korea

Natali Del Conte fills Justin's diminutive shoes today, and boy it could not be more appropriate with today's stories. Big news of the day is daytime talk show goddess Oprah Winfrey's plans to end "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and we're hoping our very own Natali Del Conte will take over.

According to WholeFitness.com, staring at breasts for 10 minutes will prolong a man's life by 5 years. Yes, this could possibly be the greatest piece of health care news ever, and we're hoping they incorporate it into the current legislation.

After some really awesome voicemails, we finally get into some tech talk with high-definition primetime entertainment. The majority of shows have switched over to high-definition broadcasts, but we're particularly disappointed that "Family Guy" and "American Dad" aren't available in high definition yet. Jeff gets really disappointed to learn that almost all cartoons are animated in South Korea. Guess that makes "American Dad" even more ironic. Included in the same list is "America's Top Model." Wilson is particularly disappointed.

Jeff will be out next week, so hopefully it won't be Wilson alone curled up in a snuggie talking about Apple and washing machines. In the meantime, be sure to keep sending in those voicemails as we prep for Thanksgiving. If you're in the New York metropolitan area, be sure to check out Ms. Del Conte on WCBS as she hosts the local news for Black Friday.

South Korea's Hoya Robot is developing a mini firefighter helper bot that can enter burning buildings to conduct reconnaissance and check for people.

The Firefighters Assistant Robot can apparently operate for up to 30 minutes in fires, and can withstand temperatures up to 320 F. It can also survive falls of more than 6 feet. It's water-resistant, as seen in this experiment video.

It may look like a tank up close, but the bot can nearly fit in the palm of your hand and weighs only 3 pounds.

The remote-controlled rover can scoot into a blaze and transmit … Read more

South Koreans will soon join the millions of others worldwide as its government on Wednesday approved the sale of the iPhone there.

For years, the Korea Communications Commission used technical rules to stifle competition, allowing homegrown companies like Samsung and LG to take over the market, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

With an estimated 93 percent of South Korea's population subscribing to a mobile service, Apple should be able to overcome one of the biggest barriers to smartphone success in South Korea--applications. Apple has been able to entice developers worldwide to build apps for the iPhone, with … Read more

The average Internet download speed in the U.S. is slower than that in 27 other countries, according to a new report by the Communications Workers of America.

Web surfing in the U.S. averages around 5.1 megabits per second (mbps), lagging far behind top-ranked South Korea, where speeds average more than 20 mbps. In 2007, the U.S. download speed was 3.5 mbps, inching up only 1.6 mbps since then. At that rate, notes the report, it will take the U.S. 15 years to catch up with South Korea.

The CWA's 2009 Report on Internet Speeds … Read more

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il issued a "special pardon" to two Current TV journalists who were recently charged for perpetrating "hostile acts" against the communist state, according to various news reports.

We "are overjoyed by the news of their pardon," the journalists' families said in a statement.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton reportedly arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Tuesday in a publicly unannounced visit to meet with Kim. During this meeting, the North Korean leader ordered the two prisoners released, according to the Associated Press.

"While this solely private mission … Read more

Bing's June bump won't be enough to take significant share from Google according to JP Morgan analysts. Of course, analysts will say anything anyway. And apparently so will we. It's kind of a complaining podcast today, but we do find a shining example of good at the end.

Netflix rises on speculation of Amazon.com buyout

Verizon to start it's own app store http://gigaom.com/2009/07/13/verizon-to-mobile-developers-can-you-hear-me-now/ http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/13/verizon-to-its-smartphones-thou-shalt-have-no-other-app-store-b/

RIM Launching A BlackBerry social network … Read more

The denial-of-service attacks launched on Web sites in South Korea and the United States earlier this month appear to have come from a master server in the United Kingdom, according to security researchers in Vietnam.

The master server controls all of the eight command and control servers involved in the series of distributed denial-of-service attacks that started on the July 4 weekend, security firm Bkis said in a blog posting on its Web site on Monday. Bkis said it gained control of two of the servers.

The Vietnamese firm estimated the number of compromised PCs involved in the attacks to … Read more

Symantec's Kevin Haley says the malicious software responsible for attacking government and other sites in the U.S. and South Korea contains code that could turn against host PCs, erasing data and making the machines unbootable.

The attacks, which have been going on since July 4, have affected Web sites operated by several U.S. and South Korean government agencies including the U.S. Treasury Department and White House and the South Korean Ministry of Defense. Some company sites, including The Washington Post, have also been affected.

Like other distributed denial of service attacks, the actual PCs that are doing the attack are part of a "botnet." They have been infected with malicious software designed to carry out the attack. And, as CNET's Elinor Mills … Read more

The denial-of-service attacks against Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea that started last weekend may have stopped for now, but code on the infected bots was set to wipe data on Friday, security experts said.

There were no immediate reports of any of the compromised PCs in the botnet having files deleted, but that doesn't mean it wasn't happening or won't in the future, said Gerry Egan, a product manager in Symantec's Security Technology Response group. (Click here for Larry Magid's related podcast with Symantec expert.)

There are only about 50,000 … Read more