Korea Still the Top ICT Economy in the World

This is a follow up to the post I published in September about the ITU's new Measuring the Information Society report confirming South Korea's top ranking internationally.   I'm publishing it partly because of its content, but also because I worked for the VOA in Washington as a summer intern back in 1968, and later, following Peace Corps service in Korea, worked for another year and a half as a writer editor in VOA's Worldwide English Division.   The video below is from VOA's Special English Division.  A nice report.

Robotics and Korean Creativity

I have frequently heard criticisms of the Korean approach to education that suggest it relies too much on memorization and testing and does not encourage creativity.  That is partly why the Washington Post article about Virginia Tech professor Dennis Hong caught my eye this morning.  As I suspected, he is one of the more than six million Koreans living overseas, away from their home country.  The article describes how Professor Hong grew up and eventually became a star in humanoid robotics in the U.S.
Some years ago, I had an interesting encounter with Sangbae Kim who, as a Stanford graduate student, was centrally involved in the creation of Stickybot, a gecko-like robot.   Dr. Kim was kind enough to stop by my office at the Fulbright building and we had a fascinating discussion of his background and how he became interested in this field.   He is now a professor at MIT and in  charge of their new Biomimetic Robotics Lab. The Youtube video of Stickybot embedded in my blog post is still worth viewing one more time.
Draw your own conclusions about Korean creativity.

Internet Access in the World's Subway Systems

The New Cities Foundation, a Swiss non profit foundation, has published a comprehensive survey of wireless internet access in global subway systems. The survey, conducted in October 2011, covered 121 global cities of more than 750,000 people with an underground subway or metro system. Access to the mobile Internet is an essential component of the smart in 'smart city': this is how people connect to one another and to the services they need. NCF chose to focus on commuting because this is a significant part of most people's day in big cities but one where there is a clear divide between on and offline. The study showed the highest availability of mobile data services was in South Korea and China, where users can connect to the Internet in 100 % of major subway systems. Overall, Asian commuters can go online in 84 % of major subways, compared to 56 % in the EU and 41% in the US and Canada. The lowest rate is in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, at 25%.

North Korea on the Cusp of Digital Transformation?

Alexandre Mansourov of the Nautilus Institute has published a report on an important topic and with a very appropriate title, "North Korea on the Cusp of Digital Transformation?"  As readers of this blog will know, I've been very interested in the role of telecommunications in national reunification for some time now.   I published a post in June of this year with hyperlinks to some of my other posts.  The Mansourov report shows careful analysis of important Korean-language documentation on North Korea's ICT policies and development and is a valuable addition to this important topic.
As I have argued on numerous occasions, North Korea faces a clear cut dilemma.  Either modernize its digital networks, both fixed and wireless, in order to develop economically, or seek to control the internet, with the inevitable side effect that economic growth will be limited.  Furthermore, the mobile broadband revolution currently underway worldwide simply makes it increasingly difficult for the North to control information reaching its citizens.

The Network Neutrality Debate Sharpens in Korea

As readers of this blog will know, the network neutrality debate seemed irrelevant to South Korea's situation for many years now. I've published several posts on this topic. One of them, back in 2008, suggested that the network neutrality debate in the U.S., seen from the perspective of a resident of South Korea, seemed out of touch with the times.  Another post, in 2010, elaborated on the earlier one.
Today, an update seems appropriate, primarily because of the surging increase in use of data services here in South Korea following arrival of the iPhone in late 2009, and Android devices the following year.   A report in the Korea Joongang Daily questions whether the network neutrality principle is now at risk in Korea.
As reported in the article, Korea’s telecom companies claim they are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain network neutrality, or the principle that Internet service operators should not discriminate between Internet traffic.According to sources in the industry, SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ - the country’s three telecom companies - recently delivered an official document to the Korea Telecommunications Operators Association (KTOA). The document stated their belief that smart TV makers and Web portals should be charged according to usage. “We have reached an agreement demanding payment for how much they use the networks, and [in return] we take charge of the network operations and quality management,” a source said. The KTOA was expected to officially comment on the matter soon.Companies already pay to use the networks, even with the current system, but the charges are lower and levied without discrimination based on usage. This means that a corporation that eats up 100 gigabytes and a personal user that requires only 1 percent as much data pay identical fees. And this was precisely what the telecom firms were complaining about. The full article is worth reading and the issue is definitely worth following.

Milestone: KT to halt investment in fixed-line network

As reported in The Korea Times, KT has publicly announced an historical milestone of sorts. It is ready to pull the plug on fixed-line telephony, which continues to be exposed as a decaying business model due to the rise in mobile and Internet communications. Company officials said the firm will no longer invest in its telephone network, while diverting spending to exploit the popularity of smartphones and other mobile Internet devices. The mainstream emergence of voice over Internet protocol services (VoIP), which allow carriers to provide cheaper voice rates than conventional fixed-line services, is also quickening the retirement of the latter.

