Monday, May 7, 2012 at 5:59 PM Korea has the bestest strawberries ever. No complaint there.
Unfortunately it's English Language Press have a few issues - the least of which is Korea geography:
-Korean-strawberries.jpg)
Keen Koreaphiles and those who have lived in the provinces will see the issue here.
Monday, May 7, 2012 at 12:11 AM Last week Korea joined the rest of the civilised world. My old foes the Korea Communication Commission (KCC) have allowed the sale of mobile phones by entities other than the three telcos - SK Telecom, KT and LG+.
Consumers are now able to buy phones from the likes of Lotte and Shinsaegae department stores, independent retailers and of course the Internet.
The rationale behind the decision is two fold - firstly opening the market should see consumers have access to cheaper phones . (Notwithstanding the price fixing that Samsung and various telcos were found guilty of earlier in the year)
Whether this will come to fruition is anyone's guess. Koreans' penchant for the newest most shiny thing could equally see prices go through the roof while most are still prepared to pay through the nose for the latest handset. (Remind you of anyone?)
And in addition the cushy device subsidies offered when you sign up for a two year contract could equally disappear - goodbye free iPhone, hello $700 iPhone. (Remember the good old days?)
The other reason is the introduction of a blacklist for stolen phones. If you have a handset stolen or lost now you can go to your service provider and have it bricked so would be thieves can't use it.
This is arguably a good thing. Unless you are particularly privacy conscious. Telcos will know what phone you have. And while people will be able to buy unlocked phones outright - if they want the protection afforded by the blacklist KT or SK or LG will still take your details like the IMEI number.
Likewise criminals and drug dealers will have to look elsewhere, even if you purchase a pre-paid USIM it still has to be registered against a name, so while you can pick up a phone at the 7/11 anonymously, you won't be making any calls from it.
A couple of summers ago I ended up buying two phones while I was in Singapore, pretty much for the novelty of buying an unlocked phone from a convenience store for less than $50. (Both went on to have long lives as mobiles for my Step-dad and cousin). Admittedly both were pretty junky, but the ability to pick up a phone anywhere is not to be underestimated - especially if you are travelling or are only a short-term resident.
So here's hoping that we will soon be able to pick up (reasonably) cheap phones at Family Mart and all have our Credit Cards paid off to start ordering phones from Amazon. It's not often I say this, but Well played KCC. Well Played.
Sunday, May 6, 2012 at 1:29 PM ...for a whole bunch of reasons.
Stay tuned for a return of the Bimbo (finally), news from the home office, changes that are making life easier for people to get phones in Korea, and then there are the mixed reviews for the Galaxy SIII.
Speaking of staying tuned don't forget that I'll be on TBS eFM 101.3 on Tuesday morning "Talking Tech" with host Ahn Jung Hyun.
Friday, March 30, 2012 at 6:08 PM From March 27th - here I am on TBS eFM 101.3's Ten to midday program talking about tech stuff.
Listen in the player or download here.
(BTW yes - I had an aweful cold earlier this week and (I think) I sound like crap.)
Android, Apple, Samsung, Seoul, TBS eFM 101.3 Friday, March 30, 2012 at 5:26 PM Friday, March 16, 2012 at 12:47 AM For those dissatisfied with the highly portable but underpowered netbook, the robust ultrabook is an attractive option.
First there were UMPCs (ultra-mobile personal computers), then netbooks (and then the Apple MacBook Air) that shrunk our computing down to screens of about 10 inches and made carrying a laptop around a little easier on the back. The problem with the like of the popular Asus eee PC and the MSI Wind was that netbooks were woefully underpowered, sporting little more than an Intel Atom processor and 1GB of RAM. In addition, the low battery life had users hunting for the power outlet at Starbucks at lunch time just to get through the day.
This year’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, Nevada, saw the arrival of the “ultrabook” in response to the pitfalls we have all experienced with mobile computing. Invented by processor maker Intel, the ultrabook standard requires manufacturers to implement high-end processors, large amounts of RAM, good graphics and in many cases high-volume solid state hard drives in a light, mobile laptop body. Importantly Intel also mandates that Ultrabooks be sold at “mainstream prices” – usually around the $999 price point.
At CES, there were a handful of models on display that surprised the tech pundits.
