SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung’s recall of 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7 phones after several dozen caught fire and exploded may stem from a subtle manufacturing error, but it highlights the challenge electronics makers face in packing ever more battery power into ever thinner phones, while rushing for faster release dates. Announcing the recall…
Apple Supplier LG Display Puts $1.8B into Flexible Displays
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — LG Display Co., a supplier of Apple’s iPhone screens, said Wednesday that it will invest 1.99 trillion won ($1.75 billion) to produce flexible displays for smartphones, in a sign that more high-end smartphone makers may adopt flexible screens in the near future. The South Korean company said mass production of flexible displays will…
Samsung Sues Huawei for Alleged Patent Violations
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co. sued Chinese smartphone maker Huawei for allegedly violating six of its patents in the latest move in a series of deepening patent disputes between Asian smartphone giants. The South Korean company said Friday that it took legal action to defend its intellectual property despite efforts to resolve the…
Hottest Phones You’ve Never Heard of — Same Bang, Less Buck
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Move over, Apple and Samsung. The next big smartphone might be from little-known Chinese brands such as TCL and OPPO. Along with other Chinese phone makers such as Huawei and Xiaomi, Chinese brands have surpassed Samsung in China and are encroaching on Apple’s turf. In the coming years, analysts forecast…
Twitter Disruption Silences Swaths of Europe, Parts of US
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Some Twitter users had to do without early Tuesday after sporadic outages knocked the social media site offline in Europe. Reports of malfunctions began to appear in the U.S. as well, but it was unclear how widespread the outages were. Twitter Inc. which has 320 million active users, tweeted that…
Samsung Aid for Sick Workers Comes With Conditions, Secrecy
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung’s hopes of ending years of acrimony over whether its computer chip factories caused cancer have hit a hitch: some sickened workers and their families say they’ll never accept its highly conditional offer of financial assistance. As recently as the middle of last year, it seemed the South Korean consumer…
Softbank Drops $1B in South Korean e-Commerce Giant Coupang
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Coupang, a South Korean online shopping site, has secured a $1 billion investment from Japanese Internet company Softbank Corp. Coupang said Wednesday that Softbank founder Masayoshi Son decided to back Coupang because of the South Korean company’s delivery system and its market dominance in online shopping via smartphones. It is…
Quiet! Samsung Says Its Smart TVs are Listening
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Watch what you say in your living room. Samsung’s smart TV could be listening. And sharing. Voice recognition technology in the South Korean company’s Internet connected TVs captures and transmits nearby conversations. The potential for TVs to eavesdrop is revealed in Samsung’s smart TV privacy policy available on its website.…
Letting Hackers In to Prevent Cyberattacks
Seoul, South Korea (AP) — Ever since the Internet blossomed in the 1990s, cybersecurity was built on the idea that computers could be protected by a digital quarantine. Now, as hackers routinely overwhelm such defenses, experts say cybersecurity is beyond due an overhaul. Their message: Neutralize attackers once they’re inside networks rather than fixating on…
Samsung Launches Ultra-HD Tizen-Based TVs
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. has started domestic sales of high-end televisions powered by its Tizen operating system and plans to add washing machines, fridges and other appliances to the range of products that use the software. Samsung said sales of Tizen-powered ultra-HD TVs began Thursday in South…