There have been more then a few people that have canceled travel plans to Japan due to their new policy of fingerprinting all foreigners who enter the country. As it turns out the biometric fingerprinting system is not very difficult to defeat. In what is no doubt a massive fail for the Japanese program it is now being reported that a simple piece of tape placed on the finger is enough to by pass the security system.

A South Korean woman who worked as a ‘hostess’ in a Nagano bar was labeled person non grata by the Japanese in 2007. She managed to obtain a false passport in South Korea and used the tape on her fingers to bypass Japanese customs.

This flaw although embarrassing will most likely be sealed up with greater vigilance on the part of customs agents. Although its likely this security hole will be plugged this wont be the last time that a method of defeating biometric systems appear, next time instead of tape it might be a past. As long as their are Koreans working as hostesses in Japan they will find ways to enter the country.

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Korean company MYRACER has released its first hand held gaming console, the MYRACER MF101. The MF101 is equipped with a 2.4″ 290,000 color QVGA TFT-LCD screen, a ARM 922T 192MHz processor, and 1GB of internal memory.

The MYRACER MF101 can hold around 1000 flash games featuring such quality titles as: ‘Come2us soccer 2006′, ‘Super Action Hero’, and ‘Mini Game Heaven’. On top of all the gaming action you can also use the MF101 to listen to music, watch movies, view text/images, and subway maps.

Although MYRACER’s MF101 may not have the hottest specs, exclusive games, or an attractive design, the price is right. The MF101 is available now for the low currency deflated price of 98,000 won ($65 USD).

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Somali pirates can add another ship to their growing list of problems. South Korea has announced its plans to send one of their new KDX-II Destroyers, the Gang Gam-Chan to patrol the pirate infested waters off the coast of Somalia. The announcement comes in the same week that the United States, India, the United Kingdom and Russia have outlined their plans to send more ships to the area. With the recent high profile hijackings and the international crew members involved it seems like countries are breaking down the door to take a shot at the Somali privateers.

South Korea has a more then a few reasons of their own to join the party. They also enjoy a little international attention, several of the crew members of hijacked ships are Korean, and most importantly their navy has a brand new destroyers! What could be better training then a little target practice on pirate motor boats.

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At this years 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show Hyundai introduced plans for their new environmentally friendly brand, Blue Drive. The Blue Drive brand will include a new emblem which will adorn their new models of eco friendly vehicles. The company has been busy developing hybrids, biofuel, and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles as part of their plans to move up the automotive food chain.

Hyundai was also showing off a sleek little SUV concept. Their HED-5 “i-Mode” concept makes it ok to drive an SUV again with its integrated environmentally friendly technology. The company was also displaying their Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV). The SUV recently took part in the Hydrogen Road Tour 2008 challenge, where nine auto manufactures compete with their zero emission technology. The Tucson FCEV got 185 miles, and hit a top speed of 95mph before it needed to be refueled.

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The sources are a little foggy on this one, but it looks like LG will be releasing the SH460, or ‘Ski Phone’ in Korea soon. The Ski phone comes from a long lineage of rather mediocre phones that are re branded with a ‘cool’ name and pushed into the hands of the less intelligent consumers and bloggers who will post the promo shots. Past examples of this phenomenon include the LG Ice Cream, and the Samsung Bora.

Now as advertised, the SCH460 comes with 2.2″ LCD on the interior, and a 1.3″ LCD on the exterior for checking how many hours you have left on the slopes. A two megapixel camera and electronic dictionary has also been included. As for connectivity you get Bluetooth 2.0 and USB.

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It was only a little over a year and a half ago that Samsung wowed us with their new SSD technology. Back then the 30GB SDD’s were big news and offered unparalleled performance. The technology today remains the same but the Samsung SSD have grown much larger. Soon Samsung will release their 256GB Flash SSD with a read rate of 220MB a second and a write rate of 200MB a second. With a flash drive large enough to meet most consumers needs hopefully Samsung will start to focus their attention on producing enough to bring the price down a little.

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The LG Prada phone may have an annoying name and be partnered with a fashion label that some would argue, has grown a little stale. Despite that the phone is attractive, has nice features, and although it may seem expensive its one of the cheaper products to have the Prada name stamped on it. One more reason to give the phone a second look came with the recently unveiled Prada II website, which featured a Bluetooth Prada watch which will most likely accompany the phone. The stylish watch injects some much needed electricity into the Prada brand. The watch displays incoming calls and text messages and makes it generally easier to ignore phone calls from your mother in law.

There is still no release date and you know the old saying about prices, if you have to ask…

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If North Korea ever decided to invade the South, every South Korean soldier would have to kill about twenty North Korean soldiers if they wanted to survive the attack. The South Korean Agency For Defense Development (ADD) has a plan to even the odds with a futuristic set of features for their soldiers uniforms. In addition to the destructive XK11 rifle we wrote about last week, the soldiers new helmets will include a heads up display, camera, and microphone. The soldiers backpacks will house a computer that identifies friends or foes and provides GPS and maps. Even the uniform has smart functions such as cooling and heating, detection of mines, missiles, and our personal favorite lasers!

The new soldiers equiptment seems to be the perfect fit for South Korea’s video crazed youth. Although a lot of this technology is not ready to be deployed the Korean Agency For Defense Development may role this out sooner then people think. The XK11 rifle was an imitation of a similar American gun, but the Koreans poured hundreds of millions of dollars into development and rolled it out into the field before the Americans did. Its a little strange how similar to American DOD programs their defense technology looks, and even more strange how they are getting it in the field first.

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Ever since the days of walking down the street with a boom box on your shoulder have passed several companies have attempted to revive the portable boombox. There was the JVC Kaboom, Burtons snowboarding jacket with built in speakers, and the Osiris G-Bag. Music until recently has always been about sharing,  the Xpod lanyard brings that back creating the ability to plug in any device to play some music anywhere.

The Xpod is a very small(3.07″ width x 1.34″ height) key chain sized speaker that can be worn around the neck. The speakers pump out stereo sound with a pair of piezoelectric speakers with a 2 channel 77mW amplifier. The battery is recharged via USB.

The sound quality may be no better then Best Buys speaker gift cards, but it looks alright and would be a practical speaker on the go. The Xpod is available in Korea now for 24,000 won ($17 USD).

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LG has announced two new premium desktop models, the desktops will be released under LG’s XPION brand. The details so far don’t seem to back up the premium claim, but perhaps more impressive technical specs will arrive soon. The premium claim may have to do with the desktops sleek shiny casings.

The first up is the XPION R20 featuring a 2 Core Quad Q8200 processor, with 3GB of RAM, and a GeForce 9500GS graphics card. The desktop also has new cooling system based on Multi Direction Platform Cooling (MDPC), which also makes it run fairly quietly.

The XPION S20 runs on a 2 Core Quad Q9400 and a GeForce 9600GT graphics card, details on this model are even scarcer, but it looks like a bulkier desktop with better performance then the XPION R20.

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