Korea's homegrown satellite to fly on NASA's Artemis 2 to study space radiation SEOUL, January 29 (AJP) - South Korea’s homegrown CubeSat, K-RadCube, will fly aboard NASA’s Artemis 2 crewed moon mission to observe the space radiation environment, marking the first time a South Korean satellite will directly measure the high-energy radiation belts encountered by astronauts. The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) said on Thursday that the satellite will study Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts at multiple altitudes, generating data that could support the safety of future crewed deep-space missions. K-RadCube will be launched mounted on the Orion spacecraft’s stage adapter during Artemis 2, a crewed test flight that will send four astronauts on a lunar flyby and return them to Earth — the first such mission in about 50 years since the Apollo program. The CubeSat is scheduled to be deployed about five hours after launch, when it will begin measuring radiation levels in high-Earth orbit. “Securing direct measurements of space radiation is critical, as radiation exposure remains one of the biggest risks for human space exploration,” Kang Kyung-in, head of space science and exploration at KASA, said at a briefing in Seoul. He noted that while radiation can already cause errors in highly integrated semiconductors on Earth, radiation levels in space are far more intense. Data from K-RadCube could be used in the design of future crewed spacecraft and in mission safety planning, he said. The project involves several South Korean companies, including Nara Space Technology, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. Nara Space Technology said the CubeSat had to meet stringent NASA safety requirements not typically applied to small satellites, including battery standards, thermal runaway testing and hazard-control destruction tests. KASA Administrator Yoon Young-bin said the mission would serve as an important international validation of South Korea’s ability to develop and operate deep-space CubeSats, as well as safety and reliability technologies relevant to human spaceflight. He added that the project could help expand South Korea’s technical contributions and role in future lunar and deep-space exploration efforts. * This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP. 2026-01-29 16:40:43

Nexon to Refund All Purchases for MapleStory Idle After Ability Odds Error Nexon has decided to refund in full all money users spent in the idle game “MapleStory Idle” following a dispute over ability-related probability settings. The company said it is the first time in Nexon’s game-service history that it has moved from a CEO apology to compensation and a full refund over an operations controversy. In a notice posted Tuesday, Nexon said it committed a “serious mistake” by fixing an error that had a “critical impact” on gameplay without notifying users. “Taking full responsibility, we will provide a full refund to any user who wants one,” the company said. The refund covers all paid items purchased from the service launch on Nov. 6, 2025, through the time of the refund notice. It includes not only products tied to the disputed features — ability resets, attack speed and “Quick Hunt” tickets — but all purchase history during the period. Nexon said it will announce the refund process and application period later. After a refund is completed, gameplay will be restricted under existing service policies, it said, and purchases made after the notice will not be eligible. Previously promised individual compensation will be provided separately. The decision followed a late discovery of an error in the game’s core ability-option system that prevented the maximum value from appearing as intended. Nexon said the problem occurred during coding, and that its initial response was delayed because its internal probability-monitoring system was not applied due to collaboration with an outside developer. The Korea Game Users Association had filed a complaint with the Fair Trade Commission, alleging Nexon Korea violated South Korea’s e-commerce law, after receiving authorization from 1,507 users. The group withdrew the complaint after Nexon decided on full refunds. Nexon said that if an issue arises that damages user trust, it will offer the highest level of compensation, beyond the costs users incurred.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-01-29 08:36:25

South Korea's Wemade brings new Mir game to China with localized features SEOUL, January 13 (AJP) - South Korean game developer Wemade has officially launched "Mir M," the latest title based on its long-running Mir franchise, in China. The game is available on Android, Apple’s iOS and PC platforms in China, the company said. Mir M is a modern reinterpretation of the world of “The Legend of Mir 2,” Wemade’s flagship title that gained widespread popularity in China in the early 2000s. The new release carries over hallmark elements of the original game, including signature items, eight-direction grid-based combat and a quarter-view perspective, designed to deliver a familiar Mir intellectual-property experience for Chinese players. At the same time, Wemade said it rebuilt core systems — such as combat mechanics and equipment progression — to reflect current market standards and the preferences of Chinese users. The game also introduces a user-participation operating model known as “Mir Partners,” under which selected players and creators can take part in community-building, promotion and content production. Participants will receive incentives and other benefits tied to their level of contribution, the company said. Wemade said the China launch is aimed at preserving the identity of the Mir franchise while offering a differentiated massively multiplayer online role-playing experience tailored to local demand. 2026-01-13 15:48:22

