Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Although it’s challenging to say that anything at Coachella could be considered ground breaking (especially considering this year’s lineups of reunions vs. new discoveries) it seems that Hologram Tupac may have led the way for the future of K-pop. The Korea Times reports that SM Entertainment, home to some of today’s most popular idol groups, are seriously considering investing in holographic theatres that would offer “concerts” of their top acts. As their story points out, they had to use a hologram Tupac at Coachella, because he’s DEAD. According to The Korea Times, SM Entertainment has been wanting to do this for a while, and after they pulled off a successful holographic Girls Generation concert, their passion for 1980s futurism was re-ignited. Just imagine how AWESOME it would be to be able to pay to go to a holographic concert, watch the whole thing through your Galaxy s3 screen (wriggling through the crowd of people in front of you with their giant phones blocking your view) while you record the show to post on your tumblr on the subway ride back home to your parents house. The future is bright for groups like Girls Generation and steady hitter, BoA. At least they get to have boyfriends and be “themselves” in real life, unlike their J-pop counterparts, AKB48. GR Familia, Anne Ishii wrote a brilliant piece about the weirdness of AKB48′s idol reality. It’s like K-pop is Jem and the Holograms, and J-pop is the Misfits – seriously, like with the evil manager, and the orphanage, and the holograms, and the Misfits always having hard times but better outfits… Everything we thought was only a cartoon futuristic techno fantasy is our now.
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There are Tiger Moms and Dragon Dads, and then there are just guys who shouldn’t be allowed to raise kids, like this guy, Mr. Yoo of Seoul, Korea. The Korea Times reports that he was waterboarding his kid for having bad penmanship, but it sounds like Dad tried to drown his 9 year old son, after beating him didn’t seem to get the message across. Another Mr. Yoo approved of waterboarding back in 2001. John Yoo, of the Department of Justice during the Bush Administration, was one of the authors of the “Torture Memos” giving the green light for waterboarding and more at Guantanamo. Not all Asian Americans in government are awesome. Big hugs to Korean kids who get half-drowned by bad dads, and to the detainees at Guantanamo. These guys are giving the Yoo Clan a bad name.
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Last month South Korea elected its first female president. Seems progressive enough, but Park Geun-hye is a fiercely conservative daughter of a dictatorial former president. It was a passionate race to the finish, and her two liberal opponents at one point were going to band together to take her down, but they couldn’t agree on who should step down. Like Japan, the Korean people chose a conservative candidate to guide them through these recent troubled economic times, convinced they are the key to recovery. Unlike Japan, South Korean voters came out in droves on election day. Now South Koreans are lining up outside Park’s “Center for Proposals for the People’s Happiness”. As she transitions into power, downsizing government, chopping budgets, and hiring and firing, she has established this center (open until February 8th) to hear what the people want. Citizens are lining up (and camping out) to get their submissions in. Five officials will review the suggestions as they come in, and present the cream of the crop to the transition committee. It’s promised that some of the ideas presented will be put into action. Maybe someone will step up and request a South Korean Death Star, so the Republic can gain some street cred in the space race. That would make North Korea SO mad. So far the suggestions have been echoes of the requests made during the election, and campaign promises made by Park to make life better for the poor, the elderly and small businesses. There have also been less lofty requests to do things like shake her hand. There was also a request to make sex offenders wear giant, identifying barcodes at all times. Maybe a QR code would be more useful, and just imagine the fabric pattern possibilities!
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Google is a household name around the globe – at least in households with regular internet access. It’s even a verb in foreign languages. Now, Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt is in North Korea to… well, no one really knows. Maybe he’s there to get the Google Maps car better access to the driveway of this “Covert Runway“. He might be there to try the North Korean style nang-myun he’s heard so much about from his Bay Area foodie friends, but a few days into his visit and it’s still a mystery. The “official” story is that he’s accompanying former New Mexico governor, Bill Richardson, on a humanitarian mission to negotiate the release of a Korean American hostage. CEOs are the new influential world leaders, so I suppose it’s possible, but somehow I think Schmidt lacks that Clinton charm that helped to free Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Some believe that Schmidt is there to urge Kim Jong Un to ease restrictions on internet and data access. Others believe there’s a different agenda. North Korea is a new frontier when it comes to Google style information sharing. Schmidt will likely learn at least a tiny bit about the future of digital media in the new regime, and he may be looking for a foothold. Five years of Google in communist China didn’t pan out quite the way everyone had hoped though. How will North Korea handle the world’s largest search engine? Will Google+ and its Google Hangouts help re-unite the peninsula? All I know is that if any of the Kim boys want to add me to their circles, I’m SO adding them back.
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Japanese girl band tricked into drinking a Korean wine, Tsongsul that contains feces. Would you drink the “wine” with them? We’ll bet you would. (Rocket 24 – Girl band drinks feces wine)
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