- NAVER andHanoi University of Science & Technology (HUST) host Vietnam's first “AI Hackathon” successfully

Naver and Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST), Vietnam's most prestigious university in engineering, successfully completed Vietnam's first artificial intelligence (AI) hackathon, “BK.AI-NAVER Challenge 2022.”

Naver announced the establishment of a "global AI research belt" centered on South Korea, Japan, France, and Southeast Asia at the "2019 DEVIEW," welcoming HUST as its first partner in Southeast Asia in 2020 and opening a joint AI center together last year.
A total of 80 teams and 300 college students from all over Vietnam participated in a two-day hackathon from May 21, drawing much attention from the local AI research community. The AI Hackathon was divided into three areas: natural language understanding, gesture recognition, and OCR. Of the 80 teams, 15 teams that proposed the most effective solution made it to the finals, and three teams in each category won the $1,000 prize.

Park Dong-jin, chief executive officer of Naver Vietnam, said, "Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, it was relatively small, but still applications flooded in over two weeks.” He added, "Through this AI hackathon, we were able to confirm Vietnamese enthusiasm in the global AI research belt, and we are planning to actively cooperate with HUST in fostering R&D and talent in Vietnam."

Meanwhile, Naver and HUST have successfully conducted five research projects over a year and released four datasets and presented 10 papers in a world class academic conference. In addition, Naver Vietnam also plans to open a global development center in Ho Chi Minh City and hire about 300 outstanding developers in Vietnam by 2023.

- NAVER Clova Note to enter the Japanese market ··· "Starting to target the global market in earnest"

Naver's voice recording artificial intelligence "Clova Note" will expand across the globe starting with introducing the service in Japan.

Naver announced on the 24th that it has released a Japanese version of Clova Note. The service can be found on the PC website and on the iOS and Android app markets in Japan.

The basic functions are almost the same as that of the Korean version. If you record a Japanese voice directly from the app or upload a file, it is converted into text, and it is equipped with a bookmark function, a memo function, and a search function. Similar to the Korean version, it can recognize different speakers. However, some functions such as sharing, video conference connection, and multi-lingual simultaneous recognition will be updated later. Korean and English recognition will be provided during the first half of the year.

Naver also increased accuracy by applying HyperCLOVA's technology to Clova's own Japanese voice recognition "NEST (Neural End-to-end Speech Transcriber)" in the Japanese version of Clova Note. It improved performance by applying self-guided learning techniques that can be used for AI learning even for data that is not labeled.

Starting with Japan, Naver plans to expand its global business by introducing Clova Note to the North American and Asian markets in the second half of the year. In addition, it will strengthen its connection with various work tools along with work accounts and group management functions to develop services that are specialized in the working environment.

"The competitiveness of Clova Note is its unique voice recognition based on Naver's AI-based voice technology," said Han Ik-sang, head of Naver, who leads Clova Note. "We will make efforts to provide convenience to global users in their everyday lives through AI voice recording."

- Jang hyung kook, CEO of WEMADE said we are different from ‘Terra’. He said he would press ahead with issuing stable coin.

Jang hyung kook, CEO of WEMADE put an emphasis of the stability of the WeMix system, saying “Terra/Luna and Wemix are fundamentally different in terms of the risk of the depegging, ahead of the launch of its stable coin called WeMix Dollar.
CEO Jang said at an online press conference on the 24th of May, "WeMix represents an economy where game coins and non fungible token (NFTs) are traded. It’s not a coin without use cases," he said.
WeMade announced its “WeMix 3.0 plan,” which mainly focuses on the launch of its own main net and the issuance of stable coin “WeMix Dollar.” This plan involves the payment of up to 20% interest if WeMix is deposited for the period of one year. The “Tera and Luna” coin, which has currently tanked, also offered a 20% return, raising concerns that WeMix may follow in the footsteps of Terra.

CEO Jang added, “The biggest difference with WeMix is it is a coin issued by a listed company, and stressed that ” as a listed company, there are many procedures to follow, such as compliance monitoring, internal accounting, and auditing, as well as getting various certifications such as ISMS and International Standards (ISO).

WeMade's stable coin is to ensure stability when trading coins and NFTs in 11 games on the exchange, he said. "We will proceed to a level that we can deal with.“

CEO Jang also expressed regret over government regulations for P2E games. "Only Korea and China are banning the P&E (P2E) market now," he said. "The government should study the advantages and disadvantages of P&E and take ‘smarter’ approach." However, he added, "If the law is set in any way, we will comply with the law and do business."

- Hankook Tire unveils 'ION' tires exclusively for electric vehicles at the tire exhibition in Germany

Hankook Tire & Technology announced on the 22nd of May that it would participate in 'The Tire Cologne 2022', an international tire exhibition held in Cologne, Germany from the 24th to the 26th and unveiled ION, a tire brand exclusively for electric vehicles, for the first time.

The Tire Cologne is the world's largest tire exhibition in which major global tire companies participate. This event was held for the first time in 4 years.

Hankook Tire explained, “The ION was developed with the goal of being a ‘high-performance premium’ product from the design stage, so it perfectly realizes the performance of high-power electric vehicles such as pure electric sports cars.”

ION is characterized by being equipped with 'Korea Evolution Technology', which overcomes the 'trade-off' in which when a certain performance is raised, another performance is lowered. The company emphasized that it exhibits performance optimized for the characteristics of electric vehicles, such as by increasing lateral rigidity to withstand the load of heavy electric vehicles, realizing excellent handling performance, and providing an optimal low-noise environment.

With ION, Hankook Tire has completed the industry's first full lineup of tires exclusively for electric vehicles that can be used during summer, winter, and all-four seasons.
Starting with this exhibition, ION will be launched in the European market first. Products will be released sequentially from August to domestic and other overseas markets.

Source: Pangyo Techno Valley Official Newsroom

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