North Korea, one of the most isolated and censored societies on the planet, has unveiled what it says is a domestically-produced smartphone. Industry analysts say the \u201cArirang\u201d, built around Google\u2019s Android OS, is likely manufactured in neighbouring China, however.<\/p>\n
The existence of the phone, named after a famous Korean folk song, came to light during a factory inspection by North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un at the weekend. <\/p>\n
During the tour, Kim was given a detailed briefing on the \u201cperformance, quality and packing of the Arirang hand phone,\u201d Pyongyang\u2019s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.<\/p>\n
Some analysts suggest the \u201cArirang\u201d is aimed at getting North Koreans to use an officially-approved phone that can be properly monitored.<\/p>\n
While Internet access is virtually non-existent in North Korea, which comes bottom of any media freedom survey, the country is not a complete IT desert. <\/p>\n
Cell phones were introduced in 2008 through a joint venture with the Egyptian telecom firm Orascom, which says there are now two million users in North Korea.<\/p>\n
A domestic Intranet was launched in 2002 and some state bodies have their own websites. It is a natural progression for an impoverished country desperate for investment, but in North Korea the economic imperative is always weighed against the potential for social disruption. <\/p>\n
Subscribers to the sole cell phone system provider, Koryolink, can call each other, but not outside the country. <\/p>\n
The Intranet is similarly cut off from the rest of the world, allowing its very limited number of users to exchange state-approved information and little more.<\/p>\n
Access to the full-blown Internet is for the super-elite only, meaning a few hundred people or maybe 1,000 at most.<\/p>\n
For all the regime\u2019s efforts, the information barrier erected around North Korea has, in recent years, begun to lose some of its prophylactic power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korea, one of the most isolated and censored societies on the planet, has unveiled what it says is a domestically-produced smartphone. Industry analysts say the \u201cArirang\u201d, built around Google\u2019s Android OS, is likely manufactured in neighbouring China, however. The existence of the phone, named after a famous Korean folk song, came to light during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[667],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}