The year 2019 will witness a revolutionary change in the form factor of smartphones, led by South Korean tech titan Samsung Electronics’ launch of its first foldable display phone that could be a game-changer for the stalled global smartphone market. According to announcements by Samsung so far, the so-called “Galaxy F” is likely to feature an organic light-emitting diode screen dubbed “Infinity Flex Display” that measures 7.3 inches diagonally when it’s opened. When folded in half, the size of

LAS VEGAS -- Kicking off on Tuesday in Las Vegas, the world’s biggest information technology tradeshow, Consumer Electronics Show 2019, is to showcase significant advancements in consumer electronics technologies led by “smarter” artificial intelligence that will be supported by a new fifth-generation network. AI and 5G are expected to take center stage at the annual tech event, with an increased number of connected devices such as TVs and other home appliances, according to the Consumer Technol

The Year 2019 will be a cutthroat yet exciting year for South Korea’s telecommunications businesses as the introduction of faster fifth-generation telecom networks in March augurs upheavals in their own and other industries. The Korean mobile operators at the forefront of the 5G commercialization are widely expected to escape their traditional areas of business, mainly centering on providing high-speed internet and high-quality calls, stretching out to the media industry by providing new service

Samsung Electronics, the world’s No. 1 memory chip provider, is considering slowing the pace of expanding its production facilities next year amid negative forecasts about growth of the global semiconductor market, according to the industry on Tuesday. At a biannual meeting on the tech titan’s global business strategies held last week, the device solutions division’s main agenda was how to cope with the expected oversupply of memory chips next year, as demand is widely forecast to go downhill, w

Samsung Electronics is beefing up its foundry business by utilizing cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet technology to attract global IT giants such as IBM and Qualcomm as major customers, according to the industry on Friday. US-based IT mogul IBM Corp. announced Friday that it will use Samsung Foundry’s 7-nanometer EUV process to manufacture power processors for the IBM Power Systems, IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE high-performance computing systems and cloud offerings. The 7-nm EUV process was a strategic

LG CNS, an IT solutions provider of LG Group, clinched fourth place in a global competition for artificial intelligence technologies, the company said Thursday. The LG affiliate competed with 340 teams from businesses and research teams around the world at the Adversarial Vision Challenge hosted by the Neural Information Processing System. It finished fourth, trailing behind teams from Carnegie Mellon University, Tsinghua University and Montreal College of Information and Technology. LG CNS was

Asia’s leading smartphone manufacturers Samsung Electronics and Huawei are skipping the notch design display widely popularized by US rival Apple, suggesting the hole-punch as the next-generation design for smartphone displays that are free of bezels, according to the industry on Tuesday. A week after Samsung unveiled the mid-range Galaxy A8s equipped with a hole-punch display dubbed Infinity-O in China, its Chinese competitor Huawei on Monday announced the Nova 4 smartphone with a hole located

The expansion of Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei into South Korea’s financial sector is drawing mixed views, industry sources said Monday. KT, the No. 2 player in the telecom industry, has selected Huawei’s equipment, including its multiservice switching platform, for upgrades of landline network connections for financial institutions. Major clients include Koscom and Nonghyup. Koscom is an IT solution provider owned by the Korea Exchange, which serves public financial institutions and bu

South Korean smartphone makers Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are planning to unveil their first fifth-generation network-enabled smartphones at the biggest mobile industry tradeshow in Barcelona in February, aiming to launch the phones in March upon commercialization of wireless 5G services, according to industry sources Sunday. Industry observers are paying attention to the Mobile World Congress 2019 that opens in Barcelona in late February in order to witness the new phones of the fir

KT signed an agreement with the United Nations Environment Program to provide consultations on uses of information communications technology with a view to resolving global environmental issues such as fine dust, the mobile carrier said Thursday.Under the agreement, KT will support UNEP in establishing an integrated platform for handling global environmental issues, data analysis on activities to reduce fine dust, and measures to help vulnerable groups of people to combat fine dust in developing

LG Electronics announced Thursday it will launch a 100-kilowatt energy storage system for solar power plants featuring LG Chem’s battery in an effort to expand into the ESS market. Named All-in-one ESS, the system is equipped with power-condition and power-management systems that increase efficiency and convenience for users, the company said.  (LG Electronics)Adopting LG Chem’s 274-kilowatt per hour battery, the ESS is capable of storing electricity for one full day for 25 households in Seoul.

