Samsung Electronics, Korea’s tech manufacturing giant, said that its new flagship Galaxy S3 has hit the U.S. and Mexican markets this week.It held launching ceremonies and officially released the smartphone in the U.S. on June 20, and in Mexico on June 21, both on regional time, the company said in a press release.The company invited a number of guests in Mexico to its event held at the country’s stock exchange, while its U.S. guests included basketball players, Hollywood actresses and 500 consu

Rhythm & Hues in talks on possibility of setting up visual effects studio in KoreaVisual effects in cinema have come a long way, becoming an essential part of storytelling that helps make lasting impressions among movie-goers.As audience expectations to see eye-popping scenes and sequences in movies grow further, leading VFX studios such as U.S.-based Rhythm and Hues have to keep up to date with technology to meet such demand.Erika Burton, co-president of R&H, said that the emergence of cloud co

By Park Hyong-kiSK Telecom, Korea’s biggest mobile carrier, is gearing up to make another leap in long term evolution and open the era of “LTE 2.0” in the country.Celebrating the first anniversary since the company launched its LTE service in July last year, SK Telecom’s LTE 2.0 refers to offering multicarrier and LTE Advanced (LTE-A) services, with faster speed and accessibility, the company told reporters on Wednesday.It will launch the multicarrier service next month and aims to make LTE Adva

LG Electronics has formed a business alliance with foreign television makers in an effort to promote smart TVs worldwide.Korea’s second biggest consumer electronics company has forged partnerships with TP Vision, the Netherlands/Taiwanese TV maker, and Japan-based Sharp.The consortium, named the “Smart TV Alliance,” to be headed by LG Electronics executive Kwon Bong-suk, is the first of its kind in the global TV industry.“We expect this partnership to further boost the smart TV ecosystem, while

Group of six tech companies aims to boost mobile payment marketSK Planet, a Korean mobile platform operator, has formed a business alliance with six other Korean tech firms to boost the technology and use of near-field communication in Korea.The six, which each has its own technological specialization in NFC, are: SK C&C, Ubivelox, QnSolv, Mcom, Harex Infotech and AT Solution.The newly launched alliance is called “NFC Biz Partner Group,” noted SK Planet, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of SK

Blizzard Entertainment has finally given in to growing demands by consumers for refunds and compensation over its poor data-server management and service for Diablo 3.It will fully pay back 55,000 won to unsatisfied users who digitally downloaded Diablo 3 via the Battle.net account, or those who purchased the packaged game after 5 a.m. on June 21, according to Blizzard’s Diablo 3 website.Players whose game level is below 40 can also apply for a refund, it noted.Blizzard will begin accepting refu

Samsung Electronics and its close rival Apple are dominating the global smartphone markets, accounting for more than a half of the share.The number of smartphones that hit the markets totaled 145 million in the first half of this year, according to data by ABI Research, a tech research firm.This is an increase of 41 percent from the same period a year ago.The Korean tech manufacturing giant enjoyed sales of 43 million Galaxy series phones in the first quarter, becoming the number one in the sect

The Korea Communications Commission said Thursday that it will soon begin restricting websites from requiring subscribers or users to register their resident identification numbers.This measure follows a law revision that will be implemented beginning August 18, in an effort to make Korea a “clean Internet” society, which had been vulnerable to hacking and ID theft.All online sites, including portals, e-commerce and shopping malls, will not be able to ask or demand that consumers type in their n

SK Telecom, Korea’s largest mobile carrier, has launched a service that will ensure consumers receive compensation when hit by financial fraud via mobile networks.The service, named “Safe and Joy,” will offer its customers compensatory damages of between 1 to 3 million won, which they can use to take legal action, should they fall victim to voice and messenger phishing, and credit card misuse. Parents of Safe and Joy’s customers who had been exposed to such fraud can also receive the same financ

Global Green Growth Institute and Brookings Institution, a U.S.-based think tank, are collaborating to help developing countries access key technologies that could boost their economic growth in an environmentally-friendly way. GGGI executive director Richard Samans said the two organizations aimed to create a “pillar” for international technology cooperation between developed and developing markets.“We are in the midst of identifying specific technology options or mechanisms, maybe more toward

