Saturday, October 06, 2007

[The Chosun Ilbo, October 2 2007] Music Industry Debates Copy Controls

One of the major issues facing the global music industry is the debate over locking MP3 music files with DRM, or digital rights management.

On Sep. 25, Amazon, the U.S. online retail giant, announced the launch of a digital music store selling DRM-free tracks -- meaning customers can play their downloaded music on any device.

Amazon's move is seen as a direct challenge to Apple, whose iTunes stores is the leading digital music retailer. All of Amazon's tracks are DRM-free, while Apple's are not.

DRM is a code that restricts how files can be played and shared. Tracks with DRM can typically only be played on the device that they were first downloaded to.
[The Chosun Ilbo, October 2 2007] Asian Actors Form Regional Association

"It's just a small gathering, for Asian actors to become friends. This was an idea we had while drinking at a snack bar during the Pusan Film Festival ten years ago, and it's just coming true now. I know we shouldn't expect too much at first, but I think it's significant that we actors are coming together voluntarily," Ahn Sung-ki said at a cafe in Chungdam-dong, Seoul on Monday.
[The Chosun Ilbo, October 2 2007] Asian Actors Form Regional Association

"It's just a small gathering, for Asian actors to become friends. This was an idea we had while drinking at a snack bar during the Pusan Film Festival ten years ago, and it's just coming true now. I know we shouldn't expect too much at first, but I think it's significant that we actors are coming together voluntarily," Ahn Sung-ki said at a cafe in Chungdam-dong, Seoul on Monday.
[The Chosun Ilbo, October 2 2007] Forced Standardized Reporting is Unacceptable

A presidential delegation of 300 will leave for Pyongyang for the second inter-Korean summit on Tuesday morning. Among them is a 50 member press pool, including 23 reporters from dailies, news agencies, and Internet newspapers, seven broadcast journalists, nine photographers and 11 TV cameramen.

I am one of the reporters, but I won't have much to do during my three day stay in Pyongyang. I have been tasked with covering a dinner to be hosted by the South Korean president on Wednesday, the second day of the summit, and a farewell luncheon to be hosted by his North Korean counterpart on Thursday. The reports on these events will be sent to Seoul as joint stories with the consent of the press pool members. The stories will be shared by all media outlets, bylined from the press pool reporting from Pyongyang.

...

Though we reporters will have little to do, I feel sorry for the public. No matter which newspaper they pick up, they'll get identical stories and identical photos. Same with the commentaries on the event. There is no room at all for individual reporters or their publishers to make their views known in the joint news stories.
[The Chosun Ilbo, October 1 2007] KTF Video Calling Subscribers Top 2 Million

KTF said on Sunday that it has signed up 2.11 million subscribers to its "Show" third generation mobile video calling service, exceeding the two million mark just seven months after it was launched in March.

"It took four months for the number of Show subscribers to exceed one million on July 6, but it took only three months to surpass the two million mark," said KTF executive Yoo Seok-o. "The pace of subscriber growth is getting faster."
[The Chosun Ilbo, October 1 2007] Korea's Official Weather Forecasters Get C

Although the Korea Meteorological Administration has been operating one of the world's most advanced supercomputers since 2004, the accuracy of its weather forecasts is actually poorer than before. The reason is apparently the KMA's poor personnel structure and a weather forecast system that only rates a C- grade compared to advanced countries.
[The Chosun Ilbo, September 28 2007] Web Edges Out TV as Trusted Info Source

Asian business leaders consider newspapers the most trustworthy source of information, while web-based media has overtaken TV as the second most popular choice, German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported on Thursday.

DPA cited an Asia-Pacific survey by Edelman, the world's largest PR and consulting firm, of about 1,000 business stakeholders including ranking officials, investors and senior executives from Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and Singapore.
[The Chosun Ilbo, September 28 2007] Human Emotions at This Year's PIFF

A film festival is like a person: capable of making people laugh, it can also be neglected, rising and falling with the joys and sorrows of life. Nurtured with love from an early age, it prospers. So it is with the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF), which marks its 12th birthday in the southern port city also spelled Busan this year. The 12th PIFF, now the leading Asian film festival, is held at Haeundae Beach and Nampo-dong in Busan from Oct. 4 to 12. The 275 films from 64 countries to be shown focus on several multiple aspects of our lives, from personal growth to alienation and family love.
[The Chosun Ilbo, September 28 2007] Samsung, Armani Team Up for Fashion Electronics

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in digital technologies, has joined hands with Giorgio Armani, a world leader in luxury products. Samsung said on Thursday that it has partnered with Armani to develop fashion electronics, with Armani handling the design and Samsung the engineering.