LG CNS to lead key projects in Korean military's IT transformation SEOUL, January 07 (AJP) - LG CNS said on Wednesday it has secured back-to-back defense information technology contracts, strengthening its role in South Korea’s push to digitally transform its military. The company said it signed agreements for the Armed Forces Command, Control and Communications Command’s communications network integration project and the Defense Information Agency’s next-generation integrated defense facilities information system project. The contracts were awarded on the strength of its defense IT capabilities, experience delivering large-scale systems and industry expertise, the company said, citing past projects including the Joint Command and Control System, command, control, communications, computers and intelligence (C4I) systems for the Army and Air Force, and a next-generation defense finance information system. The communications network integration project aims to combine separate networks operated by the Army, Navy, Air Force and the Joint Chiefs of Staff into a single integrated network. LG CNS said it will carry out the project over about 15 months. South Korea’s military is seeking to build a “Korean-style" command and control system to support integrated operations across space, maritime, ground and cyber domains, with network integration seen as a core step in establishing that foundation. Under the project, LG CNS will standardize network environments across units and consolidate equipment that has been installed and operated redundantly. The company plans to replace complex one-to-one information linkages with a unified network architecture to streamline information flows and improve operational efficiency. LG CNS also said it will apply software-defined networking technology to enable centralized management of routers deployed nationwide. Separately, the Defense Information Agency project will modernize existing systems and infrastructure used for managing defense facilities. The goal is to enhance user convenience and operational efficiency while standardizing data to integrate the full life cycle of defense facilities, from planning and design to construction, operation and maintenance. * This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP. 2026-01-07 10:42:39

Krafton, Naver, Mirae Asset pool capital for Asia startup bets SEOUL, December 19 (AJP) - Game developer Krafton said on Friday it will set up an Asia-focused investment fund with Naver and Mirae Asset Group worth up to 1 trillion won ($740 million), betting on fast-growing technology companies across the region. The fund, named the Krafton–Naver–Mirae Asset Unicorn Growth Fund, will target promising technology firms in major Asian markets, including South Korea and India. The partners said the vehicle aims to generate long-term growth by supporting rapidly expanding tech industries and startup ecosystems. The initiative builds on an earlier Asia growth fund jointly established by Naver and Mirae Asset, which has invested in India’s largest food delivery platform and a leading Southeast Asian mobility company. Krafton joins the partnership after cumulatively investing more than 200 billion won in India’s digital entertainment market. The South Korean game publisher said it has established a strong presence in India on the back of the success of its flagship game service and plans to further expand its investment activities there. The fund will combine their respective strengths: Krafton’s market insight in India and content expertise, Naver’s capabilities in platforms, content and artificial intelligence, and Mirae Asset’s extensive Indian network and asset management experience. Affiliates of Mirae Asset Group will take part in managing the fund, assuming roles based on their areas of specialization. Son Hyun-il, head of Krafton’s India unit, said the partnership is expected to create “meaningful synergy” and that the fund will seek sustainable businesses in India that deliver “social and economic value” beyond gaming. He added that Krafton plans to broaden its investments into sectors such as consumer goods, sports, media and healthcare, with the aim of becoming a trusted brand among the Indian government and public. Choi In-hyuk, head of Naver’s tech business, said it was “meaningful” to pursue strategic cooperation with Krafton, which he said has built a strong foundation in India. He added that Naver will contribute by identifying innovative Indian companies and helping expand the local tech ecosystem through its platform, content and AI capabilities. 2025-12-19 17:11:44

Kakao releases advanced AI language model Kanana-2 as open source SEOUL, December 19 (AJP) - South Korea's Kakao Corp. said on Friday it has released its next-generation large language model, Kanana-2, as open source. The company said it published the in-house model on Hugging Face, adding that the release showcases technology optimized for building AI agents capable of understanding context and executing tasks autonomously. Kakao began unveiling its Kanana model lineup last year and has since released successive versions as open source, ranging from lightweight models to Kanana 1.5, which was designed to address more complex problem-solving tasks. Kanana-2 incorporates Kakao’s latest research aimed at significantly improving performance and efficiency, with a focus on so-called “companion” AI that can interpret user intent and act proactively. According to Kakao, Kanana-2 delivers substantial improvements in tool-calling and instruction-following, two core capabilities for agentic AI systems. Compared with its predecessor, the model achieved more than a threefold improvement in multi-turn conversational tool-calling performance and was designed to execute complex, step-by-step tasks. Language support was expanded to six languages, including Korean. The company said it adopted newer architectures to boost efficiency, including multi-latent attention to process long input sequences and a mixture-of-experts structure that activates only selected parameters during inference. “Innovative AI services are built on the performance and efficiency of language models,” said Kim Byung-hak, Kakao’s Kanana performance lead. “Beyond high performance, we will develop practical AI models that operate quickly and effectively in real service environments, and continue sharing them as open source to help energize AI research ecosystems at home and abroad.” 2025-12-19 09:35:28

