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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."
You know, maybe it would be actually nice to list a few examples of the restrictions in the summary to see if I care to even read the article or not. (Yeah, yeah I know this is slashdot, who even reads the article.. even more reason to post examples)
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.
Given the war on general purpose computing , North Korea is far ahead of us technologically. We won't get this level of responsible computing for at least a few more years.
Still less restrictive than a Windows Surface
http://saveie6.com/
You should follow you own advice and look at places other than the capital. It's pretty common for capitals of dictatorships to be at a significantly higher level of standard of living compared to the rest of the country..
Pick one of the smaller cities and zoom in.. you are indeed going to see lots of randomly scattered shacks.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
He/she was probably referring to the restrictions being put inside those tablets, and probably some big brother-style tech embedded in them
... what, are they running iOS then?
Parking lots for of cars? According to this several year old article, there's less than 30,000 cars for a country of 24m people. DFW airport has approximately enough parking for all of NK's vehicles.
Regardless, a $200 LCD screen that is useless for the average citizen seem to be an expensive luxury item where a car, if they somehow got permission to own one, may be necessary just to get around. How many people in the US or Europe have a vehicle but don't have a tablet?
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.