North Korea Builds Its Own Tablet, Fails to Include the Internet

By Maia Brown-Jackson

North Korea has come out with what’s basically its own version of an iPad: The Samjiyon. Unlike the iPad, which is used to access the Internet to get movies, books, and music in addition to communications and basic web-browsing, the Samjiyon does not get Wi-Fi, and is instead basically a touchscreen tablet devoted to delivering government propaganda and also slingshot games, because North Korea.

Even though the Samjiyon can’t access the Internet, you can still use it to enjoy the media that comes built in to the tablet. Predictably, this media centers around praising Kim Jong Un as a great general and teaching children such important skills as how to properly line up, draw a red flag, or offer unquestioning support of their Glorious Leader.

Fake iPad or food storage? Tough call.

There are a few games as well: Slingshot, the requisite Angry Birds ripoff; several combat-themed games, most of which revolve around shooting tanks; and a sports game, in which you flick basketballs towards a hoop. No word on whether or not Kim Jong Un’s BFF Dennis Rodman makes an appearance in that last one — personally, we’d rather see him shooting tanks, as we all know that the real official sport of North Korea is “fake warfare.”

Not sure the lack of anything resembling fun will take people’s minds off the fact they live in North Korea.

While Kim Jong Un remains a walking joke and occasional meme subject whose threats of warfare are laughed off in the West, he does still manage to make life pretty terrible for people actually living in North Korea. While we can’t do anything about that, we are glad to hear that there’s at least one project siphoning resources away from the regime’s uglier military aspirations.

In fact, this sort of tech arms race could be just the thing to keep Kim Jong Un and company busy not building nuclear weapons. What are the odds we can convince the UN to drop a Nokia NGage off near North Korea in a box marked TOP SECRET?

(via NKNews and NorthKoreaTech, image via Zennie Abraham, European Commission DG ECHO, Joseph Ferris)