Although there are big obstacles ahead of them, Hyundai has big hopes for the future and has announced that they will start mass production of cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The company will begin building a hydrogen-powered Tucson ix SUVs at the company’s Ulsan plant in South Korea and their current aim is to sell 1000 of those zero-emission vehicles around the world by 2015. The immediate plan is that 15 of the new models will head to Denmark and two units to Sweden this April for municipal use.

Hyundai Motor Vice Chairman Kim Eok-jo said, “We expect to realize an environmentally friendly era more quickly through the mass production of hydrogen fuel cell cars for the first time in the world“.

A hydrogen-powered vehicle is certainly good for the environment as it emits only water vapor after hydrogen is converted into electricity.

As for the performance of the vehicle, Bloomberg says that it lags behind its gasoline-powered rivals but gives a smooth driving experience. It produces 134 horsepower and accelerates from 0 to 60mph in just over 12 seconds. Hyundai says that the car can go for about 370 miles before there is a need for refuelling.

But refuelling is one of the problems as there is a scarcity of fuelling stations. Reports suggest that there are only 13 stations across South Korea, but more stations are also being planned. Another major problem is the production cost, with estimates suggesting a price tag of $200,000. In comparison, the standard Tucson costs $19,935. But the company is promising that the price can be lowered to around $50,000 by 2015 after the tech improves.

If all the problems are taken care of, finally we can take an eco friendly route by not relying too much on internal combustion engines. What do you think?

[Source]

The post Hyundai Promises 1000 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars By 2015 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The problem with current cancer treatment methods like chemo is that they simply kill cells. They don’t know the difference between the good and the bad, so they just take out all the cells they can. South Korean researchers may have the solution, and it involves magnets.

The method was tested on live zebrafish by sending a magnetic field that triggers the bad cells to essentially kill themselves. The plan to test the method on a variety of different cancers and see if it can destroy tumors in an effective way that doesn’t harm the good cells in the process.

The natural process is called apoptosis, which is the body’s way to get rid of old and faulty cells. Unfortunately, cancer generally causes this process to fail. The magnetic system could kick-start the process and effectively drive cancer out.

There is still a long way to go in making sure this process can actually be used on humans to fight cancer. This also is far from a cure, think of it more as a ‘safer’ process for treatment than current practices like chemotherapy.

A more detailed article explaining the process can be found in the source link below. Needless to say, this could be a huge aide to the fight against cancer and the search for the cure. What do you think?

[ source ]

The post New Cancer Treatment Method Uses Magnetic Fields appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Quite a bit after when we first expected the verdict, the Samsung versus Apple case in South Korea has come to an end. While we still don’t know the outcome of the Californian chapter of the battle, we do now know that both Apple and Samsung didn’t get away without some kind of a minor victory, and minor defeat.

For Apple, the courts decided that the Samsung smartphones and tablets weren’t copied from iPad and iPhone- but they did agree that Samsung violated on one Apple patent. This patent had do with the bounce-back animation seen when a user attempts to scroll past the edge of a webpage. Samsung has to pay ₩40,000,000 for this infringement, which is just about $22,000.

As for Samsung, they won a small victory against Apple since it was decided that two Samsung patents where infringed, coming to a payout of ₩40,000,000 or about $35,200.

Not much money considering the billions at risk in the Apple-Samsung US case, right? While the direct monetary loses were very trivial- that’s not the only problem that awaits the two companies in Korea. Going forward, Samsung can no longer sell its Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy S, or Galaxy S II devices there, although they were allowed to continue selling the S3. The only one of these that negatively will affect Samsung all that much is probably the S2, which is still sold alongside the S3.

For Apple, this means they can sell the iPhone 4S and new iPad, but not the iPhone 4 or iPad. Considering Apple still actively sells the iPad 2, even if it isn’t there newest tablet, this could hurt Apple a little.

While this case isn’t nearly as high-profile as the US chapter, it’s still interesting to see how it played out and might hint at what could happen in California as well. Odds are that when the US trial ends, both sides will end up having to pay out something- it’s just a matter of who has to pay out more.

[ source ]

The post Samsung-Apple South Korean legal battle ends, both walk away with small victories appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

In all seriousness, the Samsung Galaxy S (SHW-M110S) has been revealed in a new Snow White variant that features a high-gloss white polished backing to go along with its chrome bezel and black front. They say that this is supposed to give it a “luxurious feel.”

The features on the Snow White model are identical to that of the non-white model, so don’t expect a higher resolution screen or an increase in megapixels for the camera. Samsung did proudly proclaim, though, that the Galaxy S is the fastest selling device in Korea with over 800,000 units sold.

Do you need a Samsung Galaxy S? Do you need the white one? The one with the bigger GBs? Now you can have that.

Snow White Galaxy S (M110S) comes to South Korea; 800,000 units sold [SamsungHub]

The post South Korea sees Snow White Samsung Galaxy S smartphone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Google’s Seoul office in South Korea has come under fire for illegally collecting data from their Street View vehicles. This comes just two months after a global investigation began in countries like New Zealand and Australia regarding a each of privacy from Google Street View.

The search engine giant has been working on launching Street View in South Korea since last year, but it seems they’ve bitten off a little more than they can chew. You see, Street View works by sending a car around town with a whole bunch of cameras strapped all around it. It takes pictures, this gets mapped via GPS, and the system amalgamates it all into great panoramic views. The system also collects information from open Wi-Fi networks

The trouble, it seems, is that Google Korea LLC may have participated in the “unauthorized collection and storage of data on unspecified Internet users from Wi-Fi networks.” While the Google Street View car races around town, anyone with an unencrypted open network may have their data lifted.

Google said in May that they had “mistakenly” gathered wireless internet data while patrolling residential streets with streetview photography. Of course, there was a custom software package developed to do this, so it was no mistake by the engineers, perhaps just a mistake in actually doing it.

”We will co-operate with the investigation and answer any questions they have,” Google said.

Personally, despite some of the privacy concerns, I think Google Street View is great. It’s so useful! Hopefully our Korean cousins can get over this hump and enjoy Street View with us too.

Google under probe in S.Korea over data collection [Reuters]
Privacy net catches Google in Korea [The Sydney Morning Herald]

The post Google will hand over Street View data to South Korean officials appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Samsung SGR-A1 robotic military sentry gun

Anyone planning on illegally crossing the North/South Korean border better think twice, the government has deployed a couple sentry robots that can sense heat and motion and deploy 40mm grenades at the target, or just fire off a couple thousand rounds of ammunition its way. Audio and video is sent back to the command center allowing them to make the call on whether or not the response requires such offensive action.  Check the video below for a peak at the command UI.

These robots rang in at 400 million won ($330,000 USD) per unit, allowing South Korea to maintain the stronghold in their largely outnumbered military force of 655,000 troops, compared to 1.2 million of the North.  It hasn’t been revealed whether or not these are the Samsung SGR-A1 killing machines that were developed four years earlier, but my suspicions lead me to believe it is so.  Thanks Samsung, it’s nice to know you are keeping us connected socially, while simultaneously milling down North Koreans.  Will you be implementing twitter updates each time a sentry robot makes a kill?

South Korea also plans to develop additional robots which will be armed with weapons and sensors, these robots will be a complement to human soldiers on battlefields.

[CrunchGear via Telegraph]

The post South Korea deploys grenade launching robots at border appeared first on Mobile Magazine.