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Samsung U4 DAP emerges on Korean website
If you found yourself infatuated with Samsung's YP-U3, you're sure to love the U4... we think. There's a complete dearth of information regarding the device itself, but given that it already has a placeholder and image on the outfit's Korean Yepp site, we'd say there's a pretty good chance it'll be getting real soon enough. Hold tight, miniature DAP lovers, Sammy won't keep you in the dark much longer.[Via AnythingButiPod]
Introducing Engadget Korean and German!
Remember how when we launched Engadget Poland a couple weeks ago we said that we were just getting started rolling out new international versions of the site? Well, today we're announcing two exciting new Engadgets we've waited for years to get started: Korean and German! They're both in beta, so to speak, so try not to mind the sawdust as we work out the kinks. Big ups to Brian, Jason, Manfred, and everyone at our international teams that made these new sites possible. Oh, and if you're waiting for Engadget in your language of choice, don't worry, Korean and German aren't the last we'll be rolling out!Read - Engadget KoreaRead - Engadget Germany
Dragon Nest MMO announced from Eyedentity Games
From Korean developer Eyedentity Games comes a brand new MMO called Dragon Nest that bills itself as a "dynamic action fantasy online game", and uses Eyedentity's own proprietary Eternity Engine technology. The announcement was made earlier this week, including a collection of screenshots and a gameplay video released as well.The game itself is centered around the action of combat, with a healthy dose of visuals that seems to remind us of the Final Fantasy series. Following a trend that promises to benefit all players on a global scale, the game is said to be accessible to those with lower-end computers, thanks to the low polygon count and streamlined graphics engine. Beta testing will begin in late 2008, with a projected global release date of 2009.
More Jeffrey Steefel goodness regarding the Korean LotRO launch
In line with the recent interview at MMORPG.com, Lord of the Rings Online's Jeffrey Steefel speaks in another interview with Ten Ton Hammer regarding the plans to bring LotRO to Korean audiences. This is something that has been discussed for quite a long time now, but with the Korean release imminent, we now get into the details of this launch and what LotRO hopes to offer to this specific audience.One of the most important points made in this article is the projected number of players who could potentially be involved with this game at launch. While Steefel is reluctant to give figures, he says that with half the population of Korea playing online games (which would be a potential market of almost 37 million people), "the numbers could be astounding," he says.
US Supreme Court rules against LG, will limit patent royalties
It has taken long enough, but the US Supreme Court has finally ruled in the patent royalties case between Quanta Computer and LG Electronics. Justice Clarence Thomas noted that "because the exhaustion doctrine applies to method patents and because the license authorizes the sale of components that substantially embody the patents in suit, the sale exhausted all patents," essentially hammering down any of LG's lingering hopes to extract additional royalties from Quanta (or anyone else tangled up in a similar situation). Put simply, the court ruled that LG couldn't solicit more royalties from firms buying LG-provided Intel products, of which Intel had already paid patent royalties on. So much for double dipping in the royalties pool, huh?
Secret of the Solstice heeds player requests, enables guilds
Outspark's Secret of the Solstice has gotten a new feature in the form of guilds, which has been a frequently-requested addition for a while. According to the site, guild features include emblems, storage space, a bank, and system-wide notices to all guild members, though emblem-creators are warned that only the first emblem is free to create, so be careful.Other Solstice-related news is the addition to the game of Korean-themed items to further commemorate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Apparently, wearing food items on one's head is a popular thing, because players will have the option of choosing to wear dim sum as a hat. According to the site: "Two dumplings make you look yummy." We'll, uh ... we'll just leave you to it.[Thanks, Travis!]
Aion Closed Beta Test 2 Q&A
The second closed beta for Aion is over, and all eyes are now on Korean Closed Beta Test 3. But recently, some members of the Aion Source forums were able to answer some questions on the game from fans of the upcoming NCsoft MMO.Overall, the beta testers were much happier about Closed Beta Test 2 than Closed Beta Test 1. There were many complaints about class balance and respawn timers in CBT1, but that all seems to be fixed currently, showing that NCsoft is listening. These testers also cite some of their favorite parts of the game, namely the gorgeous graphics and flowing animations, which tend to be focus points on many of these Korean-based MMOs. Be sure to check out the complete Q&A as well as some exciting videos of Aion so far.
