Samsung Electronics will unveil a new vision called “Start-up Samsung” this week in a move to learn from start-ups and improve its rigid top-down corporate culture. The company is expected to reduce emphasis on job titles and give more authority to team leaders.Detailed plans are expected to be announced Thursday, but industry watchers are already paying keen attention to the winds of change blowing at the nation’s largest company. Samsung Group office in Seoul. (Yonhap)Korean companies, especia

Moscow (AFP) -- All 61 people on board a FlyDubai Boeing 737 were killed when their plane crashed and burst into flames as it was landing in Rostov-on-Don, in Southern Russia, on Saturday morning, officials said.The plane was making its second attempt to land in bad weather when it missed the runway, erupting in a huge fireball as it crashed.“Flydubai regrets to confirm that flight FZ981 crashed on landing and that fatalities have been confirmed as a result of this tragic accident,” the airline

BEIJING (Yonhap) -- China is open to three-way talks with South Korea and the United States on implementing new U.N. sanctions targeting North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, South Korea’s chief nuclear envoy said Saturday after meeting with his Chinese counterpart. Kim Hong-kyun, South Korea‘s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, also said he and his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, shared “concerns” about North Korea’s test-launch of two mid-range ballist

North Korea‘s nuclear test site is believed to be capable of supporting additional tests at any time, a website monitoring the communist nation said Friday, citing satellite imagery showing continued activity at the site.The website 38 North said that the activity at the Punggye-ri underground test site does not appear directed at further tunnel excavation but rather to maintain existing tunnels as well as to clean up after the January nuclear test.  North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects mili

The United Nations Security Council “strongly condemned” North Korea on Friday for its test-firing of ballistic missiles, saying that the North’s provocation cannot be accepted.After holding an emergency session, the UNSC issued a statement saying that the North's latest missile launches are “unacceptable” and “constituted a clear violation” of relevant UNSC resolutions. The reaction came as North Korea launched two medium-range ballistic missiles on Friday into waters off its east coast in a sh

Korean Go master Lee Se-dol has proved human intuition can still surpass the ever-evolving artificial intelligence technology, with his first victory against Google’s AI program AlphaGo. “This single win is so valuable and I would never exchange this with anything in the world,” Lee said after the victory on Sunday in Seoul. Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, the AlphaGo developer, also offered his respect to Lee’s victory. He said, “We are very happy about Lee’s victory. This is why we came here

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday it has started production of a 1.2 megapixel image sensor for smartphones that applies its own dual pixel technology. The company’s latest smartphone Galaxy S7 and its Edge variant that boast advanced camera functions are the first to adopt the sensor.  Dual pixel technology means each of the 12 million pixels have two photodiodes that collect light. The pixels work better like human eyes, improving autofocus speed and allowing clear photos even in low light co

Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo defeated Korean Go champion Lee Se-dol in their historic first showdown Wednesday.In a landmark match held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, the Google AI beat Lee by resignation in 186 moves after a fierce tug of war for more than 3 1/2 hours. “I was really surprised. I didn’t think I could lose,” Lee said at a press conference after the match. “I didn’t think AlphaGo would play in such a perfect manner. I like to express my respect to the Goog

LG Group chairman Koo Bon-moo stressed “insight and action” for the group’s next big leap at an executive meeting in Seoul on Tuesday. “At a time of technological convergence and fierce competition across industries, we are experiencing destructive changes,” he said. “We should focus on our strengths to further elevate our competitiveness.” Koo Bon-moo. (Illustration By Park Gee-young)LG, the nation’s fourth-largest conglomerate, has continued business restructuring centered on its next growth e

OCHANG, North Chungcheong Province -- An automated assembly line at chemical and battery firm LG Chem’s Ochang Plant 1 here was busily ferrying a long battery separator sheet attached with positive and negative plates.Along the assembly line, the sheet was folded, or rather rolled, in layers and then cut and packaged to turn into square, thin pouch-type battery cells.The lithium-ion battery cells will later be mounted on electric cars of around 20 global automotive makers, including Ford, Volksw

Tensions are growing high at Cheil Worldwide, the advertising unit of Samsung Group that has been widely rumored to be merging with French ad giant Publicis Groupe within the first half of this year. According to industry sources, Cheil has continued talks to sell off a controlling 28.28 percent stake that is owned by Samsung C&T, Samsung Electronics and Samsung Card to Publicis. Even though the company has not yet confirmed the deal, a sense of anxiety is already prevalent among Cheil workers.

