Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
A new challenger is entering the smartphone marketplace. Get ready for North Korea’s Arirang! The latest innovation from the hermit nation is its very own smartphone. No need to rely on foreign technology (well, except from countries that still export to NK and presumably provided all the parts and possibly the technology) and apps to help you negotiate life in Pyongyang. What are your friends up to on Foursquare? Where’s the nearest coffee sho- oh wait, nevermind, still no internet unless you’re a high ranking government official. No Foursquare badges for you. Maybe they’ll at least be able to get Candy Crush on their phones and tablets. Because everyone likes Candy Crush. Could be the perfect remedy for chasing the blues away when your husband is wasting away in a gulag. I hope they aren’t just stuck with Angry Birds, cause that’s so five years ago… According to nknews.org’s story, North Korea has been taking careful notes on what the US government has been doing, but with considerably more transparency about their activities: “North Koreans now have more opportunities to talk between themselves than ever. In the long run, this is likely to have political consequences. But the North Korean authorities understand the risks and they work hard to cushion the politically negative impact of the ongoing changes. Aside from the censorship and eavesdropping, the North Korean authorities use numerous technical and administrative measures to make it difficult to use the new IT network to spread politically suspicious content.”
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A new challenger is entering the smartphone marketplace. Get ready for North Korea’s Arirang! The latest innovation from the hermit nation is its very own smartphone. No need to rely on foreign technology (well, except from countries that still export to NK and presumably provided all the parts and possibly the technology) and apps to help you negotiate life in Pyongyang. What are your friends up to on Foursquare? Where’s the nearest coffee sho- oh wait, nevermind, still no internet unless you’re a high ranking government official. No Foursquare badges for you. Maybe they’ll at least be able to get Candy Crush on their phones and tablets. Because everyone likes Candy Crush. Could be the perfect remedy for chasing the blues away when your husband is wasting away in a gulag. I hope they aren’t just stuck with Angry Birds, cause that’s so five years ago… According to nknews.org’s story, North Korea has been taking careful notes on what the US government has been doing, but with considerably more transparency about their activities: “North Koreans now have more opportunities to talk between themselves than ever. In the long run, this is likely to have political consequences. But the North Korean authorities understand the risks and they work hard to cushion the politically negative impact of the ongoing changes. Aside from the censorship and eavesdropping, the North Korean authorities use numerous technical and administrative measures to make it difficult to use the new IT network to spread politically suspicious content.”
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Okay, after reading this you may not feel so bad about your university degree in Lithuanian Renaissance literature or Myrmecology. Higher education in the west, in the United States in particular, has been trending for years towards majoring in fields of study which seem odd, sound even more odd, but speak to the passions, individuality and specialized interest of our young scholars. But it seems the trend toward studying esoteric disciplines is no longer particular to western countries anymore. At the link, you’ll read that in South Korea, one can currently enter college to study fields as disparate and odd as smartphone media studies, coffee-chocolate studies, golf and sports studies, and (our personal favorite) dessert café studies. It is all part of a new and growing trend in South Korean vocational schools and technical colleges to provide fields of scholarship in areas for which there is a need or growing demand in South Korean society. Most of these subjects are currently taught at the South Korean equivalent of the junior college level. Those who graduate with these odd majors are encouraged to either transfer to four-year colleges, or go directly into the industry for which they’ve trained. In that regard, the system is pretty much the same as the junior college system in the U.S.or the U.K. And honestly, we’d love to take a class on South Korean traditional fermented food studies. (Asian Correspondent – Odd Korean College Majors)
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