S. Korea Loses Top Broadband Speed Ranking? A Note on Misuse of Statistics

Akamai has released its latest State of the Internet report, this one for the second quarter of 2011.   As readers of this blog will know, I've periodically commented on and linked to these reports, as they are one valuable source of empirical data about the speed of broadband internet connections in countries around the world.  However, as with all statistics, they can be either used or misused.
One of my alerts sent me to an article on ReadWriteWeb entitled "S. Korea Loses Top Spot According to Akamai's State of the Internet Report."  This was news to me, so I decided to read the new Akamai report.   In fact, it shows that, on average, South Korea still has by far the fastest average broadband internet speed in the world.  Indeed, the headline, as it stands, is an example of misleading journalism.   As shown in the graphic to the left, taken directly from the Akamai report, the average download speed in South Korea during the second quarter of this year was 13.8 mbps, far higher than that of the Netherlands, at 8.5 mbps.   Note that Korea did experience a year-on year decrease in average download speed of over 17 percent.
What the ReadWriteWeb article seized on for its headline was a small section of the Akamai report devoted to what is called "global high broadband connectivity," devoted to an analysis that looks only at connections at speeds higher than 5 mbps.  On this one particular measure, the Netherlands recorded a 40% year on year increase, so pulled out ahead of Hong Kong and South Korea, which ranked second and third, respectively.   Clearly the headline used is misleading, given that Korea still appears at or near the top of virtually all the tables presented in the Akamai report.
If you've read this far, go ahead and link to the ReadWriteWeb article, but only to see a blatant example of misuse of statistics!

Apple-Samsung's Litigious Patent War

ComputerWorld has an account with some interesting detail on one of the legal cases in the ongoing patent war between Apple and Samsung. The article notes that, in order to assert its design patent claim, Apple must successfully convince the judge to reject any examples of "prior art" Samsung's legal people might present to the court. In 1994 Knight-Ridder developed a tablet prototype that many people think may invalidate Apple's iPad patent.

While this patent war may be interesting for the legal profession, it has gotten out of hand.    How, for example, can you patent what I call the "clip-board" form factor?   It seems to me that all note-pad devices are variations on the old clip-board, although they come in various sizes.  They are all becoming thinner, and lighter in weight, and in the process more appealing to human beings who have used clip-boards and small notebooks for ages.

Key Parts of iPhone 4S are "Made in Korea"

As noted widely in the press and in an earlier post here, the most valuable parts in the iPhone 4 were made by Korean companies.  Now, as reported in the Donga Ilbo, that pattern is continuing with the iPhone 4S.  As reported in a teardown analysis by iSuppli, the phone's NAND flash memory is manufactured by Hynix, while the application processor, the brain of smartphones, is Samsung`s dual-core A5 processor. iSuppli said "die mark" on the product show that Samsung manufactured it. Though the A5 chip does not have the Samsung logo, it holds Samsung`s pattern on its surface as discerned by experts. Before the release of the iPhone 4S, foreign media said Apple changed its main supplier for the A5 chip to the Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC. TSMC, however, was unable to meet Apple’s demand in quality and quantity, experts said.

KT Introduces Toddler's Robot called "Kibot"

Some time ago I did a couple of  blog posts here , and here, about the Korean government's use of robots to teach English in the nation's elementary schools.  Now KT has taken a page from that book and introduced a new educational robot to the home market in Korea.   See the post on my Internet Age Education blog.

Unification Broadcasts Draw Criticism from North Korea

The Chosun Ilbo carried a report with an interesting bit of evidence about how information gets form South Korea to North Korea these days. North Korea has called on South Korea to halt its broadcasts on unification, saying they are insulting and provocative. North Korea's government-run news agency KCNA, in an article Friday, denounced the South's Unification Ministry for launching broadcasts, which it said were meant to tarnish the communist country. The article quoted the North Korean committee which handles inter-Korean affairs as calling the move a grave provocation. South Korea's Unification Ministry, which is in charge of relations with North Korea, recently launched weekly television broadcasts and daily online radio broadcasts to try to raise public awareness on potential unification with North Korea.

Crackdown on Pro-North Korea Web Sites?

As reported in the Joongang Daily, prosecutors have said they would begin a large-scale crackdown on pro-North Korea online activities by South Koreans, saying they constituted anti-state conduct that went beyond the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office said it would hold a meeting next month with the National Police Agency and the Korea Communications Commission to discuss countermeasures against the online activities. According to a recent report by the Korea Communications Commission, 122 Web sites based overseas were found to be engaged in pro-North activities by South Koreans. Seventy-eight of them were blocked in the South, but 44 were still accessible, the report said. Currently, there is little legal basis to sanction the activities of those Web sites, but prosecutors said they were considering pressing charges of disseminating enemy-benefiting materials, a serious crime under the National Security Law, saying they considered the activities to be serious enough to rock the foundations of South Korea.

