If you were hoping to use your new Samjiyon tablet, manufactured in North Korea, to do typical tablety things like stream video or read the news, then you’re out of luck. Geekosystem reports that the new device, which runs on Android, doesn’t actually include the Internet–strange, since when Google’s Eric Schmidt visited the country it went to such great pains to make its citizens look soooo tech-savvy.
Instead of being able to connect to wifi and stream reruns of The Hills, North Koreans can use the tablet to access preloaded government propaganda in stunning detail and play a slingshot game modeled after the popular Angry Birds franchise. There’s also a basketball game, because we all know how Kim Jong Un feels about that sport.
As Geekosystem points out, at least the money spent developing the Samjiyon didn’t go towards a nuclear arms program–though it probably would’ve been better if it went towards, say, feeding the starving population.
