Robots that smile and blink. A "ubiquitous" Internet that envelops people in an always-wired world. Radio ID tags on every product and person, letting you check whether the wine you're thinking of buying will go with that steak or if your children have arrived safely at school.
These visions of the future were among innovations exhibited on Tuesday on the sidelines of the APEC summit.
South Korea, which leads the world in per-capita high-speed Internet connections and is a major producer of memory chips and flat-screen displays, is showcasing its technological prowess during this week's APEC forum in Busan.
PHOTO: EPA
World leaders and other APEC delegates are getting the chance to participate in the first-ever trial of wireless high-speed Internet access called WiBro.
The technology, based on the worldwide WiMax standard, allows users to surf the Web at speeds almost as fast as wired connections while moving, also enabling voice and video calling via the Internet.
The service will be offered to South Korean consumers next year, in the form of WiBro-enabled phone handsets, laptop computers and expansion cards.
The move is part of South Korea's campaign to create a "ubiquitous" information society, including everything from e-health to e-learning to e-government.
"When we're in the ubiquitous era, we'll be living in a world where we have knowledge and robots everywhere," Information and Communication Minister Chin Dae-je told journalists.
The star of the showcase is a 137cm tall, two-legged robot topped with a head modeled after Albert Einstein. "Albert Hubo" has 31 motors behind its face allowing it to laugh, blink -- and even scowl when someone tries to tip it over. It can also speak in sign language using its five-fingered hands.
"Our first goal is to make robots as similar to humans as possible," said Oh Jun-ho, director of the government-funded Humanoid Robot Research Center, declining to speculate on the applications for such a machine.
But one of the demonstrations provides a possible hint: a robot-staffed bar a la Star Wars.
Also on show was digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB), a service unveiled this year in South Korea that delivers TV broadcasts and music to mobile phones via satellite. The country aims to establish DMB as a worldwide standard to keep people's eyes glued to their handsets.
For those wanting the big picture, Samsung and LG showed off massive plasma screens measuring 260cm diagonally that they said were the world's largest.
Other innovations planned for rollout in coming years are radio ID tags on all products, so people with properly equipped phones can wave them in front of a bottle of wine and get information on whether that year was a good vintage. Children with radio tags built into phones will check in at sensor stations when they arrive at school, triggering a text message sent to their parents to let them know they got there safely.
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