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  • The Olympics are back on KCTV

    The Olympics are back on KCTV

    North Korean television began televising competition from the recently-concluded Tokyo Olympics last week. Korean Central Television launched coverage in its late afternoon sports slot between 4pm and 5pm on Tuesday, August 10, and has so far shown highlights daily with the exception of Sunday, which was the Liberation Day national holiday. On Tuesday it showed…

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  • Kim Il Sung University researchers invent a robot vacuum cleaner

    Kim Il Sung University researchers invent a robot vacuum cleaner

    Engineers at Kim Il Sung University have developed a robot vacuum cleaner, according to a submission to a North Korean journal of inventions. The robot is not pictured but sounds similar in design and concept to the cleaning robots that are on sale around the world. It has two wheels on a differential drive axle,…

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  • Korean-language broadcasting in China

    Korean-language broadcasting in China

    In several regions along North Korea’s northern border with China, Korean-language programming from Chinese broadcasters is available on television and radio. Unlike programming such as Voice of America, Radio Free Asia or KBS Social Radio, these broadcasts are not intended for reception in North Korea but for the large number of Korean speakers who live…

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  • Pegasus-style surveillance is everyday life in North Korea

    Pegasus-style surveillance is everyday life in North Korea

    In the last couple of days, the Pegasus spyware and its targeted use on smartphones used by journalists, politicians and activists has come to light. The software, developed by Israel’s NSO Group, is said to be able to bypass the security on Android and iOS smartphones and infect them, yielding unrestricted access to the compromised device’s email, messages, media…

  • 5G at the Chinese border?

    5G at the Chinese border?

    The Daily NK reported this week that said North Korea is planning to install a 5G wireless network along its northern border with China. The network will link security cameras and aid the authorities in their monitoring of the border. The information comes from an unnamed source in the country, who said that installation of…

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  • Smartcard login for distance education

    Smartcard login for distance education

    The distance education system run by Kim Il Sung University was the subject of a short report on Korean Central Television on Tuesday evening and we got to see a little of it in action. Distance education has been pushed in North Korea since long before Covid and many major universities offer remote online learning…

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  • Researchers developed dynamic traffic control system

    Researchers developed dynamic traffic control system

    Researchers at Kangson University of Industrial Technology have developed a system to automate control of traffic lights based on traffic volume. Their work is another sign of increasing road traffic volume in North Korea and that the country’s once famously empty roads are becoming a thing of the past. A summary of the development was…

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  • Voice of Korea summer 2020 schedule

    Voice of Korea summer 2020 schedule

    It’s been a while since I posted the shortwave schedule for Voice of Korea (조선의소리), North Korea’s international shortwave broadcasting station. The station continues to broadcast just as it always has, despite a steep drop in the number of people tuning into shortwave radio. You can hear daily broadcasts in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, German,…

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  • North Korean university links with foreign lecturers for live Internet seminars

    North Korean university links with foreign lecturers for live Internet seminars

    Singapore-based Choson Exchange recently concluded a series of seminars with a university in Pyongyang that included two sessions conducted live over the Internet. The seminars are believed to be among the first to involve a live link between a North Korean university and lecturers outside of the country. Titled “Global Service Innovation,” the six-lecture course taught…

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  • New Life for the Third Network

    New Life for the Third Network

    When hundreds of houses and apartments were completed last year, North Korean media showed residents entering their new homes, welcomed with a pile of household goods. On the wall of each home was something else provided by the state: a dedicated receiver for the country’s secretive third radio network (조선중앙제3방송) that relays daily news, instruction,…

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