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Arirang 171 smartphone unveiled
North Korea’s latest smartphone is the Arirang 171 (아리랑171), the latest in a line of phones to carry the Arirang name and the most powerful to date. Technical details of the phone were revealed in a video posted by DPRK Today, a North Korean-linked website, but the one thing I really want to know wasn’t…
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Olympics notes: No coverage yet on KCTV
With the second full day of competition ended at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, North Korea’s KCTV has yet to feature any coverage. On Sunday, the broadcaster included several still images from Olympics competition in its news bulletin, but they were in the context of the attendance of Kim Yong Nam and Kim Jo Yong’s…
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How to watch North Korean TV live
A common question I get is whether it’s possible to watch North Korean TV live. There are several sources available with different levels of reliability and quality. Broadcasts begin at 3pm Pyongyang time on most days and run until around 11pm. On Sundays and public holidays, programming usually begins at 8am. News is broadcast at…
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What does Strava data tell us about North Korea?
Strava’s heat map of user activity has been raising some eyebrows for detailing movement of people around military bases, but what does it tell us about North Korea? As you might expect, there isn’t a whole lot of activity in the country. In fact, alongside South Korea and China, the image of North Korea looks…
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Olympics notes: Will North Koreans get to watch the PyeongChang Winter Olympics?
With the PyeongChang Winter Olympics coming up, one of the issues for North-South discussion is television access for Korean Central Television. That because Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), one of South Korea’s major TV networks, holds Olympics broadcasting rights for North Korea even though it doesn’t broadcast there. The rights for the 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024…
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Olympics notes: Will North Korean athletes get Samsung phones?
As part of its Olympics sponsorship deal, Samsung Electronics is providing a Note 8 smartphone featuring Olympic branding to every athlete at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Samsung will supply more than 4,000 of the phones to athletes and “members of the Olympic family,” which includes officials and International Olympic Committee staff. The hope of the…
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A look inside the Potonggang Electronics factory
Korean Central Television (조선중앙텔레비죤) broadcast footage over the new year holiday of the flat-panel TV assembly line of Potonggang Electronics (보통강전자제품공장). The video shows workers testing LCD TV components, putting parts together to make TV sets and testing the final TVs but at no point does it back up its main claim that the curved…
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KCTV gets a widescreen, stereo upgrade
North Korea’s main TV channel, Korean Central Television (조선중앙텔레비죤), debuted a substantial technical upgrade on December 4 when it switched to widescreen, high-definition broadcasting. Until Monday, North Korean TV had broadcast via satellite to Asia on a high-definition, widescreen channel, but programming in that format appeared for only a few seconds at the start and end…
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Voice of Korea winter 2017/2018 schedule
Voice of Korea (조선의소리), North Korea’s international shortwave broadcasting station, adjusted its transmission schedule on October 29 for the winter 2017 and spring 2018 seasons. The broadcasts follow the same basic line-up each day. :00 Opening signal, station identification: “This is Voice of Korea” :01 National Anthem :03 Song of General Kim Il Sung :06 Song…
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North Korea Tech wins Internet blocking case
North Korea Tech should soon be available again to readers in South Korea after I successfully won an appeal against blocking of the site by the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC). The blocking began on March 24, 2016, when the KCSC ruled the site be blocked because it alledgedly violated the country’s National Security Law.…