Former CEO of Google and executive chairman of the parent company, Alphabet, Eric Schmidt is scheduled to visit Seoul on Tuesday to attend the historic Go match between top player Lee Se-dol and Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo.  The five-day games will be held at a Seoul hotel on March 9, 10, 12, 13 and 15. There is a $1 million prize for the winner. All the matches will be live-streamed via YouTube. Schmidt is also expected to attend the gala dinner on the eve of the first matc

Olympus, the Japanese maker of medical and surgical solutions, Thursday held a groundbreaking ceremony of its new medical training center in Songdo, Incheon. The Olympus Korea Training and Education Center aims to offer diverse training programs for health professionals on the safe and effective use of the company’s medical and surgical products, including its market No. 1 endoscopy equipment.  With a budget of 36.3 billion won ($29.3 million), the new center, the sixth of its kind globally and

Samsung Electronics said Thursday it will start mass production of the industry’s first 256-gigabyte Universal Flash Storage from next month for smartphones, with twice the processing speed compared to conventional chips used in PCs. The Korean tech giant, which is also the world’s biggest memory chipmaker, said the new chip will go into high-end mobile devices but didn’t name possible products and clients.  According to the company, the chip has a reading speed of 850 megabytes per second and w

Samsung Group said Thursday Samsung Electronics vice chairman and heir apparent Lee Jae-yong has repurchased treasury shares of Samsung C&T and Samsung Engineering, worth a combined 230 billion won ($185 million). Lee acquired 1.3 million shares -- about 200 billion won -- of Samsung C&T, the de facto holding company, from Samsung SDI, the battery-making unit. Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong“The buyback aims to minimize the market impact, including any damage to minority sharehold

Mobile messenger operator Kakao on Wednesday launched navigation app KakaoNavi, which allows users to share locations, destinations, and travel time with their friends on the KakaoTalk messenger. The new app is the upgraded version of Kimgisa that the Korean IT giant acquired for 62.6 billion won ($50 million) last year. (Kakao)

Mobile chiefs of Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics made their debuts at Mobile World Congress, the mobile industry’s largest gathering held in Barcelona, Spain, this week. LG has usually launched its new phones after MWC but this year the company went head-on with its local rival Samsung. As much as their latest phones, presentations made by the mobile chiefs of both companies grabbed a lot of attention from industry people and journalists. Samsung’s mobile chief Koh Dong-jin, 55, is an eng

Samsung Electronics’ mobile payments service Samsung Pay has hit 5 million subscribers, with combined transactions exceeding $500 million in Korea and the U.S. since its debut in August. The Korean tech giant said Saturday it will start the service in China in March and other countries such as Australia, Brazil, Singapore, Spain, the U.K. and Canada in phases later this year.  Detailed plans for its future launches and partnerships with local banks and card issuers are expected to be revealed du

Samsung Electronics is expected to complete the relocation of its Seoul offices to Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, next month, a move that is widely considered part of Samsung Group’s ongoing business restructuring. Even though the tech giant has been headquartered in Suwon where its production facilities are based since 1973, the Seoul office has played a control tower role together with Samsung Corporate Strategy Office that oversees all group companies. Samsung Group has created the so-called “Sams

The world’s first braille smartwatch, developed by a Korean start-up, will make its debut at the upcoming Mobile World Congress, the telecom industry’s largest gathering in Barcelona next week. According to the developer Dot, the device has 30 braille dots on the watch face so that blind people can send text messages without limitations. Thanks to a special module set that has drastically reduced the size of the device, the price has also become affordable at about $300.  While the current voice