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In April this year Apple came clean and said that its iPhone and iPad collected a whole lot more location data on users than it was letting on. As nefarious as it sounds the huge amount of data collected by the iPhone / iPad was sent to Apple’s servers and used to help the device zero in on its location for use with location aware apps. Read the full story

With one click, QR codes offer smart phone users contact information, websites, and more.

You may have noticed them cropping up in advertising, on the sides of buses and even street signs—strange black-and-white pixelated boxes that look like some madman’s attempt at a crossword. What are they? QR Codes.

Originally an alternative for tracking car parts and other inventory, the QR (standing for “quick response”) code is akin to the more recognizable bar code but can provide much more information. With a scanner and the right software, you can obtain phone numbers, web addresses and text from the little black and white boxes.

The most recent and growing use for QR codes is “mobile tagging,” which allows smartphone users to take a picture of the code with their phone’s camera and then access the information. Apple, Android, Nokia and Blackberry all support QR codes and have a number of apps available to decipher them.

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These five Korean bloggers offer the latest on the Korean tech scene, if you’re bold enough to brave a different language environment.

I like to think that I am reasonably up to date when it comes to technology. I am an early adopter of new technology, often going to long (and expensive) extremes to acquire new gadgets and other tech goodies.

But my efforts pale in comparison to a hardcore cadre of Korean bloggers who get their hands (and cameras) on the latest and hottest technologies, sometimes before the general public does. And while these blogs are written in Korean, they’re still worth the effort, even if it is through the filter of Google Translate. Many of them link to English-language sites, their basic information is generally easy to discern, and the care they take in presenting their finds and accompanying them with high-resolution images makes them worth reading.

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Five apps for one of the most popular mobile devices of our age:

For more technology and travel… visit QiRanger.com.

A new study conducted by Microsoft has come to the rather surprising conclusion that when it comes to cloud computing, Korean businesses are among the biggest laggards in the Asia-Pacific region.

The study — which covered Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and Korea — found that on a five-point scale gauging how well businesses understood cloud computing (with five the highest), Korea scored just 2.7, placing it second last ahead of Thailand.

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In a game-heavy month, Money Today has listed the following as its top three Korean apps for May:

Name: Pala Dog

OS: iOS

Developer: FazeCat

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In conjunction with the Korea Communications Commission, Money Today recently listed its top three Korean apps for April. Along with apps from the other months, this lot will be entered into the 2011 Korean App Awards at the end of the year. In no particular order, they are:

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For this, the second installment of the Clone Spotting series, we take a look at location-based service Foursquare and its Korean offspring, I’m In, from KTH.

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Anyone who feels there are just too many apps these days has some handy new ammunition for their argument.

Courtesy of the “Blue Park” group of young supporters and others come not one, but two new Android apps devoted to dictator’s offspring, presidential hopeful and opportunist-in-chief Park Geun-hye.

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This week COEX hosted the 2011 Seoul Photo show. On hand were the world’s leading manufacturers of cameras and lenses, Nikon, Canon, Sigma and Tamron as well as Olympus and Panasonic. Also in attendance: local favourite, Samsung.

One notable exception was Sony, who were conspicuous by their absence (notwithstanding the fact that they actually have a full blown store right next to the convention hall, not more than 20 meters from the front door!).

The Olympus booth (booths) had two dominant themes – their mirrorless four-thirds camera system “Pen” and the seemingly indestructible “Tough” line of water- and shock-proof point-and-shoots.

Ubiquitous to any such show in Korea (motor show, photo show, food retailer’s show I’m going to this week) are the scantly clad models – “booth babes” – that hundreds of people crowd around and take photos of. And while this might be an appropriate forum (taking photos of models at a photo show actually makes sense) I couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be a certain kind of infantilizing going on here that was… simply put… a bit odd. But I’ll let you make your mind up as the photos below show my exploration of the Seoul International Photo and Imaging Industry Show 2011.

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