Samsung Electronics and Vodafone Group on Monday announced a strategic partnership in certain European markets to create a range of Internet of Things-based smart home products and services. The suite of products and services will bring together Samsung’s SmartThings open platform and the V by Vodafone consumer IoT system.  SmartThings Home Monitoring Kit from Samsung (Samsung)By connecting devices to the phone, including security cameras and smoke detectors, users of the V-Home by Vodafone syst

Samsung Electronics brought on a foreign executive and female board member Friday, in its first meeting of the board since Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was released from jail on Feb. 5.At the meeting held at the company‘s Suwon headquarters Friday, the board agreed to name Jeong Kim, chairman at Kiswe Mobile, Kim Sun-wook, former president of Ewha Womans University, and Park Byung-gook, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Seoul National University, as independent directors of the

HPE Aruba is planning to pursue aggressive market share growth in Korea in 2018 by focusing its energies on landing big enterprise deals, according to the company‘s country manager for South Korea on Thursday.“I believe that Aruba is the only vendor in the networking field that can compete against Cisco for big deals,” said Charles Kang, country manager for Korea at a press conference Thursday in Seoul.HPE Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, is a leading provider of next-generation netw

Korea‘s largest search engine platform Naver is focusing its energies in 2018 on marrying its core business of search with the customizing capabilities of artificial intelligence, but there are many hurdles ahead, according to the company’s chief executive Wednesday.At the annual Naver Connect 2018 conference, where Naver reaches out to creators and small business owners who operate on their platforms, Naver Chief Executive Han Seong-sook told reporters that the largest change to the company thi

SK Telecom said Wednesday that it is expanding its Internet of Things hybrid connectivity with the addition of a new nationwide network called Long-term Evolution Cat.M1, to be commercialized starting in April. An image of SK Telecom's booth at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona starting Feb. 26. (SK Telecom)The new network will supplement the existing LoRa and LTE Cat.1 networks, handling mid-tier data between the small data handled by the LoRa network and the larger data connected

Despite continuing developments in augmented reality technologies, AR games -- the most common way consumers have experienced augmented reality -- have gone stagnant following the explosive popularity of Niantic’s “Pokemon Go” last year. Models test out virtual reality gaming systems at VRIGHT, a virtual reality theme park from KT and GS Retail set to open March 1. (KT)According to a recent survey from digital research firm DMC Media, just 6.4 percent of respondents said that they had installed

KT, KIST succeed in one-to-many quantum encrypted communicationTelecom company KT and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology said Monday that they had succeeded in sending one-to-many quantum encrypted communication on KT‘s commercial network. KT employees test the one-to-many quantum encryption network at the company’s research lab in Seocho-gu, Seoul. (KT)The test was the first time that the company succeeded in one-to-many transmissions using quantum encryption. Last year, KT and KIST

Artificial intelligence is growing smarter by the second, and soon it will be able to outsmart us and take our jobs -- or at least many fear it will.But this sentiment is largely premature, as AI in its current state is “not the beginnings of general intelligence,” Philip Evans, a senior adviser to the Boston Consulting Group, told The Korea Herald. Philip Evans, senior advisor to the BCG (BCG)“There is a widespread perception that AI is converging on human intelligence, that there is a process

Korean telecom carriers are preparing to show off their latest 5G-related advancements at the Mobile World Congress as Korea races towards commercializing the ultra-fast network technology.Although 5G, or fifth-generation networks, is best-known for its potential for lightning speeds and low latency, the technology also allows for real-time interchanges of much larger packets of data than current 4G networks -- opening up new possibilities in the popularization of services such as self-driving c

The next evolution in the way companies do business will be represented by a movement from existing IT solutions to data and cloud-based solutions, according to an Alibaba executive.“In the next 20 years, the era will be changing from IT to data technology,” said Leo Liu, general manager for Alibaba Cloud for Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Korea, in an interview with The Korea Herald. According to Liu, the competitiveness of companies in the future will depend on how companies can use new technolo

