LG Chem, South Korea’s leading chemical company, is pushing ahead with its environmental corporate social responsibility vision “Green Connector.” The chemical company’s new CSR vision is dedicated to help conserve biodiversity, foster green education, expand use of renewable energy and support eco-friendly social enterprises. The company said it will newly recruit around 20 students to work with local ecologists on the ecosystem of Bamseom, a pair of uninhabited isle

Sitting on the lower slopes of Bukaksan is Samcheong Park.  Samcheong Park is the first officially designated park in Seoul, and still among the more popular areas for a stroll in the Samcheong-dong area. This park is busiest in April for its cherry blossoms, but many locals and tourists visit year-round. The park has a library as well as a learning center for children and sports facilities.  Located around 500 meters to the north from Samcheong Park is Malbawi, a popular spot to lo

Samsung Electronics announced Friday that the company has officially launched the Galaxy Z Fold 2 in overseas markets. The company’s new foldable smartphone will be available in around 40 nations, including the US, Singapore, Thailand, England and France. The official launch date in the South Korean market has been delayed to Sept. 23 due to a large number of preorders, which currently stands at 80,000, the company said. Samsung Electronics said it plans to launch the new booklike fol

Kakao, operator of South Korea’s top mobile messaging platform, announced Wednesday that the company has launched a new enterprise messenger. The new corporate messenger developed by Kakao’s artificial intelligence unit Kakao Enterprise has combined existing user interface of popular messenger app Kakao Talk with AI and cloud technologies to support digital transformation of work environment and to improve work efficiency, according to the company. Kakao Enterprise has made the b

US officials expressed concerns over South Korea’s revised Telecommunications Business Act, which would require foreign platform operators to share the cost of ensuring stable services, business community representatives and government officials said Wednesday. According to the sources, the concerns that the rules unfairly targeted foreign platofrms were raised don Sept. 10 during a videoconference on information and communication technology policy attended by officials from both n

South Korea‘s exports of information and communication technology products continued to increase for the third consecutive month in August, according to a government report released Tuesday. The Ministry of Science and ICT report shows the nation‘s exports of ICT products last month reaching $15.24 billion, up by 0.3 percent on-year. The upward trend has been largely contributed to robust exports of memory chips and computers amid the coronavirus pandemic. Outbound shipments of s

South Korea’s exports fell 0.2 percent on-year in the first 10 days of September according to Korea Customs Service’s report Sunday. The nation’s outbound shipments during the 10-day period marked $14.9 billion, down by 0.2 percent on-year from $15 billion in 2019. The daily average exports during the same period slipped by 11.9 percent.  The imports in early September decreased by 7.6 percent to reach at $13 billion, from $14.1 billion last year.  The economic

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy launched a government-industry team on Thursday dedicated to developing next-generation semiconductors. The government will inject a total of 1 trillion won ($842.4 million) by 2029, starting this year. The ICT Ministry will provide 488 billion won and the Trade Industry will give 521 billion won. Those joining the state-led team this year include 103 local businesses, 32 universities and 12 research institutions.

The Ministry of Science and ICT on Tuesday provided advance notice of its ordinances under the revised Telecommunications Business Act, which includes clauses that will bind foreign platform operators like Netflix and YouTube to share costs in securing stable services. The revision, dubbed the ”Netflix law,“ passed the National Assembly in May after local network operators raised complaints over foreign platform operators being exempt from costs for operating, expanding and using

Education technology firm Yanadoo announced Tuesday that the company has recently secured investments worth 30 billion won ($25.2 million). Yanadoo, which merged with Kakao Kids to become a comprehensive education platform, is currently evaluated at 300 billion won, according to the company. Yanadoo previously offered online English programs, but started to add different education programs including ones related to health care after the merger. Yanadoo‘s sales in the first half this ye

LG U+ announced Tuesday that the company and its global partners had developed a new technology enabling smart devices to work without SIM cards. Joining LG U+ in the development of the universal integrated circuit card, or iUICC, were cellular chipset developer Sony Semiconductor Israel, local communication module maker NTmore and German digital security solutions provider Giesecke+Devrient. SIM cards are responsible for storing users’ personal information, which is needed to identify

  South Korea’s social media penetration rate has reached 87 percent, the third highest among nations around the globe, according to a local report Monday. South Korea’s social media penetration rate as of the first quarter this year was 80 percent higher than the global average of 49 percent, according to the latest report by DMC media and Digieco, an economic research institute affiliated with KT. The report, which quoted related data collected by We Are Social, added that

KakaoPage, an entertainment company specializing in online cartoons, web novels, film, and TV series, will expand its business overseas, according to the company’s announcement on Friday. KakaoPage will expand its investments in mergers and acquisitions to enter the market in the US, China and nations in Southeast Asia by 2022, KakaoPage CEO Lee Jin-soo said Thursday during a talk with Vivek Couto, an APOS organizer at Media Partners Asia. Lee‘s session was held as part of APOS

Naver announced that it would start recruiting new platform developers and engineers starting on Friday. The IT firm said it would hire more than 200 developers this year. The business units that Naver are recruiting for include IT infrastructure unit Naver Business Platform, workplace collaboration tool developer Works Mobile, Snapchat-like camera app developer Snow, online cartoon platform operator Naver Webtoon and online financial platform operator Naver Financial. Those eligible to apply

The market share of South Korean app store One Store has reached a record high of 18.4 percent in August with 68.9 billion won, according to a local market research agency here Thursday. One Store is the largest local app store platform developed by the nation’s three mobile carriers -- KT, SK Telecom and LG U+ -- and Naver in 2016. The market shares of Google Play and Apple Store in August were 71 percent and 10.6 percent, respectively, the market research report added. The report sa

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced Wednesday that it would inject 499 billion won ($420.6 million) of supplementary budget this year to support artificial intelligence big data-powered businesses as part of the Korean New Deal. The budget will be provided to 2,103 local businesses, developers and institutions, according to the ICT Ministry. The ministry added the investment is expected to create around 28,000 jobs. Of the total, 292.5 billion won will be spent on constructing data set

Korean mobile carrier LG U+ announced Tuesday that the company has forged an alliance to create augmented reality and virtual reality content. Joining the Global XR Content Telco Alliance are telecommunications firms LG U+, KDDI in Japan, Bell in Canada and China Telecom. Award-winning entertainment studios Felix & Paul Studios and Atlas V are also joining the alliance as partner companies. Alliance members and partner companies will bring together their resources and technologies to cre

Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) announced Monday that it would push digital transformation to provide quality services to local and foreign businesses. The agency said it would bring digital transformation into a wide range of tasks it manages. According to KOTRA, its customers can now easily access various types of market data that it has collected from its 125 offices in 82 different nations around the globe. The agency said the big data collected in different nations would

Reinforced rules by South Korea’s antitrust regulator began to take effect Tuesday to prevent social media influencers from advertising products without telling viewers of their business ties with corporate sponsors. According to the Fair Trade Commission’s guidelines, the online streamers and social media influencers should explicitly disclose their business ties when they are provided with financial means to produce promotional posts or videos. The FTC said it revised old guidel