KT, Korea’s second largest mobile carrier, has launched a smart-working service for enterprises, and Tongyang Systems, a system integrator, will be the first corporation to partner with the telecom firm in the sector.The mobile carrier said Wednesday it will establish a smart-working center at Tongyang’s headquarters in Seoul.The two sides will equip the 265-square-meter center with fast broadband and wireless connections, as well as high-definition video conferencing. Tongyang will operate the

Telecom giants have begun accepting reservation purchases for Samsung Electronics’ much-awaited flagship smartphone Galaxy S3.SK Telecom, Korea’s largest mobile carrier, said that it started promoting Samsung’s 3G and long-term evolution mobile handsets, taking pre-orders from 5,000 customers on a first-come, first-served basis on Tuesday morning.After about two and a half hours, the telecom company said that pre-orders for all of the 5,000 3G phones had ended, while Samsung’s LTE phone continue

Global software giant takes on Amazon, Google in emerging technologyMicrosoft has launched its all-new hybrid cloud computing platform, Windows Azure, in Korea after holding off on the service for two years.Despite the delay in the release here, officials said MS is still ahead of its competitors such as Amazon and Google in Korea’s cloud computing arena.Amazon has not yet made a significant inroad into the Korean market, although the online book retailer has established its cloud computing serv

Health Connect, a joint venture between SK Telecom and Seoul National University Hospital, launched its first pilot-version of smart healthcare service called Health-On.SK Telecom, the country’s biggest mobile carrier, said Monday that the new service allows people to periodically check the status of their health evaluated by the hospital, which will provide online and offline consulting. Users will be able to use such a service via mobile devices and the Internet, and access individual health i

Central bank sees U.S. slowdown, eurozone crisis casting shadow over Korean economyThe Bank of Korea kept its key interest rate unchanged the 12th month in a row, maintaining its cautious monetary policy due to external macroeconomic factors of the eurozone crisis and the U.S. slowdown.The central bank’s monetary policy committee froze the seven-day repurchase rate at 3.25 percent on Friday, unwilling to apply the brakes as it did in the first half of last year, despite stable exports and growth

SKT, KT opposed, LG Uplus open to free mobile callsKakao’s controversial free mobile call application is facing growing opposition from Korea’s two telecom giants, SK Telecom and KT, as the venture firm’s new service is expected to hit their bottom lines.Kakao, which is widely known for its Kakao Talk free mobile messenger app, is gearing up to officially launch the next in its line of free mobile services, Voice Talk. Following this announcement three days ago, SK Telecom and KT remain adamant

SK Telecom said on Thursday that the number of its long term evolution network subscribers has exceeded 3 million as of early this month since launching the 4G telecommunication service in July last year.Within 11 months, Korea’s biggest mobile carrier has surpassed Japan’s NTT DoCoMo to become the world’s second leading LTE provider after U.S.-based Verizon, it said based on data by Wireless Intelligence.There were 72 companies that provided LTE services in 37 countries as of May, the company n

Samsung also plans to release the latest smartphone in Korea, U.S. this monthChinese consumers will be able to get hold of Samsung Electronics’ new flagship smartphone “Galaxy S3” this weekend as Korea’s biggest tech firm secured mobile carrier deals with China’s three telecom giants.Samsung Electronics will offer TD-SCDMA 3G smartphones with China Mobile, CDMA phones with China Telecom and WCDMA with China Unicom, it said in a press release.“We have been closely collaborating with China’s mobil

SK Telecom has launched security services for cloud computing servers to guard against hacking and security breaches.The company said that through a strategic partnership with U.S.-based Juniper Networks, it developed a cost-efficient cloud security system, named the “T Cloud Biz.” Infosec, which is part of SK C&C, will operate the system.This the first time a telecom company in Korea has launched such “firewall” services for business-to-business cloud computing that utilize systematic and real-