Android Tablet Gives Rare Glimpse At North Korean Tech 125
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."
TV (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:TV (Score:5, Informative)
I've never heard of an integrated TV tuner in a tablet.
Thats quite common with mobile phones in South Korea.
Re:TV (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah,it is important, because in Asia you can relatively easily point your antenna across the border and get overseas channels if your TV can tune/decode them. In Vietnam you can pick up Cambodian, Thai and Chinese TV channels, and the TV sets sold there have a massive array of options to let you choose colour standard, field rate, audio subcarrier frequency, etc. to ensure that you can decode and view anything you can receive. DPKR doesn't look so kindly on such features.
Re:Lame summary (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Yet (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:When you turn it on... (Score:2, Informative)
Small towns? Just compare Hamhung, North Korea's second largest city [goo.gl] and Busan, South Korea's second [goo.gl].
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 [goo.gl], 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.
Re:Lame summary (Score:4, Informative)
False [wikipedia.org]
Re: North Korean Tech at it's best (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)