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South Korea’s Culture Minister Causes a Stir with iPad
   

It was supposed to be a routine photo opportunity -- until the South Korean culture minister pulled out his iPad, which communications regulators in that country haven’t yet approved for wireless use.The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the minor international incident involving South Korea’s culture minister, Yu In-chon, on Monday. The event started innocently enough, with Mr. Yu stepping on stage to announce a $50 million program “to help develop the country’s budding electronic books industry.”Mr. Yu then produced an iPad, holding it up and remarking “how nicely it displays electronic books.” The seemingly innocent act sparked a flood of criticism from tech industry bloggers there, who took the culture minister to task for displaying a device that not only isn’t available in the country yet, but has also not been approved by South Korea’s communications regulators -- making it illegal to use on wireless networks there for the time being.The culture ministry quickly issued a statement to deflect the criticism, saying that the minister chose the iPad to “maximize his presentation” because of the device’s large screen. The device was actually on loan from a book distributor who had purchased the device in the U.S. for its research in developing e-book software.Needless to say, minister Yu didn’t actually violate local regulations since he only used the iPad for demonstration and wasn’t using the device’s Wi-Fi network to do so. Apple hasn’t announced an availability date for the iPad in South Korea as yet, which means the Korea Communications Commission likely won’t even work on approving the device until such an announcement is made.If you plan to travel in South Korea with your iPad, be forewarned: You’ll need special permission from the commission to use it there. “Even if you buy one for personal use, you have to go through a technical procedure to see whether the device can fit into domestic technological conditions,” a spokesman for the Korea Communications Commission told the WSJ. “We don’t treat iPad differently from other devices.”South Korea was actually one of the last major countries to get Apple’s iPhone, which started selling in the country in November, 2009. Since then, the handset has sold more than half a million units -- which means the iPad will likely also be welcomed with open arms, whenever it finally is made available there.(Image courtesy of The Wall Street Journal)
     

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/south_korea%E2%80%99s_culture_minister_causes_stir_ipad