[Photo News] Fly with BTS

South Korean budget air carrier Jeju Air on Wednesday unveiled a BTS-themed airplane as an official partner for the 2023 BTS Festa, a celebration of the K-pop group’s 10th anniversary. The airplane will fly passengers on Jeju Air’s international routes until the year-end.

July 19, 2023

LG touts expertise, reliability of Exaone 2.0

LG Group’s artificial intelligence think tank LG AI Research on Wednesday unveiled the upgraded version of its hyperscale AI multimodal Exaone that was designed to learn expertise data and use it for research and development and marketing across industry sectors. The Exaone 2.0 is the first upgrade of the AI language model that launched in December 2021. It understands both language and images simultaneously to generate image-to-text and vice versa. The latest hyper AI has learned about 45

July 19, 2023

[KH Explains] Entrapment in the 'Kakao Kingdom'

Lee Yu-jin, a 34-year-old office worker who has gone on parental leave, thought about deleting her KakaoTalk account, as she wanted to disconnect from co-workers and acquaintances during her temporary break. But she could not get away from the messaging app, as it has become a crucial conversational tool among moms in her son’s kindergarten. Since its introduction as a free mobile messenger in March 2010 under its vision to “connect everything,” KakaoTalk has quickly dominated

July 18, 2023

Racism closely tied to health inequity: US health expert

The three-year COVID-19 pandemic was not only a great disruptor, it also highlighted long-standing problems, including health inequity around the world. “I thought this was the final straw on bragging about our health care system. It showed every weakness, including huge health disparities in mortality and impact,” said Dr. Matthew H. Liang, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and professor of health policy and management at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, ta

July 18, 2023

[Beyond Earth] ‘We are part of something much more grand than we ever imagined’

Scientists know much more about the cosmos now than a few decades ago. But there are still so many uncertainties and unknowns about the universe. Sasha Sagan, daughter of the late Carl Sagan, says what the human species has found out about space so far is already satisfying, but the bigger scope of the universe is awe-inspiring. “It’s amazing. We are part of something that's so much more grand than we ever imagined,” said Sagan in a video interview with The Korea Herald on

July 18, 2023

Public affairs strategies reshaping at chaebol groups

South Korea’s top four chaebol groups are gearing up to secure supply chain resilience and salvage their global businesses from the rising geopolitical uncertainties reshaping industrial dynamics. From expanding their public affairs organizations to hiring seasoned ex-government officials, the conglomerates are coming up with measures to minimize the impacts of increasingly protectionist policies around the world, especially in the US and Europe. Their spending on lobbying activities has

July 17, 2023

[KH Explains] SK hynix, Samsung compete head-on for HBM leadership

Competition is heating up between Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to take the lead in the next-generation High Bandwidth Memory chip market, which holds great potential for growth with the rise of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. Even though the market is still in its nascent stage, the world’s top two memory chip makers have already started a war of nerves, each claiming they take the majority of the market share. High Bandwidth Memory or HBM is a new type of DRAM

July 17, 2023

[Herald Interview] UK firm lures Korean trendsetters with 'transparent phones'

UK smartphone maker Nothing Technology Limited made its Korean debut last week with its second-generation flagship device, Phone 2. In a market dominated by two big names -- Samsung and Apple, the three-year-old company says it is targeting a niche but lively audience here. “We wanted to have a design identity that’s really strong and authentic to Nothing and something that could be recognized two meters away without looking at the (brand) logo because all smartphones look more the s

July 16, 2023

Hunetplus develops deposition mask for OLED displays

Hunetplus, a next-generation semiconductor and display materials company, said Thursday that it has successfully developed a deposition mask for OLED display panel fabrication using organic and inorganic hybrid materials. Conventional deposition masks used in OLED displays, also known as fine metal masks, are metallic plates that deposit light-emitting organic materials to an accurate location on a substrate during the OLED display manufacturing process. By doing so, they ensure the precise depo

July 13, 2023

LG Electronics sets sights on W100tr in sales by 2030

LG Electronics announced Wednesday its vision to transform into a "smart life solutions company" to expand customer experience, to take a leap from its core identity as a top home appliance brand. The tech giant also set the goal to achieve a global annual revenue of 100 trillion won ($77.5 billion) by 2030, and vowed to invest 50 trillion won to drive the growth. "LG will continue to pursue its bold vision to transform and leap forward as a smart life solutions company that con

July 12, 2023

Hanwha Ocean succeeds in localizing key devices of sub sonar

South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean Co. said Wednesday it has succeeded in developing three key devices of a submarine sonar system. They include a sonic depth finder, a sonar beacon and an underwater environment measuring apparatus, which could help boost the operational capability and viability of a submarine, Hanwha Ocean, formerly Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., said. A sonic depth finder, or fathometer, uses sound waves to determine the depth of water, and a sonar beacon

