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IBM, HP find North Korean gold in their supply chains
Almost 70 companies publicly traded on U.S. stock markets have found North Korean gold in their manufacturing supply chains. Among the more prominent names are electronics companies IBM, HP, Garmin, Philips and Seagate, U.S. kitchenware retailer Willams Sonoma. The discoveries were disclosed in reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that are the result of a new…
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Internet access, computers and high-tech life at PUST
Will Scott, a computer scientist from Washington state, just returned from several months as a guest lecturer at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). In an interview with North Korea Tech and in posts on Reddit, Scott spoke about what it’s like to be at PUST. This is part two of a three-part…
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Experiences of a PUST teacher
Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) is one of the more ambitious international ventures in North Korea of the last few years. Almost ten years in planning, PUST is the country’s first privately-run university and backed with funds from evangelical Christian organizations in the U.S. and overseas. It currently has several hundred students and…
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Samjiyon appears again on Ebay, price drops to $425
Enthusiasm appears to be waning for North Korea’s Samjiyon Android tablet. Two of the tablets have appeared again on Ebay and were offered by the same vendor who sold one two weeks ago. This time, it attracted fewer bids and sold for far less than the 6 winning bid of the first Samjiyon to appear…
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Samjiyon tablet sells for $546 in Ebay auction
A North Korean Samjiyon tablet computer sold for the impressive price of $546 on Ebay. The tablet first appeared on the site on November 7 with an opening bid of $4.15 — a likely reference to the April 15 birthday of Kim Il Sung — and attracted 53 bids over 10 days. The Samjiyon, which…
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Did North Korea pirate Angry Birds?
One of the surprises in North Korea’s recently-launched Samjiyon (???) tablet was the inclusion of Angry Birds, the globally-popular game that involves shooting animated birds to destroy structures and animated pigs. In July, when I was reviewing the Samjiyon, I contacted game-maker Rovio to ask about its inclusion in the device. Despite several attempts to get comment,…
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Samjiyon tablet appears on Ebay
A model of North Korea’s Samjiyon tablet is up for sale on Ebay. It appeared on the morning on Thursday, November 7, and appears to have been listed by a Canadian account with a shipping location of Yanji in China. Yanji sits just across the border from North Korea. Its appearance followed a second-round of…
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Autumn trade fair begins in Pyongyang
The second of Pyongyang’s two annual international trade fairs opened on Monday. The Pyongyang Autumn International Trade Fair is scheduled to run until Thursday and has attracted companies from Germany, Russia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, Italy, China, Cuba, Turkey and Taiwan, according to the Korean Central News Agency. In previous years, the fair has been the launching…
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Exclusive: North Korea’s Samjiyon tablet — Made in China?
One of the most interesting questions surrounding North Korea’s Samjiyon tablet is its source. State media reports not withstanding, the tablet is almost certainly not made in North Korea — the country just doesn’t have the electronics manufacturing capability to design products like tablet computers from the components up. And anyway, why bother? Companies in Taiwan…
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Review: Samjiyon tablet
North Korea, like the rest of the world, is getting hooked on tablet computers. In the last year, state media has highlighted three different tablet computers that are now, according to the reports, available in the country. The latest of these, the Samjiyon (???), is also on sale to foreigners and one of the tablets…
