Over the last few years, COVID-19 created a new culture of people wearing masks. Now, mask culture has settled down to be bothersome, but also somewhat comfortable. After Oct. 2020 when wearing masks was made mandatory, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) finally announced that starting from Jan. 30, 2022, they will loosen the rules and people no longer must wear masks. A lot of people, especially the young, were pleased with this news since masks had come with annoying features such as hindering communication and fogging up glasses. Even though a lot of people waited f

In modern society, new types of crimes appear every day and voice phishing is one of them. With voice phishing, the criminal usually makes up a story to keep the victim off guard and at some point requests private information regarding money. Victims sometimes fall for this bluffing. There are some people who sense the call is voice phishing and vent their anger at the criminal. Unfortunately, most criminals already know the target victim’s address and phone number. Often, they will take revenge by ordering food for delivery with a deferred payment. This is just one example of what can occur w

Amidst sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) existing in our life, people sometimes think about our future life with AI or robots. After Yang (2022) is a movie which features a family living with an android robot and how they accept the death of the robot. The family completely understood the perspective of the robot by looking into the memory of the robot. This story line implies how humans can embrace the viewpoint of AI or robots and coexist with them at last. Synopsis The film starts with Yang, who is the AI robot, also known as techno sapiens, taking a picture of the family. Yang was

Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) was launched about two months ago and has been spotlighted for its realistic image effects. It costs more than two billion dollars to make, and hundreds of companies participated to produce VFX (visual effects). It is evaluated that it cultivated the ground of CG (computer graphics) which had not been observed. More than ten million people in Korea watched this movie despite the inflation of movie tickets, and its fancy visual beauty raised attention to CG technologies again. Especially, more than half of the audience visited special theaters such as 3D or IMAX,

The number of people in the MZ generation (those born between 1980 and 2004), who are more familiar with communicating through social media rather than by phone, is increasing. As people communicate more through social media and less in person, they report feelings of awkwardness and uncomfortableness when encountering such situations. A phone call, a typical means of communication among modern people, has turned into a fear that causes psychological stress for some. The phenomenon called Call phobia, which is characterized by feelings of anxiousness and reluctance towards phone calls is incre

There have been controversial opinions about nuclear power plants for several years. Some believe that it is a reliable source of energy that is sustainable, but others view it as a dangerous source of energy that may give rise to safety issues. Nuclear power plants have slowly been phased out by former South Korean president Moon Jae-in, but as current South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol plans to re-introduce nuclear power plants and build new ones, there have been conflicting views on the matter. Recently, Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) confirmed that the nuclear power plant Hanbit Un

The Greatest Showman (2017) is the original musical film inspired by the story of Barnum, the founder of the Barnum and Bailey Circus who fascinated the world with his stage. Synopsis The main character Barnum grew up in a poor family but was a very passionate boy. As he fell in love with a girl named Charity, he worked all sorts of hard jobs to raise money and marry her. Finally, he became the head of a family with two children and a wife. However, he lost his job when a trade ship that was supposed to go to China sank. He borrowed a huge amount of money to buy a museum but even this failed.

With the start of the 2022 FIFA World Cup on Nov. 20, 2022, football teams from 32 countries have converged on Qatar, an Arab country. As an oil-rich country, Qatar has enjoyed immense wealth that has nurtured grand ambitions of economic growth. However, the Qatar World Cup has some issues: treatment of migrant workers, human rights abuses, and alcohol-related regulations. Questions were raised when Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 World Cup won out over rival bids such as South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. Qatar has suffered from its treatment of migrant workers. About 30,000 workers came from Bang

During Google’s path to becoming one of the most influential Tech Giants, Google has started to impact our daily lives in nearly every aspect. Google started in 1996 as a search engine and is continuously researching to create a more accurate search machine to this day. One of the most praised features in its search engine results page is the snippet, which was introduced in the fall of 2014. A snippet, a small piece or brief extract, can be found at the top of Google’s search results to answer simple queries quickly. Google’s search engine algorithm makes use of the most reliable and accurate

“The House in the Cerulean Sea” is an LGBT fantasy novel by Travis John Klune that explores the idea of finding one’s place in a tough and unforgiving world. The story follows a caseworker at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY), Linus Baker. His job as a caseworker is to investigate and file reports on orphanages registered under DICOMY’s supervision. The only peculiar thing about these orphanages is that they host magical creatures who allegedly pose a grave threat to normal peers if enrolled in a public school. The House in the Cerulean Sea is the most peculiar of all as it ho

