Clear guidelines needed before Kakao’s service launch, say carriers Tension between Korea’s leading mobile carriers and Kakao Talk, a mobile messenger tech firm, is growing as the latter will introduce a mobile telephone service in the second half of this year. Kakao Talk has begun offering a test version of its mobile Voice over Internet Protocol, named Voice Talk, to over 4 million worldwide ...

Apple Inc. was denied its renewed request for a ban on U.S. sales of Samsung Electronics Co.’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer while the case is still before a federal court of appeals. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, said Monday that she does not have jurisdiction to issue a preliminary injunction because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington has ...

The Apple iPad extended its lead in the global market for tablet computers at the start of 2012 while Amazon's Kindle Fire flamed out after a sizzling introduction, a survey showed Monday. The ABI Research survey showed overall global sales of media tablets amounted to 18.2 million in the first three months of the year, up 185 percent from a year earlier, but down 33 percent from the fourth quar...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) ― South Africa’s fixed line operator Telkom announced that plans for a partnership with South Korea’s telecom operator KT will not go ahead after Pretoria decided not to back it. The two last year opened talks on a “strategic venture” that would have given KT Corporation a 20 percent stake in Telkom. Telkom said in a statement on Friday it had been informed by the Communicati...

HONG KONG (Yonhap News) ― Taiwan’s light-emitting diode industry is facing stiff competition from South Korean and Chinese rivals due to greater efforts by the two competitors to develop the sector, a Taiwanese industry report said Monday. Taiwan’s Photonics Industry & Technology Development Association said Taiwan should not overlook the rapid development of the LED industry in South Korea and ...

Smartphone apps are very useful but users often have to pay for them with their privacy. The German consumer protection group Stiftung Warentest looked at 63 applications and graded 28 of them as "critical" in regards to data protection. Another nine were determined to be "very critical" -including widely-popular apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Foodspotting and iTranslate. The applications tak...

Apple chief Tim Cook on Tuesday vowed that creativity would remain in the company's "DNA" and hinted that products on the horizon could come in the area of television. Cook was the star opening guest at a prestigious All Things Digital conference hosted by the Rupert Murdoch-owned technology news website at a resort in the Southern California town of Palos Verdes. "We're going to introduce some...

South Korea's Samsung Electronics said it would start selling its newest smartphone in 28 countries from Tuesday as it seeks to cement its position as the world's top-selling mobile phone maker. The Galaxy S3, unveiled in London earlier this month, will hit shelves Tuesday in nations including Britain, France and the United Arab Emirates, the firm said in a statement. The phone will be availabl...

TOKYO (AFP) ― Japan logged a bigger-than-expected trade deficit of 520.3 billion yen ($6.5 billion) in April as higher energy costs pushed up imports, the finance ministry said Wednesday. The deficit was larger than a shortfall of 477.7 billion yen registered in April 2011, a month after Japan was hit by a huge earthquake and tsunami which battered the world’s third-largest economy. It was also...