SK Telecom signed a memorandum of understanding with Deutsche Telekom’s subsidiary MobiledgeX to introduce mobile edge computing technologies to its fifth-generation network services, it said Thursday. Mobile edge computing refers to a set of technologies that enable computation on distributed devices known as smart devices or edge devices as opposed to primarily taking place in a centralized cloud environment.  SKT and MobiledgeX officials pose after an MOU signing ceremony on Thursday. (SK Tel

KT will establish a platform to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases across the African continent, in partnership with the Kenyan government, the South Korean mobile carrier said Wednesday. The company broke ground for the Global Epidemic Prevention Platform that will serve as a center for collecting and analyzing data on contagious diseases in traveling areas and particularly critical regions, sent by Kenya’s No. 1 carrier Safaricom. A ceremony was held to mark the occasion at Safaric

Samsung Electronics’ year-end organizational restructuring focuses on three new businesses: artificial intelligence, vehicle components and the fifth-generation network, according to the industry on Wednesday.The tech conglomerate has worked on realigning current business divisions and units, and transfers of positions, all of which are to be completed by Thursday. While maintaining the current three divisions -- device solutions, IT and mobile communications, and consumer electronics -- each di

LG Electronics will unveil a beer-brewing machine at Consumer Electronics Show 2019 in Las Vegas in January with the aim of leading the market in the widely popular home-brewing trend, the company said Tuesday. Dubbed “LG Home Brew,” the newest brewer is an automated beer-making machine, equipped with LG’s proprietary brewing technology supported by its inverter compressor and automatic temperature- and pressure-control technologies, the company said. The brewer works like an espresso machine. U

Samsung Electronics heir apparent Lee Jae-yong headed to the Maldives on Monday after attending the prewedding festivities of Isha Ambani, the daughter of the chairman of India’s biggest telecom group Reliance Jio, The Korea Herald confirmed Tuesday. Lee on Friday left for Udaipur, a city in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, to attend the event that drew hundreds of the world’s celebrities, politicians and business moguls. The prewedding festivities were held over the weekend, including a p

South Korean mobile carrier KT announced Monday its plan to compensate those who suffered from a network blackout caused by a fire at its regional branch last month, including the exemption of telecom bills worth up to six months.In addition to its initial plan to shave off one-month bills for both landline and wireless service subscribers among the victims, which largely included small merchants in the Seodaemun District, northern Seoul, the operator decided to exempt fees worth up to six month

Samsung Electronics is aggressively hiring software engineers who specialize in autonomous driving technologies, raising expectations that it will launch a new business unit in the field, according to industry sources on Monday. The South Korean tech giant has been seeking experts in autonomous driving, an industry source said, with Samsung thought to be planning to kick-start the new business officially as early as 2019.“Samsung is looking for working-level engineers with over five years of exp

LG Display, the world’s biggest organic light-emitting diode panel maker, said Friday it is working with Japan’s national public broadcasting company NHK to broadcast the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with 8K picture quality. The partnership is a part of LG’s OLED business plan for the Japanese TV market, where there is high demand for high picture quality. To promote OLED panels in Japan, the company participated in the 28th Finetech Japan forum held in Tokyo on Thursday.  LGD advisor Yeo Sang-deok speak

Analysts at stock brokerages in South Korea on Friday expressed positive views toward the appointments of chief executive officers at the country’s two biggest chipmakers, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, suggesting favorable trends in their stock prices. Kim Kyung-min, an analyst at Hana Financial Investment, said Samsung Vice Chairman and CEO Kim Ki-nam and SK hynix CEO Lee Seok-hee are expected to maintain the current supply and price strategies for their DRAM businesses. “The executive prom