Concerns about the environment have started to be an increasingly serious problem around the world, and this is no exception in South Korea. Although it has been some time since the concept of environmental awareness was introduced, most people do not see environmental concerns as directly linked to them. Jeju Island, the most popular tourist destination in South Korea, has suffered the consequences of negligence towards the environment, and the rate of waste accumulation on this island is steadily increasing. Due to the popularity of Jeju Island as a tourist destination, the number of tourist

The webtoon and web novel industry, which are integral parts of K-content, is suffering due to the infringement of intellectual property (IP) as the illegal distribution of content prevails. Webtoon platforms such as Naver and Kakao are responding in earnest by filing criminal charges. Still, critics point out that fundamental measures are needed as IP are often difficult to detect. According to the Korea Copyright Protection Agency (KCOPA)’s "Research Report on Copyright Infringement Investigation and Response Plan," the number of illegal webtoon sites has increased from three in 2016 to 107

Liking What You See : A Documentary, is a short novellette by Ted Chiang, released alongside others within the book, Story of Your Life and Others (2002). The story is narrated in the form of a documentary script, with interviews and speeches by various characters all talking about the central topic of calliagnosia, or calli for short. Calli is introduced as a fictional technology developed by neuroscientists that allows humans to stop judging the aesthetic quality of other humans. Using the fact that there are specific mechanisms within the brain that allow aesthetic judgment of human faces,

Professor June Huh at Princeton University is the first Korean American Mathematicians to receive the Fields Medal during the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) awards ceremony which was held in Finland in July. He grew up and graduated from Seoul National University, so an interest in the Fields Medal also increased in Korea. The Fields Medal is called the Nobel Prize of Mathematics, and Korean academia is paying much attention to it along with the Nobel Prize to be announced this fall.The Fields Medal was established according to the will of J.C. Fields at the University of Toron

Ever since COVID-19 became a worldwide pandemic, travel rates have steadily decreased and caused severe damage to the tourism industry. The prolonged pandemic affected all economic sectors, but due to the nature of tourism, it has arguably been one of the most negatively impacted sectors. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the tourism industry’s contribution to GDP decreased by US $4.9 trillion in 2020, which is a 50.4% decline when compared with the previous year. However, as the COVID-19 situation was prolonged, in 2021, the contribution to GDP increased by US $1 trillio

The main character of Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) is Riggan Thomson, an aging actor trying to revive his fading career by becoming an artist on Broadway after his long-time role as a superhero in Hollywood. After receiving continuous criticism from critics and failing to obtain public attention, he is now directing and acting in a stage production.The film starts with Riggan levitating above the ground in the lotus position in his dressing room. Unlike his peaceful posture, a voice resembling his old superhero, Birdman, is constantly complaining in the background. He recrui

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggested that the global community should achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 to give the world a chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5℃. The net-zero emission is broadly the same as carbon neutral: CO2 emissions are being generated, but they are offset by the same amount being removed by technology. At the current state, to reach net-zero emission, CO2 emissions should be reduced, but offsetting emissions are also necessary. Replacing fossil fuels with “renewables, hydrogen and nuclear” is the most urgent task for each count

The moon has been a source of curiosity for everyone living on Earth. From goddess worship to folklores about the moon, no one quite knew anything specific about the moon until fairly recently. However, it seems that another large step is being taken towards the future of humanity, because scientists have succeeded in growing plants in lunar soil for the first time. The moon soil used was a sample collected from the Apollo missions during 1969-1972, and to all the researchers’ astonishment, cress seeds planted in the soil sprouted after just two days. The next question that researchers harbore

Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), written by Victor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, is a vivid account of his harrowing experiences in a Nazi concentration camp and the psychotherapeutic methods that enabled him to retain control of himself and find meaning in life despite precarious circumstances.One may find themselves in the deepest pits of despair, but the scale of hopelessness and fear will probably be overwhelmed by the horrific realities of the Auschwitz camp in which Frankl was detained. Frankl was thrust into a world in which he was probably justi

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism announced in 2021 that 72% of Koreans read online news from portals, a web-based platform that collects information from different sources. This figure was the greatest among the 46 countries that participated and more than double the average of 33%. The biggest problem with reading news from portal sites is that the articles are ranked by the number of page views (pv). Professor Young-Gi Joo of Hallym university media school stated that "When portals arrange articles in the number of pvs, understanding the context of the current society become