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I thought everyone was exaggerating about how great the airport in Seoul was until I actually went there
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Apr 16, 2014 - Tweet
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Since I live on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I try to fly out of New York’s LaGuardia Airport whenever I can. It’s just a 15-minute cab ride, and I can get through security quickly.
But, boy, is it a dump, especially in the United Airlines terminal. There’s an Au Bon Pain, but it’s really just a chow line without the regular storefront you see in most airports. That’s about it.
So the bar was set low when I flew to Incheon International Airport in Seoul, South Korea, on a recent business trip. Still, I had a lot of people, including two of my Korean colleagues, tell me it was the best airport in the world (it was ranked the world’s second-best airport by Skytrax, a high honor).
- Korea
- (airports • Inchoen Airport • photos • Pull Partners • Seoul)
Here’s why this iPhone game is creepier than any horror movie you’ll see in theaters
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Apr 14, 2014
The horror genre needs some help.
It seems like every year an endless array of movies and video games come out that primarily focus on bloodshed and mayhem.
If you’re tired of these recycled ideas and enjoy classic ghost stories, try playing Papa Sangre II.
- Global
- (app • Horror • iPhone • Papa Sangre II • Pull Partners • scary • video game)
The extreme lengths Samsung must go to make sure your Galaxy phone works perfectly
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Apr 12, 2014
The last thing you want when you drop a few hundred bucks on a new phone is for it to fail on you within a few days.
That’s why manufacturers go through lengthy testing processes to make sure every aspect of their devices work. Samsung does the same with its Galaxy line of phones, including the new flagship phone the Galaxy S5.
We visited Samsung’s testing facilities at its headquarters in Suwon, South Korea. There, engineers test everything from how well phones can survive a fall to how many times you can push the home button before it breaks.
- Korea
- (Galaxy • Pull Partners • Samsung • smartphone • technology • testing)
Chinese consumers are completely obsessed with pizza
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Apr 11, 2014
China is going through a pizza renaissance.
Because Chinese consumers see pizza as an iconic part of the American diet, demand for the food is expected to continue surging, writes David Stringer at Bloomberg.
China’s biggest cheese supplier, Fonterra, predicts demand for mozzarella cheese will surge 20% in the next two years because of the trend, according to Bloomberg.
- China
- (food • pizza • Pull Partners • trends)
A quick refresher on the difference between Macau, Hong Kong, and Mainland China
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Apr 10, 2014
The artist who created a super-helpful explainer on the differences among England, the UK, and the British Isles is back, this time with a primer on China.
If you’ve ever traveled from Macau to Hong Kong to mainland China, you’ll notice that your passport gets stamped every time. Each one has its own government, money, police force, schools, and even languages.
But Hong Kong and Macau are not their own countries, despite the fact that Hong Kong had its own team in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Check out the video below for the quick, correct, and funny explainer, which will make you feel a lot more confident about any future Macau, Hong Kong, or China references.
- China, Internet
- (Hong Kong • Macau • Pull Partners)
REVIEW: Samsung’s new fitness gadget makes a sleek smartwatch
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Apr 8, 2014
After releasing a critical dud last fall with its first major smartwatch release, the Galaxy Gear, Samsung surprised a lot of folks in the industry when it announced an attractive new entrant into the wearable computing category, the Gear Fit, just a few months later.
- Global
- (mobile • Pull Partners • review • Samsung • Smartwatch • tech)
This ‘Wonder Material’ Could Make Your Next Phone Super Thin With Internet That’s 100x Faster
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Apr 6, 2014
A group of Samsung Electronics researchers claim they’ve made a breakthrough discovery.
They’ve found a technique that could help the company make your future smartphone thinner, more durable, and even a deliver Internet 100 times faster.
The “wonder material” is called graphene— a substance that’s stronger than steel and so thin it’s considered to be two dimensional.
- Korea
- (invention • Pull Partners • Samsung • smartphone)
Meet Bluefin-21, the robot that’s searching for the missing Malaysian Airlines plane
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Apr 4, 2014
Underwater operations company Phoenix International has a contract with the U.S. Navy to use a robot called Bluefin-21 to search the Indian Ocean for signs of the missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370.
The 21-foot-long robot is capable of staying submerged for 25 hours at a time, deploying its sensors to search and map 40 square miles of sea floor per day.
We spoke to David P. Kelly, President and CEO of Bluefin Robotics, the Massachusetts-based company which manufactures Bluefin-21, to learn more about it.
“It’s a 4,500-meter-rated vehicle, so it can descend to 2.5 miles underwater,” he told us. “Once it goes down, it ‘flies’ above the seabed and uses sonar acoustics to image the ocean floor. It also moves in a ‘mowing the lawn’ pattern, running in parallel lines that overlap and cover the entire bottom to form an image of the sea floor.”
Here’s the military exercise that has North Korea freaking out
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Apr 3, 2014
A joint military exercise between the U.S. and South Korea has freaked out North Korean leadership.
The annual drill, named Foal Eagle, runs from Feb. 24 to April 18 and features Marines from both countries.
North Korea views the drill as a possible threat and has responded by ratcheting up its own military rhetoric.
Further, The Hermit Kingdom has announced military drills of its own, and launched hundreds of missiles toward a disputed maritime border with South Korea. The country has also promised a new kind of nuclear test in response.
