According to Reuters, Yahoo! is actively closing down its Korean business and cutting around 200 jobs. We’ve reached out to Yahoo! for comment and confirmation and will update you as soon as we hear back.
This shutdown was already reported, and it was supposed to happen by “the end of the year.” The end of the year has apparently happened. → Read More
Yahoo has announced plans to close its Korean business by the end of the year. In a statement the company described the move as part of ongoing efforts to streamline operations and realign its global business. The company hired a new CEO — former Googler Marissa Mayer — in July, replacing interm CEO Ross Levinsohn. Reuters notes that South Korea is the first Asian market Yahoo is leaving. → Read More
Back in October, live video streaming platform Ustream announced a partnership with KT Corporation — a leading telecommunications provider in South Korea. The joint venture also included an additional $10 million funding round, much of it led by the sizable Japanese telecom provider, Softbank (whose independent by closely-connected VC firm, Softbank Capital, operates in Boston, among other… → Read More
Just hours before Apple is due to unveil what many think will be a new version of its best-selling iPad tablet, Samsung has tried to steal a little thunder by filing a lawsuit against the Cupertino company over patent violations in the newest models that Apple has on the market as of this morning, the iPhone 4S and the iPad 2. The suit was filed in Samsung’s home market of Korea.
Given how… → Read More
Kim Hyung-Suk has been busy these past few months. An attorney based out of Seoul, he gained a bit of notoriety for being the first person to receive a cash settlement from Apple for the iPhone’s location-tracking tendencies. He also announced that he and his law firm, Mirae Law, would be looking into the possibility of filing a class-action suit against Apple. According to a report from… → Read More
It can’t get bigger than this in Asia’s mobile industry, and in fact, it’s a business alliance with the potential to shake things up on a global level. Today, the world’s biggest mobile carrier China Mobile, Japan’s No. 1 player NTT Docomo and Korea’s leading telco KT have announced the establishment of a “broad-based business tie-up”. → Read More
Like we needed any more evidence that the Galaxy S is slowly taking over the world, but Samsung recently announced that they have sold 2 million Galaxy S units since its June launch in their home country of Korea.
They also announced that, at 9.3 million worldwide sales since launch, Samsung are on track to reach 10 million sales by the year’s end — giving the Galaxy S the (somewhat dubious… → Read More
First it was distribution. Then it was monetization. The next generation of Web entrepreneurs’ make-or-break challenge will be localization and a big part of that is language.
The Web is so powerful today and the valuations are so high, because it is a billion-person-audience and growing. But more of them speak Chinese than English, and critical masses are developing around Spanish, Portuguese… → Read More
Korea has their first Android tablet. Called the “Identity TAB”, the new device runs a 1GHz Snapdragon cpu, and sports 8GB of internal memory. The tablet has a 7-inch screen, a DMB TV tuner, gyro-sensor, a 3 megapixel camera, and an SD card reader. At this point, it appears that we probably won’t see the Identity TAB here in the US, but KT (the Korean reseller for the tablet) is… → Read More
It’s not only Japan, but Korea is developing advanced robots, too. Case in point: Mahru, the dancing humanoid, made by the Korea Institute of Science & Technology (KIST). And this robot is way more impressive than similar models we’ve seen before. → Read More
Am I the only one who finds large-scale miniatures slightly ironic? If anyone else does, they obviously don’t find them ironic enough to stop making them. The Seoul Museum of History just finished up a full-city recreation that takes up a whopping 317.29-square meters. → Read More
One important factor that can explain Avatar’s success at the box office is certainly the 3D experience viewers can have when they walk into the right movie theater. But what about watching Avatar in “4D”? In Korea, you can.
The nation’s leading multiplex chain, CJ-CGV, runs a handful of so-called “4D plexes” where the experience includes moving seats, laser lights or wind. In the case of Avatar… → Read More
The rest of the world is catching on rapidly but overall, Japan is still the world’s most advanced mobile society. That being said, you’d assume that the first 4G (LTE) device to get an official certification from Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications must be coming from one of the many mobile companies over here, but it was South Korea’s LG who got the bragging rights [KR] for… → Read More
Motorola held a press conference in Seoul yesterday to announce a partnership with SK Telecom, a major Korean telecommunications company. The occasion: SK Telecom will be the first company to distribute an Android phone in that country, the so-called Motorola Motoroi.
It’s not a rebranded Droid, but a completely new phone (in Europe, the Droid was named “Milestone” but remained largely unchanged… → Read More
Nearly 130 million people use the web in Japan and Korea combined, with Japan itself boasting the world’s third biggest Internet population (94 million users). But getting exposure on an international scale is a big problem for globally positioned web startups in these (and many other Asian) markets.