Future Screens

I've been fascinated with television, and in particular the power of the live visual image, ever since my graduate students days at Stanford.   I chose to study U.S. network television coverage of international affairs for my doctoral dissertation, which led to my first book, Television's Window on the World: International Affairs Coverage on the U.S. Networks.
One big key to the future of television news and all other human communication will be new screen technology. Korea is the world leader in manufacture and exports of television sets, mobile handsets and screens generally.
Today, the Joongang Daily carried two articles that provide interesting insight into the intensely competitive realm of screen technology as it is being pursued by two of Korea's leading companies, Samsung and LG.
The first article dealt with the release of LG's new Optimus LTE, which became available earlier this month in the Korean market, and was entitled "Our screens beat Samsung's, says LG."  The second article described a breakthrough by researchers at Samsung that may help to turn windows into large screens. Samsung Electronics said that its researchers reported a breakthrough in light-emitting diode (LED) technology that will allow production of ultra-large advanced display panels on ordinary glass such as window panes. Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology succeeded in fabricating nearly single crystalline gallium nitride (GaN) on amorphous glass substrates, a milestone that will enable production of super-sized LEDs using glass substrates, Samsung said. “In ten years, window panes will double as lighting and display screens, giving personality to buildings,” said a Samsung researcher who was part of the project.

A Note on Dated, Inaccurate, Misleading Reporting!!

Readers of this blog will know, from my weekend post, that Korean traffic to  Facebook has finally caught and overtaken Cyworld, according to statistics provided by Rankey.  Apparently this word has not reached two reporters at the Joongang Daily, who today published an article entitled "Google, Facebook Flop in NE Asia."  The article refers to a "recent report" by Mashable.   I recommend you  read the Joongang Daily article only to see how uttlerly misleading dated information can be.  As I frequently link to articles from the Joongang Daily, readers will know that this one is an exception to their generally good reporting.

Hangul Day Google Search Page

Nice!

Facebook traffic in Korea surpasses Cyworld!

I was somewhat surprised to read in The Korea Times that, for the first time ever, as of August  2011, traffic to Facebook exceeded that to Korea's homegrown Cyworld.  Social networking in the form of Cyworld had been introduced in Korea a full half decade before the invention of Facebook in the United States, and it became the most popular such service in Korea for many years.   All of that began to change around the time the iPhone finally made it to the Korean market, near the end of 2009.  The Korea Times article provides some useful background on why the shift has taken place.
The accompanying line graph, from Rankey, (click to see a larger version) shows the dramatic shift in visitors to Cyworld (blue line) versus Facebook (red line) from January of 2010 through August, 2011.

The Challenge to Innovate in Korea

The death of Steve Jobs has prompted an outpouring of journalistic efforts, all around the world, to explain innovation, especially the sort of innovation that characterized his tenure at Apple.  The Korea Joongang Daily carried an article questioning whether the death of Jobs would have a deep impact, or whether business would continue as usual.  However, that article addressed the global market for smartphones and the patent litigation between Apple and Samsung, failing to get to the more significant issue of how Korea can make the transition from hardware exports to software and services creation.  The latter is really the sort of innovation that this nation requires at this juncture.  As illustrated in the accompanying graphic (click to see a full size version), the success of Apple, and Android has more to do with the software and applications, or the new communication ecosystem, than with hardware.  Therefore, an opinion piece by Tom Coyner, also in the Korea Joongang Daily, caught my eye. His piece zeroes in on the persistent lack of lateral cooperation between organizations and departments that characterizes Korean business, government and the academic sector to this day.  Tom therefore uses the term "silo innovation" to describe Korea's approach to innovation.  This reminded me of an exchange I had with Horace G. Underwood, several years after my Fulbright year (1985-86) in Yonsei University's Department of Mass Communication.   I was working on a research project that required inter departmental and multidisciplinary cooperation.   Horace wrote to me that I should remember that Korea had very little history or tradition of lateral cooperation whatsoever.   Over the years since, I have been repeatedly reminded of the essential accuracy of  Dr. Underwood's observation.
The lack of lateral cooperation is deeply embedded in Korean culture, and the language itself, if used properly seems almost to work against innovation.  I still remember the first few days of my Ph.D. program in communication research at Stanford University.  Along with the other incoming graduate students, I greeted all of the faculty members in the Institute for Communication Research by their first names, a practice that would continue throughout the four year program.  Even in English, being on a first-name basis with well known scholars made an impression on me.  However, it is difficult to even imagine such a thing taking place in a Korean language conversation at a major university here in Korea or in one of Korea's major companies.
However, prospects for innovation are not that bleak.   Koreans have embraced the study of English and other foreign languages and many universities have adopted English curricula.  The change may be generational, but younger Koreans will, at some point, come to embrace communication patterns that foster good lateral communication and cooperative endeavors.  This, it seems is a challenge that must be met if Korea is to truly succeed at innovation.