2014: The 10 best airports in the world
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 28, 2014
Skytrax has released the results of its annual World Airport Awards and, once again, Singapore’s Changi Airport has taken the top spot.
It’s no surprise that Changi came out on top again. The international transit hub has incredible amenities, such as a butterfly garden, rooftop pool, movie theaters, hotels, spas, and showers — and even a four-story slide.
Skytrax based its rankings on 12.85 million customer nominations across 110 nationalities and included 410 airports worldwide. It incorporated passenger satisfaction across nearly 40 categories, including service and shopping and security and immigration.
All the airports commended last year made the 2014 list, but in a slightly different order.
- Global
- (airport • best • Pull Partners • ranking)
I used the giant Samsung phone that Apple wants to kill — and I’m never going back to a tiny screen again
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 24, 2014
When I first started using Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3, almost everything about its enormous size annoyed me. I couldn’t text with one hand. It barely fit in my pocket, or didn’t at all. I felt silly holding it up to my ear to talk on the phone. It was the least subtle or elegant phone I’d ever seen.
Even my friends were horrified. I’d plop the Note onto a table or I’d whip it out to take a picture, and anyone I was hanging out with would double-take.
“What is that thing?!” they’d gasp.
- Global, Korea
- (iPhone • phablet • Pull Partners • review • Samsung • smartphone • tech)
Here’s a satellite photo of debris that could be from the missing plane
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 21, 2014
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott says satellite photos taken over the Indian Ocean may show parts of the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370. The plane has been missing for 12 days and it had 239 people on board. There are numerous theories about what happened to it.
The satellite photos show two objects located about 1,400 miles off the coast of Perth, Australia. The larger object appears to be 75 feet across.
- S Asia
- (debris • flight 370 • Malaysia Airlines • plane crash • Pull Partners • theory)
CNN actually speculated if a black hole swallowed the missing Malaysia flight
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 20, 2014
This is one of the most surreal cable news segments you’ll see.
There have been many different conspiracy theories thrown out about the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, but on Wednesday night CNN speculated whether a “black hole” could be involved.
- China, SE Asia
- (black hole • Malaysia Airlines • MH370 • Pull Partners • video)
Here’s what pilots think about the new idea that the missing plane flew for hours after a fire killed the pilots
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 20, 2014
It’s been a week and a half since Malaysia 370 disappeared, and the theory du jour comes from a former pilot.
In a Google+ post, Chris Goodfellow argued that smoke filled the cockpit, maybe from a burning tire on the front landing gear.
The pilots turned the plane toward an airport that could handle the 777, turned off the transponder along with other electronics in an effort to isolate the source of the fire, and were then overcome by smoke, he theorized.
The plane’s autopilot kept the course until it ran out of fuel and crashed hours later.
Goodfellow’s theory is appealing, we noted, because it fits the facts we have on MH370. It impressed The Atlantic’s James Fallows, himself a pilot: “His explanation makes better sense than anything else I’ve heard so far … It’s one of the few that make me think, Yes, I could see things happening that way.”
What pilots think about the crazy new theory that the missing Malaysia jet used another jet to hide
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 19, 2014
Not surprisingly, the disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370 with 239 people on board more than a week ago has led some people to come up with very interesting theories about what might have happened.
On his Tumblr, self-identified hobby pilot and aviation enthusiast Keith Ledgerwood put forward the most elaborate and interesting suggestion we’ve heard yet.
He argues the 777 could have flown over India and Pakistan, avoiding military radar detection by turning off its communications systems and following a Singapore Airlines 777 so closely the two aircraft “would have shown up as one single blip on the radar.”
- S Asia
- (crash • flight 370 • Malaysia • missing plane • Pull Partners • theory)
17 Mind-Blowing Facts About Russia
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 18, 2014
Russia has been all over the headlines recently. Earlier this year, it was for the Sochi Winter Olympics. More recently, it’s because president Vladimir Putin has been flexing his muscles again, this time in Crimea.
As the world’s eighth largest economy Russia can’t be ignored. The sheer scale of its pipelines, for instance, its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, or its population decline are mind-boggling.
We put together some key facts about Russia.
Why increased thyroid cancer rates in Fukushima kids isn’t necessarily a cause for concern
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 16, 2014
A “cancer cluster” detected in kids near the Fukushima disaster is probably due to the increased examination of these children, not because of the disaster itself, according to epidemiologist Norman Kleiman of Columbia University.
How anyone with a computer can help search for the missing Malaysian airplane
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 13, 2014
A U.S. satellite operator is enabling anyone with Internet access to help search for the Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared in the South China Sea days ago.
Here’s the route the Malaysian military thinks the missing Boeing 777 took
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 12, 2014
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 has been missing for four days with more than 200 people on board, and the country’s military now thinks the Boeing 777 turned around over the Gulf of Thailand and flew at least 350 miles away from its destination, Beijing.
Victoria’s Secret is opening in China — But not to sell lingerie
- BUSINESS INSIDER
Mar 8, 2014
Victoria’s Secret is launching in China—but don’t expect any bras and panties at its stores.
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MOST POPULAR
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Today
Japan ends tax-free shopping system for foreign tourists, new refund request system now in effect
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Weekly
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Monthly
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