July 12, 2023

[From the Scene] KT to boost mining safety with digital solutions

YEONGWOL, Gangwon Province -- In a push toward digital transformation, South Korean telecommunications giant KT Corp. has launched communication-based digital solutions to help improve worker safety in mines. Jointly developed with Almonty Korea Tungsten Corp., the Korean office of a Canadian mining firm, the LTE-based communication infrastructure has been deployed at Sangdong Mine, in Yeongwol-gun, Gangwon Province. The KT-Almonty "mine safety DX" solution is composed of smart devices

July 11, 2023

[Herald Interview] Why Korea is a crucial partner for Qualcomm

US chip giant Qualcomm Technologies has made an active push to drive innovation in next-generation growth engine industries in South Korea, with big name companies such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai. It looks to continue the journey through closer partnerships with key industry players here, according to a Qualcomm executive. “Building on more than 30 years of our close collaborations, Qualcomm is committed to driving continued innovation in Korea. We are excited to continue our journey with

July 11, 2023

SK hynix becomes sole Dram supplier for Apple's Vision Pro headset

SK hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chipmaker, has been named the sole chip supplier for Apple’s Vision Pro virtual reality headset, according to industry sources Tuesday. Even though the chipmaker declined to confirm the deal, sources said the company will provide a dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, customized for the brand-new Apple gear. “We cannot provide comments related to our clients,” an SK hynix official said. The special type of DRAM chip is reporte

July 11, 2023

SFTS case in Jeju suggest stray cats can spread deadly disease

A woman contracted Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, a tick-borne disease, after coming into contact with a stray cat in Seogipo-si, Jeju, health authorities said on Monday. SFTS is an infectious disease that emerged from China with a mortality rate of up to 17 percent in Korea. The condition has no cure or vaccine as of now. The first local case was reported in 2013, and a total of 608 people have been infected with the disease in the last three years. Common symptoms include fever,

July 11, 2023

Samsung Electronics to rebound in Q3: analysts

Samsung Electronics, which was predicted to post its worst quarterly earnings in 14 years in the second quarter, will likely hasten its earnings recovery from the third quarter, led by chip production cuts and the early launch of its new foldable smartphone series, analysts said. On Friday’s earnings guidance for the April-June period released by Samsung, it said its operating profit in the period is expected to be 600 billion won ($462 million), down 95.7 percent from a year earlier. As f

July 9, 2023

Samsung Electronics predicts Q2 profit to plunge 96%, hitting 14-year low

Samsung Electronics has predicted an operating profit of 600 billion won ($458.5 million) for the April-June period, a 96 percent plunge to what would be the lowest quarterly earnings in 14 years, amid a severe global downturn in the chip industry. Releasing its earnings guidance on Friday for the second quarter this year, the tech giant said its consolidated sales is expected to be approximately 60 trillion won, down 22.3 percent on-year. As for the operating profit, the estimate is the worst s

July 7, 2023

LG Electronics estimates highest Q2 revenue of W19.9tr

LG Electronics reported Friday it expects its second-quarter revenue to increase 2.7 percent to 19.9 trillion won ($15.2 billion) year-on-year, the highest figure for the April-June period in the company’s history. Its operating profit is expected to jump 12.7 percent on-year to 892.7 billion won, which would be the second highest Q2 record for the firm. Releasing its preliminary earnings results for the April-June period, LG attributed its record earnings to its efforts to improve the fun

July 7, 2023

LG sets up R&D unit for TV business in Indonesia

LG Electronics said Thursday its home entertainment business division had set up its first research and development unit in Indonesia, completing a comprehensive business operation from product development to manufacturing and sales. The new facility spanning 40,000 square meters is located 3.5 kilometers from LG’s TV production plant in the Cibitung area,and some 40 kilometers from Jakarta where the tech giant operates a sales unit. LG said the new R&D unit will help not just improve

July 6, 2023

Samsung’s new foldable phones to be unveiled on July 26 in Seoul

Samsung Electronics on Thursday sent out invitations to the “Join the Flip Side” unpacking event for its new foldable smartphone series later this month in Seoul, marking the tech giant’s first Galaxy Unpacked on its home turf. Samsung will kick off the summer edition of its unveiling event at Coex, one of South Korea's largest convention and exhibition centers, in Gangnam-gu, southern Seoul, at 8 p.m. on July 26. The event will also be live-streamed on the company’s

July 6, 2023