A German company has introduced a pen that instantly detects errors in spelling and grammar. The pen senses and vibrates when the user makes mistakes, with a choice of two modes -- calligraphy and orthography. The calligraphy mode checks problems with legibility while the latter function focuses on finding incorrect grammar. The company Lernstift used a built-in sensor that buzzes when it detects words written erroneously.The inventors of the high-tech pen, married couple Falk and Mandy Wolsky,

South Korea's tax agency has launched an investigation into the nation's top Internet portal operator NHN Corp for the first time since 2007, a company official said Monday.The official said the probe is a regular tax investigation that occurs every four or five years but NHN's first tax probe in 2007 forced the company to pay 1.48 billion won (US$1.3 million) in additional taxes.The 2007 tax probe was the first on NHN since it was founded in 1999.Naver is NHN's flagship Web portal that features

Apple Inc. passed Samsung Electronics Co. to become the top mobile phone maker in the U.S. for the first time, scoring a victory in the companies’ battle for global dominance of the mobile-device market.Apple sold 17.7 million mobile phones in the U.S. during the fourth quarter, a 38 percent jump from a year earlier, research firm Strategy Analytics said Friday in a statement. That gave it 34 percent of the market, topping Samsung, which sold 16.8 million handsets for a 32 percent market share.

Facility investment by businesses in South Korea will likely contract for three consecutive years from 2013 as companies remain reluctant to spend in the face of toughened and cloudy market conditions, a survey showed Sunday.Corporate investment in facilities is expected to decline 1.4 percent on-year to a combined 127.9 trillion won ($116.5 billion) this year, according to the survey by the Korea Finance Corp. The survey was conducted on 3,251 businesses across the country.Last year, companies

South Korea’s wage and income account deficit hit a record high in 2012 as local companies paid more for foreign workers here than income brought in by Korean laborers working overseas, data showed Sunday.According to the data by the Bank of Korea, income earned by foreign workers in Korea came to about $1.15 billion last year, down 2.8 percent from a year earlier. Income earned by Korean workers abroad shrank 13.8 percent on-year to $647.1 million.As a result, the country’s wage and income acco

LG Electronics released new high-performance earphones dubbed “Quad Beat 2” which is expected to be included in the company’s next flagship smartphone “Optimus G Pro” package.“Quad Beat 2” is a follow-up model to “Quad Beat,” which has enjoyed popularity with Korean smartphone users as its performance surpassed expectations for standard headphones provided as a part of cellphone package.The mobile phone manufacturer announced through its official blog on Friday that it successfully developed “Qu

South Korea-based tech behemoth Samsung Electronics Co. will likely see its share of the world smartphone market far outpace that of iPhone maker Apple Inc. this year with new Galaxy devices set to hit the market, data showed Wednesday.Samsung is expected to ship 320.4 million units of smartphones worldwide in 2013, compared with an estimated 159 million units of the iPhone shipped by Apple, according to the data by market researcher Strategy Analytics.LG Electronics Inc. of South Korea comes ne

LG Electronics will roll out a new flagship smartphone dubbed “Optimus G Pro” in Korea by March, according to its chief financial officer Jeong Do-hyun on Wednesday.Following its quarterly earnings conference at its headquarters in Yeouido, Jeong said that the new 5.5-inch flagship smartphone will be released in the local market by the first quarter and then to the overseas market in the second quarter.Another LG executive also stated during the earnings conference that the new G series smartpho