“If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, might the folks in Cupertino be pleased when they see the latest version of North Korea’s home-grown operating system?” Martyn Williams reports for IDG News Service.
MacDailyNews Take: Does Apple seem pleased with Android?
“Version 3.0 of Red Star Linux presents users with a radical refresh of its desktop design, one that closely resembles Mac OS X,” Williams reports. “The new look replaces the Windows 7-like desktop that was used in version 2.0 of the software.”
MacDailyNews Take: Even Kim Jong-un knows Windows isn’t worth mimicking.
“The Korea Computer Center (KCC), a major software development center in Pyongyang, began developing Red Star about a decade ago. Version 2 is 3 years old and version 3 appears to have been released in the middle of last year,” Williams reports. “While most North Koreans are restricted from accessing the Internet, many can get access to a nationwide intranet through universities and public libraries. The intranet offers websites for domestic institutions and is heavily skewed towards offering information, educational materials such as PDF versions of books and scientific papers, and government propaganda.”
Williams reports, “Red Star Linux includes a web browser based on Mozilla that has been re-branded ‘Naenara,’ or ‘My country.'”
Read more, and see the screenshot, in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “James W.” for the heads up.]
i have a strong suspicion that king jung un is also a big fan of the new 27″ iMac
Of course his un-ness is an iMac fan! He obviously likes computers with screens as tall as he is…
Looks better than any Microsoft crap.
RESEMBLES Mac OS X?!?!?
Expect Google to issue a warning to North Korea that they are coping Apple too closely.
“resembles?” Ummmm, just a little bit…… Is there any originality anywhere in the Korean peninsula?
After looking at the linked article’s screenshots, we now have confirmation that it’s not only South Koreans who are shameless copiers; no, it is indeed all Koreans who are incapable of independent innovation.
Don’t like the statement? The facts speak louder than any words of denial or political correctness ever will.
Unfortunately for your parochial view, Bloomberg recently named South Korea as the top country in the world in its Global Innovation Index. Try visiting the place, learning Korean, delving into its history. Who knows, you might even find yourself loving the place, as I do.
http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2014-01-22/30-most-innovative-countries.html#slide31
Yeah, innovating new ways to steal other company’s ideas.
I have been to SK plenty of times and there isn’t an original (modern) idea to be seen anywhere. All the cars are various frankenstein compilations of other not-Korean cars. Even the names of their new Tech Regions are ridiculous “Silicon Gulch” anyone?
Could be you’re making the classic mistake of travelers the world over: confronted with a profoundly different environment you focus on the familiar and not knowing what you are overlooking through ignorance, conclude there is little to be seen. Try living in Korea for several years, outside the English-speaking community and you might just see things differently.
I’m old enough to remember when exactly the same remarks were made about Japanese industry. Then, as with your remarks just now, they were a statement of “fact” (actually just xenophobia disguised as fact). We’re still trying to catch up with Toyota and Honda.
Sure! Can you think of any other country that combined communism with monarchy for three generations?
Is Apple able to sue them in that country? Apple may have to careful about going thermonuclear on them, because they can go thermonuclear on Apple…..literally.
All hail the peace-loving, democratic socialist people’s glorious, revolutionary operating system. Created by Kim Jong Un, this operating system will rise up and smash the miserable, inferior gravy-sucking capitalist Android and Windows systems, liberating the oppressed masses from toiling under the hegemony and yoke of cruelty in computing. With our superior operating system, final victory is within our grasp!
Actually sounds a lot like what we here all say 🙂
Actually they made it look better than Apples sorry ass tired interface. Good job!
now that mini un has OSKim, i’m finally free to hang mung bean sprouts from my ear lobes.
So North Korea and South Korea aren’t so different after all?
At least the Korean Peninsula has more innovation than both peninsulas of Michigan. I’d rather have a Hyundai or even a Kia rather than a Ford or Chevy. Ever since the 1970s, it seemed like all talent left that state for good. Thankfully, I only lived there in my childhood, and we moved to the Minneapolis area when I was in 5th grade. While it is sad that Michigan is experiencing a ‘brain drain’ at the moment, it’s not surprising. And Google opening some offices in Ann Arbor…well…at least it’s not Samsung…
My mechanic refers to Korean cars as “Bic’s”, because they’re disposable.
Apple can’t get a break on the peninsula. The Mac gets knocked off north of the DMZ and iPhone/iPad south!
Looks like Johnny Ive’s implementation of iOS 7 for the desktop to me…. with experimental colorize filter.
i only see a little resemblance, like samdung does!!!
all korean company’s apparently have no ORIGINALITY!!!
they need to copy apple!!
I can definitively say that I hate North Korea more now than I did before reading this story.
“Red Star Linux” the state sanctioned operating system. What bullshit. Control Control Control Freaks Freaks Freaks.
Diversity rulz and destroys all monocultures. Obviously. That is why North Korea is a default FAIL.
Countries that are isolated from the world economy have to do things like that. Lenin thought that computers were tools of the bourgeoisie to exploit the proletariat. By the time that turned out not to be true, the Soviet Union and its satellite countries were way behind. I remember when the now-defunct German Democratic Republic announced when it had managed to invent a computer chip that had the computing power of the Z-80. It was a real accomplishment, not a cloned or reverse-engineered Z-80. They were justly proud, but they were way behind the west.
At the time, making a Z-80 equivalent chip was an engineering tour-de-force.
Apple used the underpowered 6502, because it was cheap enough for the young company. Apple made up for its deficiencies with genius programming. IBM used the eight-bit 8088 in the original IBM-PC to keep things simple, even though the 16-bit 8086 was available and easier to pronounce. The Z-80 was a powerful chip for its day, with two 16-bit registers but an 8-bit accumulator. I can only imagine what Apple could have done with the Z-80 if they had been able to afford it.
They never got any further, because the country soon reached its expiration date.
North Korea and a few other countries, like the countries of the former Soviet Bloc, has a nonconvertible currency, which means they can’t use their currency in international trade. They can only do international trade with barter (“if you give me so many transformers, I’ll give you this many trucks”).
It is nearly impossible for them to purchase foreign goods, let alone foreign technology. Whatever they need, they have to reinvent, and that is why they haven’t signed treaties that would prevent them from counterfeiting foreign goods. Of course, they spin this severe handicap into a matter of national pride.