A Samsung official said the companies will debut the Samsung-Armani mobile phone in November, and an LCD TV in January next year.
[The Chosun Ilbo, September 28 2007] Telecoms Earned W1.36 Trillion From SMS

The three domestic mobile operators have earned W1.36 trillion (US$1=W920) in sales from the SMS service over the past three years.
[The Chosun Ilbo, September 28 2007] Chip Prices Falter While LCD Prices Recover

The price of DRAM chips, the main product in the portfolio of Samsung and other Korean electronics makers, is tumbling again. Meanwhile the price of LCDs is rising.
[The Chosun Ilbo, September 28 2007] Website Frozen over Too Many Trying to Pay Duties

Just a few hours after the end of the Chuseok holiday traffic many Koreans got caught in online traffic Thursday morning.

The website of the Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute froze up disabling payments on taxes and other public duties.

The KFTC says most monthly deadlines for government bill payments fell during this year's Chuseok holiday, sending many to their computers as soon as the holiday finished.

Friday, October 05, 2007

[The Hankyoreh, October 4 2007] Pusan film festival opens with Chinese war drama

The Pusan International Film Festival opened here Thursday with an unprecedented foreign opener and the largest number of world premiers in its 12-year history.

The largest cinema event in Asia raised its curtain at the Busan Yachting Centre alongside a spectacular beach, just hours after the leaders of South and North Korea wrapped up a historic three-day inter-Korean summit in North Korea's capital of Pyongyang.
[The Hankyoreh, October 4 2007] N. Korea's Rodong Sinmun extensively covers Roh's visit

North Korea's major newspapers are giving extensive coverage of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's ongoing summit trip, with the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the (North's) Korea Workers' Party Central Committee, front-paging his arrival in Pyongyang on Tuesday.
[The Hankyoreh, October 3 2007] Covering the summit

Approximately 1,200 journalists, domestic and foreign, watch the screen intently while covering the inter-Korean summit at a press center which was set up at the Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul on October 2. The press center is open around the clock to journalists who are registered members of the press. The latest news and developments, which are jointly produced by the Korean press corps in Pyongyang, are sent to the press center via the Internet and are available to only those journalists who have registered with the press center in advance.
[The Hankyoreh, October 1 2007] Hynix, Ovonyx in cross-licensing agreement on next-generation memory chips

South Korean chipmaker Hynix Semiconductor Inc. said Monday it has reached a cross-licensing agreement with Ovonyx Inc. of the United States to develop next-generation memory chips.

The deal allows Hynix, the world's second-largest maker of computer memory chips, to use Ovonyx's patents on phase-change memory chips, or PRAM, which many scientists say offer a higher level of performance than flash chips, widely used in digital cameras and other handheld gadgets. Ovonyx owns core patents on the phase-change chips, Hynix said in a statement. "This agreement provides Hynix with the ability to facilitate the next-generation of memory development," said Park Sung-woo, head of Hynix's research and development division.
[The Hankyoreh, September 28 2007] 'Founding father of Internet' to visit Seoul next month

Vint Cerf, known for his leading role in creating the Internet, will visit Seoul next month to attend an international forum, informed sources said Friday.

The 64-year-old American computer scientist was invited to the forum, to be held by the South Korean daily Maeil Business Newspaper in mid-October, they said.

Cerf, along with Bob Kahn, is commonly referred to as one of the "founding fathers of the Internet" for his key technical and managerial role in the creation of the Internet and its protocol during the 1970s.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

AsiaMedia :: KOREA: Morality of media questioned over nude photos

AsiaMedia :: KOREA: Morality of media questioned over nude photos:
"Civic groups, netizens, and media figures critize the lack of restraint in tabloid journalists' search for dirt on fake degree-holder Shin Jeong-ah

The Korea Times Friday, September 14, 2007
By Bae Ji-sook

The media's eagerness to dig up anything related to Shin Jeong-ah and Byeon Yang-kyoon's 'inappropriate relationship'' has infuriated people, who have described their work as that of tabloid journalists."

AsiaMedia :: KOREA: Munhwa Ilbo ordered to apologize for nude photos

AsiaMedia :: KOREA: Munhwa Ilbo ordered to apologize for nude photos:
The Korea Times Sunday, September 30, 2007
"Newspaper association says Korean newspaper damaged reputation of print media and must apologize for publishing photos of degree-faking suspect."