Seoul

An Egyptian telecoms giant launched an advanced mobile phone network in North Korea on Monday, the latest attempt to introduce a global symbol of personal freedom into one of the world's most tightly controlled societies.

But analysts cautioned against reading too much into the widely publicized $400 million deal, first announced in January, for a third generation mobile network built by Orascom Telecom.

LG Electronics Inc. claimed a step forward in the commercialization of the next generation of Internet capable handsets, demonstrating a modem chip with a download speed eight times that of the fastest mobile phones currently on the market.

The South Korean company unveiled the chip, created for a technology standard known as Long-Term Evolution, or LTE, at a research lab in Anyang, just outside Seoul, on Tuesday.

Electronic Arts Inc. is turning to online games to boost its limited presence in Asia, the Asia president of the U.S. video game maker said Tuesday.

EA's main business in the West comes from packaged games software for consoles and personal computers, but online games are more popular in Asia, EA President for Asia Jon Niermann told The Associated Press in an interview.

"It's night and day," Niermann.

Niermann was attending the launch of "Need for Speed Undercover," which features a character played by actress Maggie Q.

Alkaline batteries – they are so small and commonplace that it becomes easy to throw them away without a second thought. But they often still have some perfectly good juice left in them – often .8 to 1.3 volts! Yanko Design, an online design magazine, has come up with a great idea for discarded batteries: combine their power into something useful.

Korea's antitrust regulator said Thursday it will order Intel Corp. to pay $25.4 million for violating fair trade rules.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission said in a statement it was issuing the order because the semiconductor giant offered rebates to South Korean computer companies to undercut competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

Intel immediately criticized the ruling and said it would consider its options, including a possible appeal.

"We're disappointed and we completely disagree with the findings," Bruce Sewell, Intel senior vice president and general counsel, said in Seoul.