Group items tagged

For South Koreans, efforts to replace credit cards and cash hit their stride in 2004, when banks began issuing integrated circuit chips that slot into the mobile phones and allow them to work like credit cards at A.T.M.’s.

Mobile payment has been adopted in many parts of Europe and Asia, especially in Japan. Still, phones have a long way to go before replacing plastic.

For Kim Hee-young, her mobile is the Swiss Army knife of the digital era. When she wants ice cream, she just asks her phone, and it shows a list of ice cream shops — complete with their menus and customer reviews — and the shortest way to get there.

This year more than a thousand Web sites have been shut down for “vulgar” content, although some critics complain that academic or public service sites that deal with sexually transmitted diseases have also been swept up in the juggernaut.

Industry experts say that at least 90 percent of all online games in China have some form of violence, whether they involve homicidal kung-fu masters, sword-wielding hobbits or monsters with a taste for human flesh

There are summer camps for teenagers who spend too much online,

A Chinese man suspected of stealing a prototype for the fourth generation iPhone has committed suicide.

"We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect," Jill Tan, an Apple spokeswoman in Hong Kong, told reporters. 'Humiliating'

On 13 July, Sun reported that he was missing one of the 16 units in his possession.

If you have had any exposure to adolescent or teenage girls over the past decade, then you are all too familiar with the phenomenon known as Hello Kitty, the mouthless cartoon cat that decorates the paraphernalia (usually done in garish pink) that has made Tokyo-based parent Sanrio Co. Ltd. an 83-billion-yen-a-year company (about $795 million).

Why would Japanese cartoon characters appeal to American youth? Why stuff that is, to put it mildly and to use an American expression, cheesy?

What allows some products or concepts to travel around the world, while others can't get out of the house?

The child stars of the hit film Slumdog Millionaire are set to star in another film, possibly sharing a screen with British actor Anthony Hopkins.

"Lord Owen's Lady".

The children and their families recently moved to new housing. The accommodation was arranged by the government and a trust formed by Slumdog's British director Danny Boyle.

of an American animated movie that's set in ancient China

The blockbuster success

Some viewers have said the only reason China hasn't come out with something similar is a lack of money ("Kung Fu Panda" cost more than $130 million to make; Chinese-produced films tend to cost less than $1.5 million) or animation-technology know-how.

South Korea's television soap operas are finding big audiences overseas, including here in the Bay Area, as well as other major American cities with large Asian populations.

South Korean studios invested heavily in state—of—the—art production facilities, embodying the latest digital technology. Today, many Japanese films are shot in Korea, to take advantage of lower costs and better facilities there. And studio tours for tourists have become a big business.

Twenty million migrant workers from China's countryside had lost their jobs in factories in the last year, because of the global downturn.

The new recruits were needed, he said, because things were starting to pick up. But their key export business had been hit badly.