IPTV versus Smart TV in South Korea

Digital media convergence continues at a rapid pace in South Korea, arguably the fastest in the world, given the  advanced state and multiplicity of networks here.   As partial evidence for this, you may find The Korea Joongang Daily's article on IPTV interesting.   Back in 2008, internet protocol television, or IPTV, was first introduced in Korea by KT.   Usage rapidly increased, as shown in the accompanying graphic (click to see a full size version).  That, of course, was before the introduction by Samsung and other electronics manufacturers of so-called "smart TVs."  Note that anyone in Korea with fiber to the home can easily switch their television subscription to IPTV.   The main advantage of IPTV over traditional television was access to a great deal of stored and on-demand content.  The new element introduced by smart TV is that the television itself contains a small computer, much like your smart-phone or tablet device, allowing web-surfing and the use of applications.
In some ways, the outcome of all this convergence seems clear.  People will want everything in their hand, on a tablet, or on the big screen.   Most folks won't want to carry around the extra weight of multiple devices or take on the extra cost of multiple services if they can all be combined in one smart device.  

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.