Korean AI models score poorly in college exam math vs global rivals: study SEOUL, December 15 (AJP) -South Korea's homegrown artificial intelligence language models significantly underperformed compared with leading international counterparts in solving college entrance exam–level math problems, according to a study by a research team led by Professor Kim Jong-rak at Sogang University. The study tested five major Korean-language AI models against five global models, including ChatGPT, using math and essay questions drawn from university entrance examinations. Results showed a wide performance gap between domestic and international systems. Among the Korean models, only Upstage’s Solar Pro-2 scored above 20 points, achieving 58 points. Other domestic models clustered in the 20-point range, with NCSoft’s lightweight Llama Barco 8B Instruct scoring just 2 points. By contrast, international models recorded scores ranging from 76 to 92 points. The evaluation consisted of 50 questions per model: 20 high-difficulty math problems covering common mathematics, probability and statistics, calculus, and geometry, as well as 30 essay-style questions sourced from South Korean, Indian and Japanese university entrance exams. The Korean models tested were Upstage’s Solar Pro-2, LG AI Research’s Exaone 4.0.1, Naver’s HCX-007, SK Telecom’s A.X 4.0 (72B), and NCSoft’s Llama Barco 8B Instruct. International models included GPT-5.1, Gemini 3 Pro Preview, Claude Opus 4.5, Grok 4.1 Fast, and DeepSeek V3.2. Even when allowed to use Python-based tools to enhance computational accuracy, Korean models continued to struggle. In a separate evaluation using 100 custom-designed questions, international models scored between 82.8 and 90 points, while Korean models ranged from 7.1 to 53.3 points. When models were given up to three attempts to solve each problem, Grok achieved a perfect score, while other international models reached 90 points. Among Korean systems, Solar Pro-2 scored 70 points and Exaone reached 60 points. HCX-007, A.X 4.0, and Llama Barco 8B Instruct scored 40, 30 and 20 points, respectively. “We conducted this test in response to growing questions about how domestic AI models perform on entrance exam–level problems,” Professor Kim said. “The results show clearly that Korean models are still significantly behind global frontrunners, particularly in complex reasoning and mathematics.” The findings add to concerns within South Korea’s AI industry over gaps in advanced reasoning capabilities, despite strong investment and rapid model development in recent years. * This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP. 2025-12-15 10:19:14

"Like deciphering ancient script", Korea's English exam stuns Western media SEOUL, December 14 (AJP) -South Korea’s notoriously punishing college entrance exam has once again drawn global attention—this time not only for its difficulty, but for the language used by Western media to describe it. Following widespread backlash over this year’s English section of the Suneung, the country’s high-stakes college entrance exam, the head of the testing authority resigned, acknowledging that the questions were excessively difficult. The episode quickly became international news, with outlets such as the BBC and The New York Times portraying the exam as a symbol of extreme academic pressure in South Korea. The BBC described the English test as being “like deciphering an ancient script,” echoing complaints from students who said the dense passages and abstract concepts were nearly impenetrable. The broadcaster highlighted questions based on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of law and a technical passage on video game perception, noting that some students called the exam “insane.” The New York Times focused on the institutional fallout. It reported that Oh Seung-geol, head of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), resigned after issuing a public apology, admitting that the English test “did not meet the appropriate difficulty level.” Just over 3 percent of test takers earned the top English grade this year, down from about 6 percent the previous year. For the BBC, the figure illustrated how the test crossed the line from rigorous to unreasonable. For the Times, it reinforced longstanding criticism that exam difficulty often undermines government pledges to curb so-called “killer questions” and reduce reliance on private tutoring. Oh Seung-geol, head of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), which administers the exam, stepped down after widespread criticism from students, parents and educators. “We sincerely accept the criticism that the difficulty of the questions was inappropriate,” Oh said, acknowledging that the test “fell short” despite undergoing multiple rounds of review. The controversy centered on dense, abstract passages that many students found unnecessarily convoluted. Among the most daunting were questions drawing on Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of law and a passage using technical language from game design theory. One widely discussed question, worth three points, asked students to determine where a sentence about “the virtual bodily space of the avatar” should be inserted into a paragraph describing perception in video games. The passage was later identified as an excerpt from Game Feel, a game design book by Steve Swink—used without broader context. Online criticism was swift. One Reddit user described the writing as “fancy smart talking,” while another called it “awful writing that doesn’t convey a concept well.” Held every November, the Suneung is an eight-hour marathon that shapes not only university admissions but also future job prospects, income levels and even marriage outcomes. Students answer around 200 questions across Korean, mathematics, English, and other subjects. Since the Suneung was introduced in 1993, only four of its 12 chief administrators have completed their full three-year terms. While most resignations followed factual errors in questions, Oh is the first to step down solely over excessive difficulty—underscoring just how politically and socially sensitive the exam remains. 2025-12-14 08:20:42

