Koreas

Hyped AI startup Humane has announced plans for its first international market, inking a deal with South Korean carrier SK Telecom. The announcement comes shortly after the San Francisco-based company revealed it was pushing back the shipping date of its Ai Pin device from March to mid-April in its domestic U.S. market. Founded in 2017 by former Apple executives Bethany Bongiorno and Imran Chaudhri, Humane had raised north of $200 million from backers including Microsoft, Qualcomm Ventures, and…

Hyundai IONIQ 5 (Source: Hyundai) South Korea’s government looks to give domestic automakers Hyundai and Kia a break with its new EV policy. The new EV subsidy policy is in response to price cuts on Tesla’s Model Y and BYD’s models, which use lower-cost LFP batteries. Targeting Tesla, BYD, and cheaper EV batteries The revised EV policy is Korea’s attempt to give domestic automakers an edge as they look to level the playing field. “Tesla dropping prices last year, coupled with the…

North Korea is developing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning for everything from how to respond to COVID-19 and safeguard nuclear reactors to wargaming simulations and government surveillance, according to a new study.International sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons program may have hindered North Korea's attempts to secure AI hardware, but it appears to be pursuing the latest technology, wrote study author Hyuk Kim of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) in California.Elevate…

Myrealtrip is the latest travel tech company to ride a growing post-pandemic tourism industry. The Seoul-based startup said today it has raised $56.7 million (75.6 billion KRW) in a Series F equity round of funding to accelerate its business and product innovation and ramp up its hiring. Global tourism has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in the third quarter of 2023, according to a recent UN World Tourism Organization report. Travel tech companies again prepare to speed up their business expansion. “The travel…

In January 2023, the government unveiled a plan to offer large tax breaks to semiconductor companies investing at home, which are set to end this year.South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Monday that he would extend tax credits on investments in the domestic semiconductor industry to boost employment and attract more talent.The country, home to the world's top memory chipmakers Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, aims to expand tax breaks and support to raise the…

Credit: The Conversation South Korea's bachelor time bomb is about to really go off. Following a historic 30-year-long imbalance in the male-to-female sex ratio at birth, young men far outnumber young women in the country. As a result, some 700,000 to 800,000 "extra" South Korean boys born since the mid-1980s may not be able to find South Korean girls to marry. …

The Korea Institute of Fusion Energy has installed a new diverter in the KSTAR tokamak, allowing the artificial sun to sustain high-ion temperatures exceeding 100 million degrees Celsius for longer.Let’s Eat a Chocolate Xbox ControllerKSTAR—called an artificial sun because it does nuclear fusion, the same reaction that powers our star—was completed in 2007 and achieved its first plasma in 2008. It is about one-third the size of ITER, the massive experimental reactor being built in France. Both reactors are tokamaks:…

K-class, K-prestige and K-artistry found their apogee in the movies with Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning 2019 smash Parasite – and this colossally successful South Korean social satire certainly found a place for one of that country’s biggest stars.In his 40s and in his prime, with a string of blue-chip movie credits and a home-turf household name due to his TV work, Lee Sun-kyun displayed in Parasite his discreet charisma and sleek movie-star handsomeness with a sexual presence that could be dialled up or down.It was a…

The River Experiment Center in Andong has three straight and curved experimental water channels with dimensions of 700m(L)*11m(W)*2m(H), and operates a laboratory for empirical testing of dike failure and urban flood defense technologies. Credit: Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology To reduce marine debris, which causes serious environmental pollution in the sea, researchers at the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim, Byung-suk) have developed a…

Last updated: November 29th, 2023 at 10:25 UTC+01:00 Elections meant to determine the location of World Expo 2030 concluded yesterday. Despite South Korea's and Samsung Electronics‘ efforts to promote Busan as the host city for the upcoming expo, Busan lost to Riyadh. The Saudi Arabian capital won the elections in a landslide victory. Busan won only 29 votes out of 165, while Rome in Italy earned a mere 17 votes. Meanwhile, Riyadh accumulated 119 votes, resulting in Rome and Busan getting knocked out of the election…