Jumat, 04 Mei 2018

10 Homegrown North Korean ‘Innovations’


All the time desperate to show their superiority to their Western foes, the North Korean regime has a fame for making extraordinary claims and exaggerating its achievements. Relating to know-how, North Korea has been particularly apt to tout its many homegrown improvements.

The ruling ideology of the nation, Juche, requires self-reliance of the Korean nation. On this spirit, these innovations function propaganda instruments, serving to the regime to deceive its residents into believing that their nation is on an equal technological footing with the remainder of the world. Nonetheless, trying just a little nearer, one will discover that the majority of those homegrown “improvements” are normally nothing greater than inferior-quality copies of international merchandise.

10 Arirang Smartphone

The Arirang, named after a Korean people tune, is North Korea’s first try at manufacturing its personal smartphone. The system, introduced in 2013, was reported by North Korean state information to be fully constructed throughout the nation. Supreme Chief Kim Jong Un himself personally inspected the cellphone in an effort to assist put it on the market.[1]

The cellphone seems to run on a modified type of the Android working system, however the precise performance of the system is questionable, on condition that there isn’t any outdoors Web entry in North Korea. Koryolink, the nation’s sole cell service supplier, solely permits home calls and entry to a small quantity of accepted web sites on the nation’s “intranet” service.

The design of the cellphone itself has been known as into query. Specialists have famous the similarity of the design to the low-end Chinese language Uniscope U1201 smartphone (which you’ll be able to see for your self within the above image). There may be hypothesis that the Arirang may very well be produced in China and shipped to North Korean “factories,” permitting the regime to take credit score for the know-how.

9 Crimson Star OS

Crimson Star OS is the official working system of North Korea. In search of to distance itself from the American-developed Home windows working system, North Korea started creating its personal in 2002. Crimson Star OS superficially resembles Mac OS X however is definitely a closely modified Linux distribution. The OS features a modified model of Firefox known as Naenara, Korean for “my nation,” on which the consumer can entry the beforehand talked about intranet.

Your complete working system was constructed with management of knowledge in thoughts. Crimson Star has the power to “watermark” information with a purpose to hint their distribution, permitting the North Korean state to crack down on international media transferred utilizing USB drives. The OS may be very immune to tampering; if a consumer makes an attempt to make any modifications comparable to disabling the firewall, the pc will mechanically reboot itself.[2]

8 Junma Luxurious Automotive

The Junma is a knockoff luxurious automobile constructed by Pyeonghwa Motors, a three way partnership between a politically lively South Korean church and a North Korean government-owned enterprise. Pyeonghwa Motors completely owns the rights to automotive manufacturing and sale in North Korea and is the one enterprise that’s identified to run billboard commercials within the nation.[3]

The Junma is the top-of-the-line “luxurious” automobile in Pyeonghwa’s lineup. This sedan relies on a South Korean automobile, itself a replica of a Mercedes-Benz E-class from the mid-1990s. Though probably the most highly effective Pyeonghwa automobile, the Junma’s 197-horsepower engine pales compared to fashionable sports activities vehicles. With the typical North Korean citizen being barred from driving, the Junma is presumably meant for high-ranking authorities officers.

The manufacturing statistics for the Junma are utterly unknown, however the general automobile manufacturing of Pyeonghwa Motors is estimated at about 1,000 models per yr. Surprisingly, the corporate does export some vehicles to Vietnam, so in case you are desperate to get your self one in all these “luxurious” rides, you may have the ability to purchase one there!

7 Samjiyon Pill

The Samjiyon is a North Korean pill laptop first launched in 2012. The pill runs a regular Android construct and prices $200. Just like the Arirang smartphone, the built-in browser solely permits entry to the closely managed authorities intranet. The system doesn’t provide Wi-Fi help, but it surely does have a TV tuner fastened to the frequencies of North Korea’s two state-run tv channels.

The system ships with a shocking assortment of apps. A duplicate of a Chinese language tank sport and a translated “Offended Birds Rio” are among the many leisure options. Additionally included is a studying app loaded with books about Kim Il Sung, etiquette for kids, and language studying. Regardless of being an Android system, the Google Play Retailer app (together with all different Google apps) is absent, making it unattainable to obtain some other apps. What you see is what you get with the Samjiyon.

In line with a overview performed by a vacationer who was in a position to purchase one of many units at a Pyongyang reward store, the pill is “surprisingly spectacular.” The specs of the system are corresponding to others from 2012, and the reviewer remarked that responsiveness and pace of the Samjiyon are spectacular, with almost no animation lag to talk of.[4] It’s suspected that the system may truly be manufactured no less than partly by a Chinese language firm.

6 Sort 73 Gentle Machine Gun

The Sort 73 mild machine gun is without doubt one of the solely homegrown firearm designs utilized by the North Korean Military, which primarily arms its troops with copies of previous Soviet weaponry. The Sort 73 itself is a wierd patchwork of Japanese Bloc weaponry, with a physique resembling the Soviet PK machine gun and the feeding mechanism of the Czechoslovakian Vz.52. The Sort 73 fires from a dual-feed system, which means that it will possibly hearth utilizing both a top-mounted field journal or a belt of ammunition. The weapon sports activities a wood deal with and buttstock, a far cry from the light-weight plastic composite equipment of most fashionable machine weapons.[5]

Surprisingly, the gun has been noticed within the arms of militants in Africa and the Center East. Iran obtained a number of of the weapons from North Korea throughout the Iran-Iraq Struggle. Later, the weapons had been discovered being utilized by pro-Assad forces within the Syrian Civil Struggle and Houthi rebels in Yemen. Most of the weapons utilized in these conflicts may truly be of Iranian origin. After receiving their preliminary cargo from North Korea, Iranian factories mass-produced their very own copies of the design, which helps clarify the Sort 73’s widespread prevalence. For being a replica of a replica, the weapon appears to carry up surprisingly nicely.