Bornakk announces region free test servers
Bornakk announced last night that we can expect what could be a fun change for this and future PTRs: the US, Korean, and EU servers will share test realms. We might speculate that this could be delaying the release of the PTRs despite the fact that we have the notes and the patch in hand, though it is, of course, possible that it's the problems with the live servers right now as well. Regardless, it'll be interesting to see how this changes the test dynamic as testing goes forward. There's been some questions in the past over which region's raid groups are better, so it might be fun to see if they decide to duke it out over the new Sunwell content face-to-face. It might be fun to see if some multi-region arena tourneys get set up as well. Even on the casual side, some of us have overseas internet friends who play on different servers than us by necessity, so it should be great to meet up with them and kill a few monsters or do a few dailies together. Of course, before we get to see if anything fun comes out of this, we'll have to make it on the PTRs. We'll be sure to tell you as soon as we see them up and running!
WithView's HM-U500 do-it-all handles DMB, makes Americans envious
Yeah, we Americans have some pretty fancy toys to play with, but we still can't help but feel a touch slighted each time one of these beauties emerges from South Korea. WithView's HM-U500 sports a whole lot of screen and not much bezel, an ultrathin design and a 4.3-inch 480 x 272 resolution panel. Reportedly, the unit is available in 4GB and 8GB iterations and features an SD expansion slot, built-in camera, a kickstand, headphone jack, a T-DMB tuner, e-dictionary, and support for MP3, WMV, OGG, JPG, BMP, PNG and AVI file formats. No word on a price or anything, but for the US crowd who can't just hop on the next flight to Seoul to pick one up, we're probably better off not knowing.[Via TheGadgetSite]
Requiem Bloodymare footage is not that horror-ific
A few days ago, Zenke brought us news that the folks behind Ragnarok were working on a "Horror MMO" called Requiem: Bloodymare. At the time, we had no idea how you'd pull off a gory, horror-based MMO, but thanks to Joystiq's YouTube-searching abilities (these videos were all posted back in November-- whoops), we now have video, and you can see above just how this thing might play out.In a few words, "just like every other MMO." Granted, this is the starting area (which explains why the mobs are just standing there being neutral), but even the trailer itself doesn't promise anything super new-- the same old spells, grinding, standard MMO gamplay, and "extreme battle effects." It doesn't look bad, but it doesn't look new either, so anyone hoping to have a real horror experience in an MMO (I had my hopes up, if only for a second) will still be waiting.But maybe the quest text, in Korean in the video, will add that much more to the experience. Release is set for sometime this year, so we'll see.
iriver's D5 electronic dictionary gets whitewashed
We know it's not natural to get all funny about an e-dictionary, but we can't help it -- iriver's little D5 gets us hot under the collar. You may remember seeing this multi-use, flip-open device in its original black, but luckily for us the company has decided to issue a new color that we can oggle. As before, the D5 features MPEG-4 video and MP3 audio playback, a 480 x 272 TFT display, an FM radio, voice recorder, and USB connectivity. Also as before, you'll need to hit Korea if you hope to get your hands on one -- cause this puppy doesn't seem to be headed Stateside.[Via Akihabara News]
David Perry talks free MMOs in Gama interview
Over the holidays the indomitable Gamasutra caught up with David Perry, the man behind such great games as Earthworm Jim and such utter flops as Enter the Matrix, to talk with him about his current projects, of which he has nearly too many to list. The ones that were of interest to us were his work in bringing over such... unorthodox titles as Dance! Online based on the game's popularity in Korea. He also hinted that he was working with Acclaim on some new free MMOs, one of which was a "music" game and the other a "sports" game, as well as localizing 2moons.After reading the interview, I'm not sure exactly what wavelength Perry is operating on, because his priorities seem a little out of whack to me. Not only does he express a good deal of confidence that games based on item sales instead of subscription fees are the wave of the future in the U.S., but he also expresses a certain admiration for business models (such as the ones used by EA and in certain Korean studios) that treat developers like expendable wage slaves. Some might wonder whether it's even worth listening to Perry's views except as an homage to his past success. It's a good point, but we're still curious about Acclaim's new-found interest in MMOs, so we'll continue to keep tabs on him.
