communicating in south korea
February 11th 2007 13:57
in a country that has the highest amount of connectivity, it is funny to walk around and see sites like this:
and the funny is, while i was taking this photo a truck nearly collected one of these wires and bought down all of them! and it wasn't even a very high truck! so i think the high speed internet is there, but they do have to do some work on the infrastructure. interestingly enough, this picture isn't just at one location, it is a common site throughout the entire city.
seoul does have much to offer through their media sector and they do this in some very inventive forms. to give a background, each residency, including restaurants, corner stores, and barbers for example, has a television set. at any time that you may enter these places, there will always be someone intently gazing at the screen watching the latest installment of a crazy asian gameshow or over the top 'days of our lives' style drama. it is simply the way that they consume their media.
paralleled to this, is the south koreans appetite for online gaming. pc bangs, or computer halls, are as frequent as every third shop and each one that you enter will no doubt be full of people all smoking and playing a networked game like 'warcraft'. it seems that no one really reads or researches anything, but they are more like modern individual pinny arcades. they are well set up with excellent ventilation (most times), refreshments, comfy chairs, 24 hour access, and fast computers. it is quite easy to lose half a day here, as they give off the same feeling one has when they are in a casino.
then to combine the idea of networked media, traditional media, and media on demand, there is a concept called 't paper'. this is basically a large touchscreen plasma behind a perspex screen that has the days newspaper loaded into it. it uses windows xp as its operating system and is locked to only allow access to the one specific site. there is also an audible reading of the articles to assist the sight impaired.
of course you can still read the newspaper normally, and one of the local presses does a similar thing to the t paper, however not in a digital format.
this format is also popular with the locals and helps pass the time while waiting for the bus or on your lunch break.
lastly this is nothing to do with communication, but this little kid was most amusing while i was writing this entry and will find it hilarious to see himself on my blog. so kim, thanks for the laughs and here you are:
high speed internet!
and the funny is, while i was taking this photo a truck nearly collected one of these wires and bought down all of them! and it wasn't even a very high truck! so i think the high speed internet is there, but they do have to do some work on the infrastructure. interestingly enough, this picture isn't just at one location, it is a common site throughout the entire city.
seoul does have much to offer through their media sector and they do this in some very inventive forms. to give a background, each residency, including restaurants, corner stores, and barbers for example, has a television set. at any time that you may enter these places, there will always be someone intently gazing at the screen watching the latest installment of a crazy asian gameshow or over the top 'days of our lives' style drama. it is simply the way that they consume their media.
paralleled to this, is the south koreans appetite for online gaming. pc bangs, or computer halls, are as frequent as every third shop and each one that you enter will no doubt be full of people all smoking and playing a networked game like 'warcraft'. it seems that no one really reads or researches anything, but they are more like modern individual pinny arcades. they are well set up with excellent ventilation (most times), refreshments, comfy chairs, 24 hour access, and fast computers. it is quite easy to lose half a day here, as they give off the same feeling one has when they are in a casino.
read your paper in the streets
of course you can still read the newspaper normally, and one of the local presses does a similar thing to the t paper, however not in a digital format.
traditional newspaper viewing
lastly this is nothing to do with communication, but this little kid was most amusing while i was writing this entry and will find it hilarious to see himself on my blog. so kim, thanks for the laughs and here you are:
happy korean dude!
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