The holidays are a time for cheer and spending quality time with family, but it is also an important time of year in South Korea for solidifying business relationships -- with boxes filled with seaweed, Spam or shampoo.On the largest traditional holiday of the year, the Lunar New Year, or “Seollal” in Korean, retailers and logistics companies are flooded with bulk orders for gift sets to be sent to business acquaintances.An employee at Hanaro Mart in Yangjae-dong, Seoul, adjusts a displayed gift

Revenues from Internet of Things-related services surged 23.4 percent in 2017 in South Korea as companies continued to roll out connected services and devices, data showed Monday.According to data from the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Korea IoT Association and the National IT Industry Promotion Agency, revenues from IoT reached 7.15 trillion won ($6.6 billion) last year, up from 5.8 trillion won in 2016. (The Korea Herald)IoT is a core technology of the so-called “fourth industrial revolutio

Samsung Electronics is heralding an era of 8K video with the introduction of its premium TVs in 2018. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, the company revealed the 8K-resolution Q9S, which is equipped with artificial intelligence that can learn to upgrade videos of lower resolution to 8K quality.Once the TVs are released to the wider market, they will be able to provide an 8K experience even with content that was not developed at that high resolution. The 8K resolution is cu

Samsung Electronics is hoping to woo Middle Eastern commercial buyers by presenting its latest air conditioning solutions at a trade show in Istanbul, the company said Friday.At the biannual Isitma Sogutma Klima-Sogutma Dogalgaz Expo air solutions trade show in Istanbul, Turkey, held from Wednesday to Saturday (local time), Samsung presented its full lineup of wind-free air conditioners.  Buyers browse products from Samsung Electronics at the ISK-SODEX held in Istanbul, Turkey, from Wednesday to

Global heavyweight LG Electronics bases much of its market prowess in its organic light-emitting diode technologies that have led to successes in both industrial and commercial businesses.Most recently at the Integrated Systems Europe show held in Amsterdam this week, the company revealed a series of signage and transparent displays for enterprise use.The main highlights of the exhibition included a transparent 55-inch OLED display, open frame OLED displays and the Even Bezel Video Wall.“We are

SK Telecom has ambitious plans for its voice-activated assistant Nugu, which it hopes will become the epitome of a customized life powered by artificial intelligence, with services ranging from basic information about traffic and weather conditions to shopping and delivery.First rolled out in September 2016, the voice-activated speaker is rapidly expanding its service capabilities in conjunction with SK Telecom’s existing strengths in its car navigation system Tmap and e-commerce platform 11st a

The founder of mobile game company Netmarble said Tuesday that Korean game companies need to take the initiative and begin developing new games early in order to stay competitive against Chinese game makers.On the same day, the games giant revealed its sales for 2017 reached a record high of 2.42 trillion won ($2.2 billion) mainly driven by the global popularity of its latest game product, “Lineage 2 Revolution.” Sales jumped 61.6 percent on-year, the company said in a regulatory filing, while o

Network provider KT has joined hands with Hyundai Engineering & Construction to bring artificial intelligence-powered services to new apartments starting in the first half of 2018, according to KT Tuesday.The two companies signed an agreement Tuesday to cooperate in bringing KT’s artificial intelligence services to Hyundai E&C’s apartments.Lee Pil-jae, Head of Marketing for KT (right), and Kim Jung-chul, Senior Vice President of Hyundai E&C at the Hyundai E&C headquarters in Jongno-gu, Seoul Tue

KT Chief Executive Hwang Chang-gyu speaks in Seoul to Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam at the US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota, host of this year’s Super Bowl, on Monday through a 5G video call. The two companies connected their wireless fifth-generation networks using equipment built by Samsung Electronics. KT executives tested out Verizon’s 5G virtual stadium, while Verizon executives tried out KT’s omni-view app over the connection, according to KT. (KT)

HWASEONG, Gyeonggi Province -- SK Telecom and the Korea Transportation Safety Authority successfully test-drove two autonomous vehicles Monday at K-City in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, using technology that allowed the vehicles to communicate with each other in real time.In addition to the self-driving capabilities of the cars themselves, Monday’s test focused on the ability of the two cars to send and receive real-time information about driving conditions. A screen displays a real-time HD map o