This Week’s Startup – Jelly Bus Inc.   JellyBus Inc. <Picsplay Pro> <Official Web Link> Anyone can make awesome photos with us! Whether you are an unskilled user or a photo experts, Jelly Bus assures that you can make a stunning photo by this photo editing app service “Picsplay pro”. As it is called an Image processing engine, it provides a basic features and cutting-edge technologies. For example, its newest HDR functions…

We thought it’s about time we wrote about the U.S. National Security Agency’s PRISM program, the latest phenomenon around the world today – and yet, it’s old news, because information is and has always been the ultimate power. This issue is quite divisive – some people care, some people don’t, some people think you ought to care. What do you think about the PRISM issue? What is PRISM? PRISM is an electronic…

Good thing the Koreans went for the fiber early. South Korea dominates the top lists when it comes to broadband, according to latest edition of Akamai’s State of the Internet report for the three months ending December 31, 2012. The quarterly State of the Internet report puts the South Korean city of Daegu at the top of the 100 fastest cities. Here are some highlights from Akamai’s official press release: Global On…

Earlier today we talked about the rise of Korean startups… and what’s a better example than KnowRe? KnowRe is the recent Winner of Gap App Challenge (1st Place) 2013, Grand Prize Winner at Global K-Startup 2012, and Winner of Plug and Play Tech Center at beLAUNCH 2012? In much excitement, we interviewed the Co-Founder and Vice-President of KnowRe, Seojoon (Simon) Kim who was incredibly humble about this accomplishment. You can read our…

1. SoftBank Capital Raises $50M To Invest Exclusively In New York Startups Back in February, SoftBank Capital raised $250mil. focused on helping established tech startups break into Asia. As of this morning, they have just announced that they’ve raised $50 million that they plan to invest entirely into early-stage New York startups in hopes that it’ll boost the startup ecosystem there with a few big wins come out of the city already. (TechCrunch) 2. Waze mapping app gets a little more…

Meet KnowRe. “Your new digital teacher’s aide”… and the Winner of Gap App Challenge! KnowRe is humbly describes itself as an ‘educational technology company’ that develops innovative online adaptive service for mathematics, but I disagree – there is so much more to it than what meets the eye. They were listed by TechCrunch, GigaOm, TechwireAsia, The Next Web and VentureBeat (just to name a few!) as one of the hottest Korean startups…

According to the Korean Financial Supervisory Service, SundayToz, the developers of AniPang, will be joining the KOSDAQ (Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations trading board), following an acquisition by Hana Green Special Purpose Acquisition Co. SundayToz is the developer of Kakao’s AniPang (adequately named “the national mobile game of Korea”). They are known as the company that literally ‘opened a new chapter for Mobile Games’ – and they made 23.8bil. KRW (approx. 23.8 million…

Today’s Events: 1. Jump Together! Running Mentoring Session (Kor) A great mentoring program for young startups, university students and other interested people. Vie for synergy, comrades! 2. The 5th DrinkEntrepreneurs Event Once a month, DrinkEntrepreneurs offers a relaxed environment for driven and motivated entrepreneurs to meet and exchange over a drink and music. This event differs from many networking socials having no format, name tags, business booths, or stuffy environments. It’s free (drinks available at the…

Good morning everyone, here are some news articles we picked out for you this morning. 1. Coinbase Leads Charge In Bitcoin’s Consumerization Some interesting perspectives on Bitcoins. Bitcoin (BTC) is a cryptocurrency first described in 2008 by a pseudonymous developer ‘Satoshi Nakamoto’ who called it a peer-to-peer, electronic cash system that can be transferred through a computer/smartphone without an intermediate financial institution. (TechCrunch) 2. If you’re disappointed with big data, you’re not…

*Remember folks, Wednesdays are your ‘Weekly News’ day! Cymera Tops 20mil. In Downloads So Cymera is kind of a big deal now – they just topped 20 mil. in downloads. We wrote about this earlier (maybe a week ago). On May 13, Cymera passed the 10 million mark in downloads outside of the Korean peninsula, proving popular in Thailand and Taiwan. SK Communications SNS affiliate said that the number of downloads recently…