TechCrunch50 has always been very welcoming towards companies from countries other than the US. → Read More
Samsung is now getting into the e-book game. It has developed its very own e-book reader, which will first be available in Korea for around $270. It’ll be Korea-only for a little while yet. → Read More
Today at an event in Singapore, Samsung Korea officially launched four new handsets to the market. The flagship of the four phones introduced was the Samsung B7610, a part of Samsung’s Omnia brand of smartphones. The B7610 comes with a 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen display (800×480 resolution), a slide-out keyboard, a 5.1-megapixel camera, 1GB of memory, FM tuner, Wi-Fi, TV Out, and GPS… → Read More
Oh man, does this look awesome or what? As soon as I touch down in Vegas for CES, I will make it my business to touch it all over and tell you how it felt. It’s got a 1.43″ touchscreen and a built-in camera for 3G video calls. But do you think we’re going to see its beautiful form stateside? Not likely. → Read More
Man, you’d think the government would have caught on sooner! South Korea has to be the biggest gaming nation on the planet, and yet we see so little Korean IP exported successfully to the US. Their culture and tourism minister wants to spur growth in the gaming sector and hit $3bn in exports within a couple years — a pretty ambitious goal. But if there’s as much talent waiting… → Read More
My Thanksgiving holiday was spent in Seoul visiting family, eating good food and drinking a lot. So, the only thing I really missed about a true American Thanksgiving was the deep fried turkey, stuffing and football. All of which I’m okay with having missed this year – believe it or not. The allure of Seoul’s e-mart and Tokyo’s Akihabara have long since faded from their respective… → Read More
Why pay outrageous department store prices for an all-in-one PC when you can simply purchase an ATX/Micro-ATX compatible computer case with a built-in mount for your LCD monitor? Actually, don’t answer that because you can’t actually buy the L-2000 LDorado (from Korean company 3RSystem) in the US. The LDorado can handle monitors between 19 and 24 inches and features seven expansion ports, a… → Read More
CNET has decided that South Korea’s next-generation battle gear makes soldiers look Halo-esque. A very 21st-century assessment! But as Yahtzee has pointed out time after time, space marines are perhaps the most ubiquitous character in video game history, and even if you don’t want to go as far back as Space Hulk, you still have to give credit where credit’s due. And in Korea… → Read More
These portable Xpod speakers are about the size of the iPod nano. As such, they couldn’t possibly sound any better than two wires connected to a dirty penny. The two-channel 770mW amp hardly belies that metaphor. Moving on. Any USB port can charge them, so, at the very least, you won’t be scrambling to find batteries when they die during the “good part” of that one Grateful Dead… → Read More
Well would you look at this? Seems iRiver’s getting into the cell phone game – in Korea, at least. The maker of pretty-slick MP3 players does plenty of business over here, though, so it wouldn’t be a total shock to see one or more of the phones picked up by domestic carriers. The first handset is set to hit the Korean market in March and will be available on the KTF network. According to… → Read More
I totally know what I’m going to look for when I go to Korea later this month. Apparently these tiny keychains will keep you from getting zapped by static electricity. When said static electricity is eliminated a smiling face pops up. Awesome. Product Page via RFJ → Read More
The sinister question mark strikes again—is this, really, the world’s first QWXGA LCD monitor? I do believe so, yes. It’s the Samsung 2342BWX, a 23-inch monitor with a 2048×1152-pixel resolution. One of the benefits of cramming so many pixels into 23 inches is that, perhaps, it eliminates the need for two monitors, which isn’t always an inexpensive proposition. As a… → Read More
A federal jury found yesterday that Samsung willfully infringed two of Pioneer’s patents covering plasma televisions. As such, the Korean electronics giant will have to cough up (“cough up” is the technical term, mind you) some $59 million, payable to Pioneer. As you might expect, Samsung plans to appeal the ruling forever and ever. Sorta interesting: a Japanese corporation taking a… → Read More
Hey look at this little fella. It’s Raon Digital’s EVERUN NOTE. Don’t let the “EVER” part of “EVERUN” fool you, as the battery life tops out at about 2.5 hours but still, I’d buy it if it were cheap enough. We should find out how cheap it is in early September, as AVING reports that it’ll be available in Korea and here in the states at that time. It’ll weigh just over a pound… → Read More
Photo credit: Pam Roth The World Intellectual Property Organization reports Japan dropped to second place worldwide in terms of patent application filing in 2006, giving up the pole position to the US for the first time in 43 years. The United States Patent and Trademark Office received a total of 425,966 of patent applications. Japan’s Patent Office trailed with 408,674 filings. China… → Read More
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