BUSAN -- Elves, monsters and supercars from popular online games became much more real at the annual G-Star game trade show, luring gaming aficionados to the event that opened Thursday in Busan.　From car exhibits to stage shows, companies took their characters out of their game worlds to reach out to players. Models pose at game developer Nexon`s exhibition booth during the G-Star game trade show on Thursday in Busan. (Kim Young-won/Korea Herald)　The four-day trade show is a venue for game devel

Mobile messenger operator Kakao said Wednesday that former co-chief executive Lee Sir-goo would leave the company.His departure came after the former Kakao co-CEO was indicted without detention last week by the prosecution for neglecting the circulation of pornography on KakaoGroup, a group chatting application.  Kakao’s co-CEO Lee Sir-goo (Kim Myung-sub/The Korea Herald)“Lee said he would like to take on new challenges,” said a Kakao spokesperson, adding the former co-CEO is scheduled to leave

Showing off their advanced technologies, Korean electronics giants Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have bagged a clutch of awards at the CES Innovation Awards, an annual competition program honoring outstanding design and engineering in consumer technology products. Samsung and LG won 38 and 21 innovation awards for their products, respectively, at the CES Innovation Awards, according to the companies on Wednesday. Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S6 Edge Plus. (Samsung)The award-winning produ

Design should be “meaningful, impactful and inspiring,” since it is at the center of every business decision and decides the fate of a company.That is the belief of Randi Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media and social media pioneer.Participating in the 5th Herald Design Forum held at Grand Hyatt Seoul on Tuesday, the Zuckerberg Media CEO shed light on the importance of design in running businesses. Randi Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media and social media pioneer, delive

South Korea’s leading battery-maker LG Chem said Monday that it has secured a deal worth millions of dollars to supply its batteries for a project to build the world’s largest energy storage system for frequency regulation in Germany.The company’s lithium-ion batteries will be utilized in a project led by German power generator Steag to build the ESSs for frequency regulation in six regions in Nordrhein-Westfalen and Saaerland, Germany, in 2016.The ESS for frequency regulation is used to maintai

SAMSUNG SMARTWATCH LURES MIDDLE EAST -- Samsung Electronics said Sunday that it would run the Galaxy Studio in Dubai until Oct. 21 to showcase its Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch featuring a round face for the first time in the Middle East. (Samsung)

LG OLED EYES EUROPEAN MARKET -- LG Electronics said Sunday it will run the OLED TV Roadshow until Nov. 16 at Beaugrenelle, a shopping mall in Paris, where the firm will promote its organic light-emitting diode TVs. (LGE)

　Given the saturated wireless network market, Korean mobile carriers have been shifting their focus to pay TV in an effort to secure new revenue sources.　Pay TV services including Internet Protocol TV or cable TV are among those areas where the network providers have been competitively trying to increase their presence in recent years.　The latest move was made earlier this week by SK Telecom, the largest mobile carrier in Korea in terms of subscribers, when it announced that it would take over c

Samsung Electronics topped smartphone sales charts in five global markets in the July-September period, according to an industry report Sunday.The tech giant took the top spot in five regions -- Western Europe, Asia-Pacific, Central and South America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East and Africa.Samsung shipped a total of 83.8 million smartphone units during the three-month period -- 15.3 million in Western Europe, 23.2 million in Asia-Pacific, 11.8 million in Central and South America, 69 mill

Maldives' Parliament voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to impeach the country's vice president, who will be charged with terrorism for plotting to kill the president, a minister said.Ahmed Adeeb is the second vice president to be impeached in three months. He has been arrested for allegedly planning to kill President Yameen Abdul Gayoom in an explosion on his speedboat on Sept. 28. Adeeb has denied involvement in the blast.The impeachment motion received 61 votes in favor and none opposed in the

South Korean pharmaceutical company Hanmi Pharmaceutical Co. said Thursday that it has reached a license agreement with global drugmaker Sanofi to develop a portfolio of experimental, long-acting diabetes treatments, valued at up to 3.9 billion euros (US$4.2 billion).Under the agreement, Hanmi will receive an upfront payment of 400 million euros and is also eligible for up to 3.5 billion euros in development, registration and sales milestones, as well as double-digit royalties on net sales. The

The military is envisioning the deployment of combat marine forces on the island of Ulleung in the East Sea, a move that could add military pressure on North Korea and enhance the defense of the easternmost islets of Dokdo, a military official said Thursday.If the deployment vision is put into action, it could form a U-shaped coastal defense system linking the group of islands near the inter-Korean border in the Yellow Sea and the southern resort island of Jeju to Ulleung, located about midway a

The third hearing of a multi-billion-dollar case the U.S. private equity firm Lone Star filed against South Korea over its asset sell-offs will be held in The Hague in January, the Justice Ministry here said Thursday.Lone Star and the South Korean government will counter each other at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in the Netherlands from Jan. 5-8 over the equity fund's 2003 purchase of a controlling stake in Korea Exchange (KEB) and its sell-off, the mini

The level of market liberalization of the recently signed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is similar to the free trade pact reached between South Korea and the United States, although more time is needed to determine what impact it will have on Asia's fourth largest economy, the government said Thursday.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said that the text of the agreement reached between 12 Asia-Pacific countries early last month has to be checked in detail, and claimed there were no bi

An appeals court on Thursday ruled against South Korean iPhone users who filed a damages suit against Apple Inc. for collecting their location information without their consent.The Busan High Court, upholding a lower court's ruling, dismissed the complaint filed against the U.S.-based tech firm and its local unit, Apple Korea, seeking 1 million won (US$879) each in compensation, saying there was no leakage of private data.While acknowledging the illegality of Apple's collection of data, the cour

President Park Geun-hye on Thursday proposed to establish a joint office with North Korea to handle inter-Korean exchanges, as a follow-up measure of a landmark deal reached with Pyongyang in August.“While the fields of civil exchanges between the two Koreas are spreading from history, culture and sports to forestry, pest control and others, there needs to be support on the government level for such a trend to expand even further,” said Park during a meeting with the members of presidential prep

Kakao, operator of Korea’s most-used mobile messenger, announced on Thursday its plan to launch a mobile chauffeur service Kakao Driver.The new smartphone-based service is in line with the company’s efforts to integrate offline services into mobile businesses. 　Kakao’s chauffeur application Kakao Driver. (Kakao)Kakao Driver is aimed at “creating a healthy business environment through competition and providing more choices for users,” the company said in a press release. Kakao had previously deni

LG NURTURES GLOBAL TALENTS -- LG Group chairman Koo Bon-moo (left) poses with one of Global Challenger 2015 winners in Seoul on Thursday. The annual Global Challenger competition grants winners a range of benefits including scholarships for overseas expeditions, and employment and internship opportunities. (LG Group)

　LG UPLUS UPGRADES IPTV SERVICE -- Mobile carrier LG Uplus unveils its “curation TV service,” which assigns video-on-demand on around 500 virtual channels arranged in six groups by genre. The curation TV service, which will be available for LG Uplus IPTV subscribers, also allows users to watch TV programs or films featuring their favorite stars on certain channels. (LG Uplus)

The rise of mobile payment in recent years requires device makers and software developers to have hack-proof solutions fitted in their products and services to ensure safe and convenient financial transactions.Pyun Baek-bum, chief executive of CrucialSoft, said that security solutions adopting the FIDO or Fast Identity Online standards, a set of authentication technologies aimed at enhancing interoperability of identification solutions in mobile devices, have a competitive edge over other authen