Howdy world citizens! Here are some morning reads for you today, good-to-go either on a train, a bus, over a cereal bowl (or another bowl, if you know what I mean)… whatever you desire, I supply ya. It’s Wednesday! Keep it up! Whatever you do, don’t be this guy. Weekend’s almost here! 1. Thomas Clayton: Bidding war between Tencent and LINE for Kakao Great article by Product Manager and Senior Writer at e27,…

1. Comic XKCD Nails Google Glass Critics (Especially Congress) “‘Maybe before we rush to adopt Google Glass, we should stop to consider the consequences of blithely giving this technology such a central position in our lives.’ Don’t have any insights about a technology? Just use this sentence! It makes you sound wise and you can say it about virtually anything.” 2. Samsung Briefly Posts Galaxy S4 Mini On Its Apps Site, Adding…

At beLAUNCH2013, I had the privilege of interviewing David Lee, who I found to be extremely experienced, confident, and witty (these adjectives fail to describe how awesome he is).  David had previously been the Director of Google and the company’s first international executive to lead the sales, operations, and business development efforts in Asia, Europe and Latin America. He is also the Co-Founder of XG-Ventures, a renowned angel fund in Silicon Valley, the…

“This is a PDF document. You can page through it with your finger.Of course, you can also write comments and draw lines in the PDF document. Also, if you choose the marker, and move your finger over text, you can highlight text like this…” -Kenji Matsunaga, Marketing Manager at Sony Business Solutions A4 size papers are now a thing of passé. Sony has recently launched an A4 sized equivalent 13.3″ digital paper notepad,…

Industry officials recently said that SK Communications, the social network service (SNS) affiliate of SK Group, is planning a ‘refashioning’ of its ailing service Cyworld. We all know that due to a decline in their earning, SK was forced to downsize in 2012. It had an operating loss of 10.3bil KRW in Q1, marking its sixth consecutive quarterly loss. However, market watchers believe that they are aiming to draw back its subscribers….

The World’s Biggest Digital Cable TV Show Kicks Off According to the Korea Times, the biggest cable TV forum kicked off yesterday at Jeju, Korea. “Beyond Cable, Smart and More” is the main theme for this year’s “Digital Cable TV Show,” which kicked off at the Haevichi Resort on the nation’s southern resort island of Jeju. The conference is the 11th such held annually. The event, organized by the Korea Cable Television and…

“Two’s not enough to provide true competition. These guys are getting ready to kill the Internet, that’s where this [disordered, no-rules and] unregulated duopoly is headed.” -Mark Cooper “Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.” – Thomas Edison A duopoly is a market condition in which two companies producing a similar type of product have control over the market. It’s a situation in which two companies own all or nearly all…

We wrote earlier in the year that Samsung and Pantech will compete in the smartphone and tablet marketplaces in 2013. The decision comes as a surprise and may raise some eyebrows among analysts and investors who say that Pantech doesn’t have much to offer Samsung in terms of technology or software capabilities: it was confirmed today that Samsung invested in $47.6 million in Pantech, the third largest mobile device manufacturer in South…

The Korean Market: Huge.  Korea’s population: 50 million, with strong purchasing power. Korea’s GDP as of 2011: in the range of US$1.16 trillion. Korea’s GDP per capita: $22,778. Geographically, Korea is situated at the center of maritime & air transportation networks in Northeast Asia. Northeast Asia has now become one of the three global economic pillars, along with the US and Europe. Korea’s its high-end market is recognized as the ‘global trend-setter’ in the region. There…

SEO(검색 엔진 최적화, Search Engine Optimization)는 인터넷 검색 결과 창에 보여지는 웹사이트의 순위를 결정한다. SEO를 준수하는 사이트일수록 상위 페이지에 노출된 가능성이 크다.   자신의 서비스를 더욱 더 널리 알리기 위해 각 회사는 SNS 공식 채널을 운영하고 있다. 한국에 근거를 두고 있다면 네이버 블로그를 통해 콘텐츠를 손쉽게 널리 퍼뜨리고자 한다. 더 많은 고객과의 소통 채널 확보와 서비스 노출을 원하는 기업이라면 꼭 한 번쯤은 검색 엔진에 최적화할 수 있는 방법을 강구해야 한다.   아주…