Stronger laws and bigger payouts may plague the firms This week’s government decision to impose penalties on the Korean units of Apple and Google for their roles in the so-called “location-gate” is being viewed as more than a slap on the wrist despite the light nature of the punishment. Above all, Korea has set a legal precedent that may throw some weight behind the 27,800 Koreans who have agre...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Research In Motion Ltd. on Wednesday unveiled five new BlackBerry phones with touch screens, as it hopes to revive the line‘s dwindling appeal in the face of competition from the iPhone and Android smartphones. The new phones had been expected earlier this year, but were delayed. Though the company is profitable and seeing growing sales, it is increasingly seen as a has-been tha...

LivingSocial, the No. 2 social commerce provider in the U.S. after Groupon, has acquired South Korea’s biggest player Ticket Monster (TMon), underscoring the popularity of discount deals through social network services amid the dearth of mergers and acquisitions in other sectors. TMon said on Tuesday that the acquisition deal has been finalized, without offering monetary terms and other detailed...

Apple Inc. escalated its legal dispute against Samsung Electronics Co. by requesting an Australian court to block the South Korean company from selling the newest version of its tablet computer in the country. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes 10 Apple patents, including the “look and feel,” and touchscreen technology of the iPad, Steven Burley, a lawyer for Apple, told the Federal Court in ...

Smartphone users check their IT gadgets 34 times a day or once every 10 minutes on average, CNN reported. Quoting a study published in an IT journal, CNN said that the users tend to repetitively check e-mails and other applications not because they needed to check them but because it had become a habit. The checking habit emerges and is reinforced by informational “rewards” that are very quickl...

SK Communications Co. said on Thursday that personal information of its 35 million online users has been hacked, marking South Korea’s worst online security breach and sparking fears that the leak could lead to massive online and voice scams in coming weeks. “The company has confirmed that a leak of customers’ information has taken place due to hacking on July 26,” SK said in a statement. “The s...

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- As his right hand grips the mouse, the physics major's eyes are fixed on a flat-screen monitor labeled with a red sticker reminding him the computer was a gift from Kim Jong Il. Kim Nam Il says he prefers learning online to studying from books, and in that sense, the 21-year-old is just like other university students the world over. North Korea is undergoing its o...

Amid increasing popularity of Steve Job’s products around the globe, fake Apple stores that pretend to be authentic are opening in China. Not only did the stores in Kunming disguised themselves to be official retail chains, the products sold there were also imitations. Shockingly, even those who worked there wearing staff T-shirts printed with the company logo thought they were working for Appl...