Gwangju library construction site death toll in Korea confirmed at 4 SEOUL, December 14 (AJP) -The final missing worker in a deadly construction accident at a public library site in Gwangju was found dead Saturday, bringing the total death toll to four, authorities said. The body of a 58-year-old worker, identified only by his surname Kim, was recovered at around 11:20 a.m., two days after part of the structure collapsed during construction. Earlier Saturday, another worker, surnamed Ko, was found dead at around 1:03 a.m. Two others were confirmed dead on Thursday, the day of the accident. All four victims were Korean nationals and technicians employed by a subcontractor involved in the project, officials said. Authorities believe the collapse began while workers were pouring concrete onto the roof of the two-story structure. The upper section reportedly gave way, causing the ground floors to cave into the underground levels. The accident occurred at 1:58 p.m. Thursday at the site of the Gwangju Metropolitan Library, which is under construction on the former site of the Sangmu waste incineration plant in Seo-gu, Gwangju, about 300 kilometers south of Seoul. The project, led by the Gwangju metropolitan government, carries a total budget of 51.6 billion won ($37 million). The building is designed to span two basement levels and two above-ground floors, with a total floor area of 11,286 square meters. Construction was about 72 percent complete at the time of the collapse. Rescue operations mobilized more than 1,000 personnel from fire departments, police, and related agencies. About 230 pieces of equipment, including life-detection devices and thermal imaging cameras, were deployed, along with nine search-and-rescue dogs. Police and labor authorities have launched a full-scale investigation, including a raid on the headquarters of the project’s main contractor on Saturday. Investigators seized construction documents and accident records to determine whether proper safety measures were in place, particularly regarding the method used to pour concrete without adequate structural supports. “We will examine work orders, construction methods and safety management systems based on the seized evidence,” an official at the Gwangju Employment and Labor Office said. “We aim to thoroughly investigate the structural causes of this accident, which resulted in multiple casualties, and hold those responsible accountable.” Land Minister Kim Yun-duk said Friday that the government plans to push for a special law to strengthen construction site safety and impose tougher penalties for fatal workplace accidents, citing a rise in deadly incidents nationwide. * This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP. 2025-12-14 07:48:02

South Korea holds world's first contest to counter AI hacking SEOUL, December 02 (AJP) - South Korea has wrapped up the world’s first AI Hacking Defense Contest (ACDC), an event designed to test emerging cybersecurity threats and defense techniques in the era of artificial intelligence. The competition was hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and organized by the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) in partnership with the Korea Information Security Industry Association (KISIA). The contest examined three major domains: AI security applications, AI safety assurance and AI platform security. Preliminary rounds were held over two days beginning Oct. 31, with 20 teams advancing to the finals on Dec. 1 at COEX in Seoul. The final stage combined traditional capture-the-flag (CTF) challenges with AI-based attack-and-defense exercises. The Ministry of Science and ICT team — comprising members from Singularity, Superblock, Viva Republica and Toss Securities — won the top honor, the Minister of Science and ICT Award. “This contest was a great opportunity to highlight the importance of AI security, which is often overlooked,” said Joo Kyu-hwan, leader of the winning Ministry of Science and ICT team. “I enjoyed the competition from the preliminaries through the finals and appreciate the efforts of my teammates and the organizers.” In the general category, the GYG team, representing Toss and Theory, won the KISA President’s Award. The student division was topped by Pwngrad, a joint team from KAIST and Soongsil University, which received the KISIA President’s Award. Special awards were presented to the 78RL78 team (78ResearchLab) and the “Do You Know Ucando” team (Yonsei University), who received the LG Uplus CEO Award, and to the RHCP team from POSTECH, which earned the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology President’s Award. KISA said it plans to expand the ACDC into an international event next year. * This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP. 2025-12-02 15:42:47