Sony Challenges Samsung in Mini PC Market

Leading PC manufacturers Samsung Electronics and Sony are bracing themselves for battle in the market for small portable computers. After Samsung Electronics introduced an “ultra-mobile” PC early this month, Sony has now unveiled an even more portable hand-sized PC.

Sony released the VAIO UX, a pocket PC with a 4.5 inch screen, in Korea on Monday. Equipped with Intel’s mobile CPU, it comes with a small keyboard and has two built-in cameras to allow users to make video phone calls online or record high-quality video clips.

The new VAIO is targeted at the same market as Samsung Electronics’ UMPC, experts say. Both of them offer improved portability to a niche market of mobile users. The Samsung UMPC garnered much attention as the product of cooperation between three giants in the field: Samsung, Intel and Microsoft.

The UMPC is sized halfway between a PDA and a laptop. Its screen measures 7 inches, and the whole device weighs around 700 g as against the VAIO UX’s 500 g. Samsung claims the device is “soaring” in popularity, with some 3,000 sold so far.

The two firms are also set to compete head-on in a putative market for mini laptops. Mini laptops will weigh around 1 kg, which makes them also easy to carry around, and they have found some favorable advance notice with news that they are almost the equal of their larger predecessors in terms of performance.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

Wave Energy Parks Could be Coming To Oregon

Columbia, Oregon State University are in the thick of it again. Previously we noted they had help develop a soy based timber adhesive that was free of formaldehyde and were working with farmers to bring microtechnology to the production of biodiesel. Now they are dreaming up farms of a different sort. Wave farms. The idea is to plant direct drive, wave energy buoys off the coast of Oregon.

Unlike many of the other wave energy sources we’ve covered before, these work on a very different principle. In very basic terms a permanent neodymium-iron-born magnet is forced back and through an electric coil by the modulation of waves. The researchers suggest such buoys could power about 20% of Oregon’s electricity needs. This is US’s only university research program into ocean wave energy extraction funded from federal resources. Now that the prototypes buoys have demonstrated their potential, study is underway to consider impacts on sea birds and marine life from electromagnetic fields, construction, deployment, and servicing of undersea cable, etc.

Handheld Devices Progress by Leaps and Bounds

Black Label II

Handheld devices continue to develop at a rapid pace. Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and other companies are introducing ever slimmer devices with multimedia functions that allow users to watch shows aired by terrestrial networks and listen to MP3 music files. This moth alone, they will showcase them at expos in Seoul, Russia and China. Small and medium-sized companies, meanwhile, are entering new markets with a state-of-the-art display device users can wear like a pair of glasses to watch digital broadcasts.
Korean mobile phone makers are betting on making them slimmer. Samsung Electronics has just released its “ultra slim” phone, which is just 6.9 mm thick, at the Sviaz ExpoComm 2006, an information and communication technology show that started on Wednesday in Moscow. “The trickiest part of the technology is to make mobile phones as slim as possible and feature a camera function at the same time,” a Samsung executive says.

LG Electronics unveiled a new mobile phone to be released at the Expo Comm Wireless Korea 2006 this week. The new model, named “Black Label II”, is designed for simplicity with red keys on a black surface. It is only 16.5 mm thick and weighs 88 grams. Pantech is to introduce 32 cutting-edge mobile devices including a slim phone targeted at young office workers and a phone equipped with a touch wheel sensor at the Sviaz ExpoComm.

Phones are also getting smarter. Newly released handsets have multimedia functions enabling users to watch TV shows broadcast by terrestrial networks and play online games while listening to MP3 music files or download video clips.

Two women wear so-called ‘video glasses’ that enable users to enjoy high-definition video stored in their handheld devices during the Expo Comm Korea 2006 at COEX in Samseong-dong, Seoul on Wednesday.

That means small and medium-sized firms have to develop original devices to compete with their bigger rivals. Kowon Technology, which produces microdisplay devices, has unveiled a pair of “video glasses.” With a built-in micro LCD panel measuring 4.8 mm by 4.2 mm, the device enables users to watch digital broadcasts when connected to digital multimedia broadcasting handsets. “The device gives users the same feeling as watching a 32-inch TV from a 2 m distance”, the company claims. The glasses bring the virtual reality of sci-fi movies a step closer to reality.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

Korea has developed its own android capable of facial expressions on its humanoid face, the second such machine to be developed after one from Japan. The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy invited some 60 children to the Kyoyuk Munhwa Hoekwan in Seoul to introduce Ever-1 to the public. The name combines the first human name found in the Bible, Eve, with the "r" in robot.
The Korean Institute for Industrial Technology (KITECH) said the android, which has the face and body of a woman in her 20s, is 160 cm tall and weighs 50 kg. Ever-1 can move its upper body and “express” happiness, anger, sadness and pleasure. But the robot is still incapable of moving its lower half. Ever-1's skin is made from a silicon jelly that feels similar to human skin. The face is a composite of two stars, and its torso on a singer.
The 15 monitors in the robotic face allow it to interpret the face of an interlocutor and look back at whoever stands near it. Ever-1 also recognizes 400 words and can hold a basic verbal exchange.
"The robot can serve to provide information in department stores and museums or read stories to children; it’s capable of both education and entertainment functions," said KITECH scientist Baeg Moon-hong, part of the team that created the robot. "The Ever-2, which will have improved vision and ability to express emotions and can sit or stand, will be debuted towards the end of the year."

(englishnews@chosun.com )

SKT Becomes First Korean Mobile Carrier in U.S.

Korea’s largest cell phone service provider SK Telecom has entered mobile telecom powerhouse the U.S.

SK Telecom on Tuesday said its U.S.-based joint venture Helio started offering mobile services throughout the U.S., the first time for Korean mobile service provider to foray into the world’s biggest market.

Helio was set up by SKT and Earthlink, the American Internet service provider, in January 2005 with each side owning 50 percent.

SKT expects Helio to sign up some 3.3 million subscribers there by 2009 and generate annual revenues of US$2.4 billion.


SKT’s entry into the U.S. market is also the first full-fledged commercial advance into an overseas market by a Korean carrier. SKT has made continuous attempts to go overseas since early 2000 but was only able to make limited advances into markets like Vietnam and Mongolia. Most nations consider fixed-line and wireless telecom services a key industry and a national asset they are loath to hand over to foreigners. SKT’s move thus represents an important milestone in its efforts to go global. If it is successful, it could help the company advance into emerging markets in Asia, where China and India are the biggest prize.

SKT plans to target Korean-Americans. Helio is headquartered in Los Angeles, where Koreans are concentrated, and will launch two bilingual Korean- English mobile phones. It initially charges only 10 cents per minute for calls from the U.S. to Korea. “We expect the 2 million Koreans living in the U.S. to play an important role in allowing Helio to spread throughout the country,” the company said.

SKT is pinning its hopes on its cutting-edge wireless Internet service, too. It plans to target young people by offering weather forecasts, traffic information, and sports and entertainment information to their phone and allowing them to search information on Yahoo and use its messenger service to send both video clips and text messages. It will also offer cell phone blog services free of charge no matter how much subscribers use them. That service too will be available in two languages.

But obstacles loom. The U.S. telecom market is saturated just like Korea’s and Americans are not nearly as enthusiastic about wireless Internet services on their phones as Koreans and Japanese. That explains why cheap, simple cell phones introduced by Nokia and Motorola, the world’s no 1 and no 2 makers, are hugely popular there.

“SKT’s strategy has been to minimize its investment risk by leasing telecom networks owned by existing providers in the U.S.,” says Kim Kyung-mo, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities. “The company’s ultimate goal will be to enter emerging markets in Asia such as India.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )