Global IT Innovation Led by Twitter and IPhone

Digital Devices e Gadget

Posted on news.mk.co.kr

At one lecture room of the “Web 2.0 Expo” took place on November 16 at the Javit Center in Manhattan, New York, a whopping 60 percent of 200 participants were holding a smartphone on their hands.

Source : ikaro.net

Those smartphone users were searching lecturers’ profile or relevant data via their phone, and some participants were posting instant replies on lecturers’ remarks through Twitter installed on their handset.

Such rapid-fire responses flashed upon a roll screen in front of a lecture room without any filtering. Speakers fine-tuned their lecture contents by checking opinions updated in real-time on Twitter. Above examples best demonstrate how smartphone and Twitter — newly emerged IT weapons — maximize “interactivity” of lectures.

penn-olson.com

The search giant Google has recently unveiled its innovative services such as “Google Goggle” that defies stereotypes on conventional search. It is a new search feature where users can view information on a handset via submitting images of subject taken by a phone camera.

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Korea: Fastest Internet Connections in the World

Posted on koreainformationsociety

Akamai has released its latest quarterly State of the Internet report, this one for the 3rd quarter of 2009.  Not surprisingly, it shows that South Korea continues to have the fastest internet connection speeds in the world, and by quite some margin over second ranked Japan.  As shown in the graphic in the upper left (click to see full-size graphic), Koreans on average connected to broadband internet at a speed of 14.6 megabits per second, almost twice as fast as the 7.9 Mbps recorded for second-place Japan.   (Note that Akamai uses its globally-deployed server network to collect data for these reports.  The company estimates that it sees over a billion internet users.)
For further detail, readers will want to download and read the entire report.  Some of the highlights include:

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English-Teaching Robots for Korea by 2018?

Posted on koreainformationsociety

An article in today’s issue of The Korea Times proclaims “Robots to Replace Native English Teachers.”   Participants in a recent robotics forum speculated that, by about 2015 robots should be able to help English teachers in the classroom and that by 2018 they should be able to teach on their own, while communicating with students.”  Robots are already available in English classes through a pilot project in Masan, aimed at testing the viability of robotic teachers.   Some participants in the robotics forum also saw English -teaching robots as a remedy for the lack of English teachers in small rural farming and fishing villages.
After reading this article, I remain very skeptical.  Nothing is mentioned about the current state of the art in machine translation and the considerable challenges of teaching English to native speakers of Korean.  The linguistic and pedagogical challenges of teaching English would seem to be too large to be overcome by developments in software and artificial intelligence in less than a decade.  In any event, we’ll all see.

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Smartphone’s Access to NATE Becomes Possible

Posted on  news.mk.co.kr

SK Telecom, South Korean mobile telecommunications operator, grants access to approximately four million contents built in wireless NATE to smartphone users.

Source : seobongsoo

SK Telecom announced the application of middleware ‘SKAF’ that gives access to NATE freely to T Omnia 2 users from January 28.

SK Telecom’s self-developed ‘SKAF’ supports compatibility of applications and contents between different smartphone operation system (OS) and provides a conversion function enabling the existing mobile phone system, ‘WAP’ based service and contents, to be used in smartphones.

SK Telecom added that with this, difficulties such as changing ring back tones or ringing tones that smartphone users have complained will be solved.

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Dear Kim Jong-Il, Will You Be America’s Friend? Circle YES or NO

Korea

Posted on gawker.com

In the grand tradition of the last two guys, Obama has written a “personal” letter to megalomaniac North Korea dictator Kim Jong-Il. But will Kimmy agree to go steady? Welcome to the middle school dance of international diplomacy.

Source : clubofmozambique

It is perversely humbling that humanity-altering processes like nuclear disarmament and anti-missile defense can hinge on the contents of a single letter, typed and printed on a piece of paper, signed by a left-handed man from Hawaii.

Much like a middle school romance, Obama sent his friends to talk to Kim before penning a note to be passed through a chain of hands across the Pacific Ocean.

MBC finally gives in and embraces P2P sharing

Entertainment

Posted on  web20asia.com

MBC, a major Korean broadcasting company, announced (link in Korean) it will make nearly all of its content available to anyone for sharing. This means any individual or company can freely grab MBC’s original content and put it up on their server without any restrictions.

MBC says they are doing this as they are confident they will be able to monetize successfully. End customers who want to download MBC content should pay around KRW 500 per episode (= about half a buck). MBC will collect the revenues from P2P service providers, and has signed agreement with 40 P2P companies. As a way to make sure there is no loophole, MBC will use the technologies that can detect free-riders — content downloaders who do not pay for the content. There are startup companies, such as Enswer, that can filter out illegally downloaded content.

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iPad to Enter South Korean Market in March 2010

Digital Devices e Gadget

Posted on  news.mk

iPad, Apple`s tablet computer, is to be launched in South Korea in March 2010 at earliest.

Wi-Fi version of iPad will be released in the global market including the U.S. in March 2010, according to Apple Inc. on January 28. iPad with 3G and Wi-Fi will be unveiled in the U.S. market through AT&T in March 2010 while other markets including South Korea will determine a release date after consulting with local carriers.

Accordingly, Apple is highly likely to launch iPad with 3G and Wi-Fi in South Korea at March-end thanks to its open market with minimal restriction which requires no more than getting electric safety approval before its launch.

The only catch is that Korean is not included in iPad’s supporting languages namely English, French, German and Japanese.

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The main distributer of Wi-Fi version of iPad in the U.S. is Apple Store which means Apple will not be seeking partnership with a local carrier in entering overseas markets.

Preparing for the iPad

Digital Devices e Gadget

Posted on joongangdaily

Apple Inc. has been a corporation blessed in recent years, with the iPod Touch, MacBook, and most of all the iPhone flying off its stores’ shiny white shelves. These trendsetting products have maintained Apple’s throne as an arbiter of tech taste.

Now, with the announcement of the company’s much-anticipated tablet computer, the iPad, on Wednesday in San Francisco, the talk of the industry across the globe is whether or not this tablet computer will be the next big thing

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North fires again toward Yeongpyeong Island

Korea Posted on joongangdaily

North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells in the waters north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea near Yeongpyeong Island on the peninsula’s west coast today at 8:15 a.m., according to a Defense Ministry official. The shells landed in the waters north of the NLL, the de facto maritime border between North and South Korea. Keep Reading Here

S. Korea’s POSCO Creating Mobile Office Environment

Digital Devices e Gadget

Posted on news.mk.co.kr

South Korea’s POSCO, the world’s largest steelmaker, is proactively establishing a mobile office environment.

POSCO said Wednesday that it plans to provide around 1,000 smart phones, by early next month, to its team leaders or higher as well as mobile workers who perform their works in multiple locations.

With the steelmaker deciding to distribute smart phones for team leaders and employees frequently working outside of office subsequent to offering about 300 smart phones to its managers or higher at the end of last year, the company is evaluated to have created an environment where staff can report their works and get approval via e-mail as a part of daily working practice. 

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