-
·
Google Maps adds data on North Korea
Google’s on a bit of a North Korean kick at the moment. Just weeks after its chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a high-profile visit to Pyongyang, the company has added additional detail about the county to Google Maps. Roads, subway stations, parks and some major monuments and buildings are on the new map, which became available…
-
·
Koryolink international calling rates detailed
Over the weekend a series of stories from Pyongyang reported that visitors to North Korea can now buy SIM cards for the local Koryolink network so they can make international calls while in the country. Thanks to an update from Young Pioneer Tours, which was the first to report on the new service, we now…
-
·
Eric Schmidt on his North Korean visit
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has posted some thoughts on his recent trip to Pyongyang. The comments appeared on his Google Plus page on Saturday, the same day his daughter also posted her impressions of the trip. The executive’s comments won’t provide any big revelations, at least they shouldn’t to readers of this blog. He generally…
-
·
Policy change allows tourist cell phones, Internet to come, says Xinhua
The North Korean government is now allowing tourists to keep hold of their cell phones when they enter the country and buy SIM cards on the local network, according to a report by China’s Xinhua news agency. The report comes hours after Young Pioneer Tours said tourists on their most recent trip were able to…
-
·
DPRK officials indicated Internet is inevitable, says Sophie Schmidt
Sophie Schmidt, the daughter of Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, has written a comprehensive blog post about her recent trip to Pyongyang and included in her revelations: North Korean officials seemed to acknowledge they can’t keep the Internet out. The posting is perhaps the most complete account yet of the visit by any member of the group,…
-
·
Tourists allowed to take in cell phones
Young Pioneer Tours, one of the handful of agencies taking tourists into North Korea, reports that a group just returned from the country were permitted by customs officials to take their cell phones into the country. The news is intriguing because North Korea has long taken phones from visitors as they cross the border. The…
-
·
KCNA’s new site gets Juche date
Just over a week since the Korean Central News Agency completed a major overhaul of its website, several elements of the new site have been changed. The changes address a couple of things that surprised me when I first reviewed the site on January 5. The first is the addition of a Juche date. The…
-
·
KCNA updates its web site
KCNA, North Korea’s state-run news agency, has relaunched its web site. The site, which is one of only a handful hosted in Pyongyang, was first launched in late 2010 and has been redesigned a couple of times since it first went online. The new design, which appears to have debuted on January 4, is perhaps…
-
·
Retweeting DPRK lands activist with suspended sentance
Park Jung-geun, a Seoul-based photographer and free-speech activist, has received a 10-month suspended prison sentence for retweeting North Korean tweets. The case, one of several that has drawn international attention to South Korean Internet censorship, has been going on for the better part of a year and was being closely watched for its interpretation of how South Korea’s…
-
·
Diving into AirKoryo’s new website
It’s been a couple of weeks since Air Koryo’s new web site make headlines. Much has been written about the site, but not much of substance. A lot of the stories have noted the airline’s one-star rating on Skytrax, a web site which generates ranking from user reviews, although it should be noted there are…
