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Android Tablet Gives Rare Glimpse At North Korean Tech
alphadogg writes "An Android tablet brought back from North Korea by a tourist has provided a glimpse at some of the restrictions placed on IT users in the famously secretive country. The Samjiyon is the third tablet to have gone on sale in North Korea. It was unveiled at a trade show in the capital, Pyongyang, last September and received some coverage on state television, but few westerners have had a chance to see it up close. The tablet was likely manufactured outside of North Korea and the hardware itself is fairly unremarkable, but the software and the usage restrictions placed on the device provide some insights about life in the country."
The most interesting thing to me is that it includes an analog TV tuner, which is preset to only receive a handful of specific channels controlled by the state. I've never heard of an integrated TV tuner in a tablet.
The only other "unique" thing about the tablet is that he couldn't get the wifi to connect to anything, yet there is a web browser with 4 bookmarks to North Korean sites. The author surmises that it will only connect to hotspots that are proprietary in some way.
Better known as 318230.
Wifi doesn't work (or perhaps is configured for a few preselected networks only). And the TV tuner only gets 4 channels, so you can't watch the channels being broadcast by South Korea. And it doesn't have Google's common apps.
That's really it... TFA is super-crap.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I know its funny but it also kind of makes me angry to hear something so ignorant. Why is the Surface an example of a restrictive device, why not the iPad. And lets be very clear that the surface pro is actually a computer and the least restrictive device.
Small towns? Just compare Hamhung, North Korea's second largest city and Busan, South Korea's second.
Note that most of Hamhung's south part is fertilizer plant's territory
Note how small it is compared to Busan - FFS, Busan's comparable in size with Pyongang, except one's sprawled around and another one's compact.
Note how abruptly civilization is cut and just about 1-2km west it's randomly scattered shacks.
False
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
To be fair, this was found at the gift shop of a restaurant. That is not exactly the place you would go for the best tech bargains.
There have been walk-through documentaries of people taking a trip to N.Korea. The before and after images of pre and post Soviet Union era is remarkable. Once the USSR fell, China was the only major supplier. Today, support is limited and N.Korea is effectively on its own. Which is ironic given the heavy emphasis on Juche philosophy of self-reliance. You've seen the NASA imagery from space showing N.Korea a virtual black hole in comparison to neighboring nations, right? There is little to no electricity being used.
I'm also married to a Chinese woman. Actually, she prefers being identified as Shanghainese for obvious reasons. The Chinese are not monolithic in culture. Which BTW is perfectly normal given the vast history and massive size of its nation. Anyways, I've traveled the countryside with her. Not some western group tour guide, but an actual you're-on-you're-own-don't-get-lost-because-no-one-will-save-you sort of trip. The disparage in wealth in China is incomprehensible to most Americans. It's bad enough even in the major cities (pan handlers being pimped out, etc). But get out into the country side and you will haggle over the cost of using a public restroom for only a few fen. Good grief!!
Was my government lying about China and how bad the "societal reboot" was caused by the cultural revolution? Absolutely not! Mao Zedong was something of a "Hugo Chevez" for his time. Bombastic and (most importantly) incompetent. Millions died due to the miss management in resources under the idea of Communism. It was only after the economic reforms of the late 70s did things improve; vastly so.
Life is not for the lazy.