LG moves 15 million bars of Chocolate
Nah, LG's latest sales triumph can't hold a candle to the ones held by Motorola and Nokia, but still, moving 15 million of anything is something to be celebrated. Reportedly, the firm broke the aforementioned barrier this month, and it's said to be the first Korean-based handset maker to sell that many units globally. Granted, the Chocolate's allure has been slowly fading with the introduction of newer, flashier and potentially more delicious offerings, but there ain't no shame in partying down for hitting such a milestone.[Via Chosun]
New Second Life release candidate 1.18.5
Linden Lab have just released a new release candidate view for Second Life, the first in the 1.18.5 series. This one primarily incorporates the new search system, about which you'll be hearing plenty more shortly. This release fixes Korean language support issues under Leopard, some appearance editing problems, fixes for lag-calculations outside the USA, and the source bundle has some assorted build fixes. The viewer is available from the optional downloads page as usual, and we recommend the use of a download manager to grab it faster - without one, you're in for a bit of a wait.
Korean devs get busy: MapleStory DS, Mabinogi XBox 360 port in '08
Time for your dose of Korean MMO-ness.Nexon, a publisher of MapleStory, talked to Gamasutra about the upcoming MapleStory port for the DS, and about an XBox 360 port of the thus-far-Korean-only PC MMO Mabinogi. MapleStory DS development is going well and should see a Korean release in mid-2008. It will probably come to the West some time after that. The game is similar to the PC version, but only supports four players via Wi-Fi.Mabinogi is a traditional anime-style MMORPG. It's had some success in the Korean market but no exposure at all in North America or Europe. Nexon plans to port the game to the XBox 360. As Gamasutra points out, the Korean market for the XBox 360 is extremely small, so we may be able to assume this means the 360 version of Mabinogi will be arriving in Western markets somewhere down the line.
Korean researcher hopes to build ferroelectric RAM
If you've fantasized about how wonderful your life could be if the merits of DRAM, SRAM and Flash memory could all be mixed harmoniously into one "dream semiconductor," listen up. You may not be up to speed on all the advancements in ferroelectric materials, but we're pretty sure even the technological newbie could appreciate a new discovery by Korean researcher Dr. Shin Young-han. Reportedly, this fellow has "succeeded in figuring out the operational mechanism of ferroelectrics," which could potentially lead to FeRAM -- a technology that could "store data ten times faster than Flash memory and keep it for longer than ten years." Kudos to you, Dr. Shin, now let's get this stuff on the production line, shall we?[Image courtesy of Ferra]
Zune hacked for Korean and Chinese language support
ZuneBoards has achieved the feat of getting the Zune to support Korean and Chinese languages, using a hack that could open the door for many new interesting hacks for the thoroughly uninteresting player. Apparently, the hackers managed to get access to the System Partition, which until now has been rather hard. Once in, all they had to do was add a new font package -- it all sounds a little dubious to us, but whatevs. By the time more hacks come around, we'll probably be playing with the Zune 2.[Thanks, Mike]
Master Chief vs. dinosaur, Halo 3 marketing in Korea
What you will see above, and after the break, are allegedly official Halo 3 marketing videos in Korea. It's, um, different ... like the part where Master Chief punches a dinosaur in the head and the back of his armor falls off. After the break you'll see what happens when someone dressed like Master Chief poses motionless in a Korean mall and springs to life. That's actually more funny than weird, but totally not what we expect from Microsoft marketing.As we all know, Korea has a very strong gaming culture, although it mostly revolves around the PC market. Console gaming isn't as popular, but maybe videos like this help? Our Korean translator has been missing since the Starcraft II announcement, so we have no idea what's going on in these videos. We can fully accept that Korean culture is very different from US culture -- this point made clear in the video after the break as the guy in the Master Chief costume is standing in the middle of a mall with a gun. We could see something like that sparking an incident on the local news here.[Via X3F]
Hanool's Hanuri-RT rescue bot touts go-go-gadget tracks
Probably best known for its Roomba-esque robovac, Hanool is branching out a bit and introducing the Hanuri-RT rescue robot in Korea. The incredibly large machine sports a simple, yet menacing design and a sophisticated track system that that can expand in a multitude of directions in order to reach places that humans could have difficulty accessing. Unfortunately, details are scant when it comes to explaining the control method and determining just how capable this off-roading beast really is, but click on through and view a few more pictures of this bad boy in action for the time being.
Warcraft comic book free to read online
The Warcraft universe is constantly expanding. Trading card games, sound tracks and board games abound. It seems we can't get enough of Azeroth online or off. Blizzard has tried to meet this growing demand is by creating a series of fiction novels and comic books. One of those endeavors is a Korean manga title, Dragon Hunt, the first novel in the Sunwell Trilogy that was published last year.Now, our friends over at the WoW Europe official site have made Dragon Hunt available to read online for free! Every week they are putting up a new chapter. So far there are three chapters to read and I already can't get enough. Head on over, check it out and tell us what you think.