Taiwanese manufacturer Acer is touting the world’s thinnest ultrabook, measuring only 15mm thick. It touts a thunderbolt port allowing for high bit rate data transfer and connection of accessories and all its USB ports hide behind a motorized back cover. Motorized! Very cool. The price of the Acer S-5 is yet to be announced.
Korean manufacturers are also in on the game. LG has the Z330 and Z430. At 13 inches the Z330 has a core i7 processor, 13-inch HD display and 128GB SSD (solid state drive). (Its brushed aluminum finish might have you mistaking it for an Apple MacBook Air, too!) The Z430 at 14 inches is similarly loaded and both are the most expensive ultrabooks in the field, both selling for over $1500.
Finally, Samsung’s Series 5 Ultrabooks are probably the pick of the litter. For $899, the Series 5 13-inch packs in a 500GB Hard Drive as well as a 16GB SSD and 4GB of RAM. It runs on a new Intel core i5 processor with USB 3.0 and a 13-inch screen. The 14-inch version carries a 1TB hard drive! It can also max out at 8GB of RAM, meaning those system-intensive tasks using Photoshop and video editing software are all quite easily done while you are on the road. With a purported 6.4 hours of battery life, you’ll be able to enjoy your coffee in Starbucks rather than hunting around for that power outlet!
[This column first appeared in the February issue of 10 Magazine]
10 Mag Friday, March 16, 2012 at 12:31 AM
Gmarket gmarket.co.kr and eBay ebay.com
Perhaps the best known online store in Korea amongst expats, Gmarket was bought by eBay in 2011, but don’t worry—Gmarket is still around! You just need to pick one of its local stores (Korea, Singapore or Japan), when visiting gmarket.co.kr, all of which have an English version. Not all of the listings are in English, of course, and similar to eBay, depending on what you are searching for, you’ll get bounced around the three local sites. However, Gmarket remains one of the easiest shopping sites to join and log in to for expats in Korea. While it stopped supporting Paypal some time ago, if you are buying from a Korean vendor you have the ease of using your local bank ATM to pay for the goods via bank transfer.On the other hand, if you have already signed up for eBay you would usually have the choice of logging in at any of its localized sites (USA, Australia/New Zealand, UK, etc.) and it just works. Not so with eBay Korea, which asks you to create new sign-in details–that don’t work on eBay’s other sites but still send you to all the other eBay sites whenever you search for something. My advice: eBay Korea is not quite ready for the prime time.
Interpark interpark.com
Labelling itself “shopper’s heaven,” Interpark may well be the most comprehensive shopping site in Korea with everything from lingerie to Euro-rail tickets on offer. Sadly, there is no English language version of the site except for the ticket section (visitticket.interpark.com/Global). That said, of all the sites discussed here, it read the best after a bit of Google Translate magic. Perhaps best known for sales of event tickets, Interpark has a comprehensive theatre review section (again in Korean) and impressive amounts of information on upcoming events throughout Korea. Now it might just be the vagaries of my long and complicated English name, but I was unable to register at Interpark either, leading me to think my name and alien number is filed somewhere deep in the bowels of a government computer somewhere and marked “No shopping for you!” However, a Korean friend will navigate Interpark with ease. Perhaps you could buy something for them from Interpark as a way of saying thank you.
Joonggonara cafe.naver.com/joonggonara
Imagine the thousand or so items in the for sale section at seoul.craigslist.org and then multiply it by 8,000. That’s right.
This Naver cafe (meaning “second-hand land”) has over eight million members swapping and selling second hand goods, everything from cameras to computers and from beauty products to fashion accessories. Joonggonara was Craigslist before there was a Craigslist (in Korea anyway), and this self-patrolled community of buyers and sellers works hard to keep its boards safe and useful. All that is required to access the sales on Joonggonara is a Naver ID.
11th Street 11st.co.kr
One of the more recent entrants into the market, 11th Street (in Korean “11廓陛,” pronounced “shipil beonga”) was established in 2008 and is run by SK Telecom. Outside of the Windows/Internet Explorer realm, 11th Street fails to render properly with flash animations not loading and many of the links to various categories not working. Ultimately, attempts to register and log in were also met with pages that loaded incompletely and were difficult to navigate.
