expected to be finalized in a report to President Park Geun-hye slated for later this month, according to the officials from the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.The new railroad company will likely handle the operatio
Korean websites saddled with search-blocking code

Mar 19, 2013

When foreign fans type in “Psy” on major search engines, the results rarely include the Korean singer’s official homepage. The reason lies in a technical problem with Korean websites. According to industry sources, many Korean websites, including Psy’s homepage, have taken steps that block tracking and indexing by foreign search engines and portals. In detail, such websites usually insert a code like “robots.txt” to keep outside parties from indexing the details of their pages. The trouble is th
THX, founded by George Lucas, sues Apple in patent case

Mar 16, 2013

Apple Inc. (AAPL) was accused by THX Ltd., a company founded by “Star Wars” producer George Lucas, of stealing speaker technology used in iPhones, iPads and iMac products. THX holds a 2008 patent for a speaker unit that can boost sound output and attach to computers or flat-screen televisions, according to a complaint filed yesterday in federal court in San Jose, California. Apple products that incorporate the speaker units infringe the THX patent, causing the company “monetary damage and irrepa
Alarm clock app difficult to turn off

Mar 15, 2013

A pair of Italian developers have created an alarm clock smartphone app designed to help users wake up with math games and other tasks.The FreakyAlarm app, created by Enrico Angelini and Gabriele Di Lorenzo, has a basic mode where users must take pictures of objects or barcodes before bed then photograph the same objects or barcodes to shut the alarm off in the morning, the New York Daily News reported Thursday.The app also has an "evil" setting, which requires users to solve difficult math equa
Samsung refreshes iPhone-challenging Galaxy line

Mar 15, 2013

Samsung Electronics is kicking up its competition with Apple with its new Galaxy S4 smartphone, which has a larger, sharper screen than its predecessor, the best-selling S III.Samsung trumpeted the much-anticipated phone's arrival Thursday at an event accompanied by a live orchestra while an audience of thousands watched the onstage theatrics. The Galaxy S4, which crams a 5-inch (12.7-centimeter) screen into body slightly smaller than the S III's, will go sale globally in the April to June perio