5 Kwangmyongsong-1

Kwangmyongsong-1, which means “Vibrant Star 1,” was North Korea’s first satellite tv for pc, launched in August 1998. The North Korean media claimed the launch to be a convincing success, reporting that the satellite tv for pc broadcasted patriotic hymns in Morse code because it orbited the Earth. The one downside with this seemingly spectacular accomplishment is that the satellite tv for pc was not detected at any American monitoring station. In the end, specialists concluded that it had most likely solely entered a low orbit earlier than falling again into the ocean.

Like many different applied sciences on this checklist, Kwangmyongsong-1 could have been a Chinese language knockoff. The polyhedral design of the satellite tv for pc is suspiciously much like the China’s first satellite tv for pc, the Dong Fang Hong I, which itself exhibits similarities to an earlier American satellite tv for pc. The questionable design and performance of the satellite tv for pc didn’t cease the North Korean state media from proclaiming it successful, declaring that the launch “encourages the Korean folks within the efforts to construct a strong socialist state underneath the sensible management of Common Secretary Kim Jong Il.”[6]

4 Vinylon Fiber

The origins of Vinylon fiber may be traced again to the Imperial Japanese rule over Korea. In 1939, a Korean chemist, alongside together with his Japanese faculties, first developed this artificial fiber. The fiber, produced utilizing polyvinyl alcohol, was claimed by the Kim regime as their very own when its inventor defected to North Korea after the Korean Struggle. Positioned underneath heavy financial sanctions by the surface world, North Korea lacked the uncooked supplies it have to be self-sufficient. Consequently, the North Korean regime promoted Vinylon, which might be simply made utilizing native supplies.[7]

Vinylon fiber rapidly turned a strong propaganda software for the North Korean authorities. It was dubbed the “Juche fiber,” named after the official ideology of the nation. The North Korean authorities constructed an enormous “Vinylon metropolis” manufacturing plant and closely promoted the product, which it seen for instance of North Korean self-reliance. In a propaganda tune entitled “How Grand Socialism Is!” the singers reward how “the vinylon cloth pours out like a waterfall.”

Mockingly, Vinylon fiber, simply because the Juche ideology it represented, proved to be lower than profitable in the long term. As soon as produced in enormous portions, Vinylon declined after the widespread adoption of different artificial textiles comparable to nylon. At current, North Korea imports mass quantities of international textiles for uniform manufacturing—a lot for the Juche fiber.

3 Kwangmyong Intranet

As beforehand talked about on this article, North Korean residents can’t freely entry the worldwide Web however are as an alternative restricted to a small quantity of government-approved domains. This nationwide intranet service, often called Kwangmyong, is just accessible from throughout the nation. The Kwangmyong, like North Korea as an entire, may be very secretive, however the small quantity of accessible details about the system means that it’s fairly restricted in scope. The intranet is primarily utilized by libraries, universities, and different authorities organizations.

There are an estimated 1,000 to five,000 web sites on the Kwangmyong—all government-controlled. Amongst these web sites, you can find the same old state information companies, full with a particular part on the web site, “Supreme Chief’s Actions,” reporting the latest actions of Kim Jong Un. Apart from propaganda and official enterprise, the Kwangmyong can be geared up with its personal search engine, social media website, and messaging service.[8]

The system has a couple of distinctive options which may shock common Web customers. A photograph of a poster in a North Korean library taken by a vacationer exhibits that the web sites’ addresses are composed fully of numbers. This numeric format, the IP deal with of an internet site, is utilized by computer systems to route internet site visitors however is commonly supplemented by a word-based area identify for straightforward entry by folks. Simply think about having to kind in a string of numbers each time you need to go to Listverse. One other distinctive characteristic of Kwangmyong web sites is that the written names of the Nice Leaders Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung have to be coded to look bolder and 20 p.c bigger than the remainder of the encompassing textual content.

2 Manbang Streaming Service

The privileged few North Korean residents with disposable revenue have the choice to look at applications on-demand by way of a service often called Manbang. The service, launched in 2016, streams content material to televisions by way of a set-top field. As with the intranet, the content material on Manbang is generally restricted to state-controlled information and films, however there are additionally language-learning applications educating English and Russian.

Just like Netflix, the service permits customers to flick through video classes and search utilizing key phrases. The search display UI is deceptively much like its American counterpart. Netflix itself took discover of the brand new North Korean know-how, altering its Twitter account to learn “Manbang knockoff”—a intelligent tongue-in-cheek quip.[9]

1 Hwasong-10 Missile

The Hwasong-10, also referred to as the Musudan, is without doubt one of the latest North Korean ballistic missile improvements. Able to reaching US army bases within the Pacific, the Hwasong-10 has been utilized in many controversial missile assessments which have led to elevated pressure within the area.

Unsurprisingly, North Korea was not in a position to develop this know-how utterly independently, counting on assist from pleasant Communist nations. Work on the missile started within the 1990s, when North Korea contracted Russian engineers to assist construct a missile based mostly off of an older Soviet design.

The primary two assessments of the brand new missile failed at launch, and the third take a look at traveled solely a brief distance. The fourth take a look at truly exploded on the launch pad, supposedly killing launch website personnel. Later assessments resulted in an elevated flight distance, regarding United States army officers that the missile might be used to focus on Guam.[10]

Brett is an American learning in Hong Kong. He additionally writes for the South China Morning Publish. You could find his different writing right here.


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