SEOUL, Sept. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Samsung C&T has taken a tangible step toward reimagining urban housing with the completion of a “Next Home” test bed in Yongin, south of Seoul. The three-story, 554-square-meter facility showcases technologies designed to break away from the rigid apartment layouts that have long dominated South Korea’s housing market. Instead, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — KT Corp. on Monday unveiled SOTA K built on GPT-4o, a large language model developed in collaboration with Microsoft that the company says is optimized for Korean language and culture. The release marks the first time a Korean telecom has rolled out an AI system designed to overcome the [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — The use of payment services employing passwords, biometric data and other authentication methods rose more than 11 percent in the first half, reflecting the growing trend of contactless commerce, central bank data showed Monday. The daily average value of simple payment transactions reached 1.046 trillion won (US$745.77 million) in [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — The relative poverty rate among South Korea’s retired population reached the highest level among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), data showed Monday. For those aged 65 and older, the relative poverty rate stood at 39.8 percent in 2023, up 0.1 percentage point from [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Suicide has overtaken cancer as the leading cause of death for South Koreans in their 40s, underscoring the intensifying pressures on the country’s core working-age population, according to new government data. Figures released by Statistics Korea show that South Korea’s overall suicide rate rose to 29.1 deaths per 100,000 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans believe they will need about 3.5 million won ($2,600) a month to live comfortably in retirement, but most expect to secure only two-thirds of that amount, according to a new survey by KB Financial Group’s research institute. The study, released Sunday, polled 3,000 people aged 25 to [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — The Seoul International Fireworks Festival, one of South Korea’s largest annual public events, lit up the skies above the Han River on Saturday, drawing more than one million spectators with elaborate displays coordinated by Hanwha and teams from Italy and Canada. Now in its 21st year, the festival featured [...]
SEJONG, Sept. 26 (Korea Bizwire) —South Koreans earn the most at age 45 but begin running deficits by 61, as consumption outpaces income in later life, according to new government data that underscores the economic strains of an aging society. The National Statistics Office said Wednesday in its release of the 2023 National Transfer Accounts [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — A rare video of a wild fox preying on a young water deer has underscored the ecological balance returning to South Korea’s national parks. The National Park Service released footage Thursday showing the hunt, filmed on June 16 in Sobaeksan National Park. The video also captured a mother deer [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Delinquency rates at South Korea’s major credit card companies hit an 11-year high in the first quarter amid an economic slowdown, the central bank said Thursday. The delinquency rate on loan assets at the major card firms came to 2.3 percent as of end-March, the highest since 2014, according [...]