Key trends for the local and global IT industry this year are likely to be mobility, social, cloud and big data, a report projected Wednesday.Under such trends, multi-screen mobile platforms, business apps and the cloud computing business are among some sectors that are likely to gain traction in 2013, according to the report by the local unit of the Microsoft Corp.The report highlighted the growing importance of multi-screen devices, in which people interchange smartphones and PCs, and multiple

HONG KONG (Yonhap News) ― Apple Inc. will start selling the iPad mini in China this week in a bid to consolidate its dominance in China’s growing tablet PC market, company officials said Wednesday.The latest iPad will be released in China Friday, Apple officials said. The release comes one week after Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, made a visit to the world’s most populous country. He met government officials, business partners, Apple employees and customers during his visit, reports said. The release co

Prices of dynamic random access memory chips have jumped more than 10 percent in recent weeks amid concern that the key parts for personal computers could be in short supply, data showed Wednesday.The fixed price of DDR3 2 Gigabit 256Mx8 1333MHz came to $0.92 in the first half of January, up 10.84 percent from $0.83 in the second half of December, according to the data by market researcher DRAMeXchange.The chip was priced at $4.34 when it was launched in September 2010. Its price plunged to a re

South Korea will launch its Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1) between Jan. 30 and Feb. 8, a government committee said Wednesday.It will be the country's third attempt to send off the space rocket, also known as Naro, after its two earlier attempts in 2009 and 2010 ended in failures."After reviewing technical issues, the Launch Preparation Committee has decided to push for the third launch of Naro between Jan. 30 and Feb. 8 with the final launch date to be decided later, depending on weather

With the U.S. national debt standing at more than $16 trillion, the White House says it absolutely cannot spend $850 quadrillion on a "Star Wars"-inspired "Death Star" super-weapon.Sensing a chance to show off its lighter side, the Obama administration paid tribute to legions of "Star Wars" fans with its playful rejection of the "Death Star" proposal submitted on its "We the People" petitions website."The administration does not support blowing up planets," wrote Paul Shawcross, an adviser on sc

Worldwide sales of mobile phones, including smartphones and feature phones, reached 1.74 billion last year, growing 1.8 percent from the previous year, data showed Sunday.The on-year growth was attributed to robust demand for some of the latest models in the smartphone market, such as Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2 phones as well as Apple Inc.'s iPhone 5, according to the data by Strategy Analytics.Strong shipments of the Samsung and Apple phones, combined with seasonal de

  NHN Japan, a subsidiary of South Korea's top portal operator NHN Corp., is likely to see the number of its "LINE" messenger users break the 100 million mark this week, sources said Sunday.   LINE, launched in June 2011, is the company's free group messenger application that runs on the Android, Blackberry and iOS operating systems.   The service, which has been launched in roughly 230 countries, has ranked No. 1 in downloads on Google Play and App Store platforms in 41 countries.   After garne

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s top memory chip and smartphone maker, said Friday it has set up a joint venture in the United States with Japanese tech giants as they move to develop new memory technologies.Samsung, Panasonic Corp., Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. launched “Next Generation Secure Memory” earlier this month to collaborate on a new content protection technology for flash memory cards that are used in mobile devices.The four participants respectively own 25-percent stakes in the

NEW YORK (Yonhap News) ― The world ranking of South Korea’s economic freedom dropped by three notches this year, an international report said Thursday, citing the country’s corruption problems as hurting “equity” and “trust” in the government.According to the report jointly compiled by the U.S. think tank Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, South Korea came in 34th out of 177 countries in terms of economic freedom, down from 31st last year. It also ranked 8th out of 41 Asia-Pacific

Amazon.com on Thursday launched a service that gives compact disk buyers instant copies of music in the Internet “cloud” in a major challenge to Apple‘s iTunes shop.Amazon AutoRip provides free MP3 versions of music on CDs bought from the online retail titan.Copies of tunes are stored in Cloud Player libraries on datacenter servers and can be streamed to an array of Internet-linked devices including smartphones or tablets powered by Android or Apple software and Kindle Fire tablets.“What would y