THE GRASS IS GREENER

From the NYT: In a Wired South Korea, Robots Will Feel Right at Home
South Korea, the world’s most wired country, is rushing to turn what sounds like science fiction into everyday life. The government, which succeeded in getting broadband Internet into 72 percent of all households in the last half decade, has marshaled an army of scientists and business leaders to make robots full members of society.

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If all goes according to plan, robots will be in every South Korean household between 2015 and 2020. That is the prediction, at least, of the Ministry of Information and Communication, which has grouped more than 30 companies, as well as 1,000 scientists from universities and research institutes, under its wing. Some want to move even faster.

“My personal goal is to put a robot in every home by 2010,” said Oh Sang Rok, manager of the ministry’s intelligent service robot project.

SK is desparate to move past the cloning hoax from a few months back; nothing like a little shame to get people motivated. Hopefully the next few years will let us confront our shame instead of hiding it behind self-righteous arrogance, because its really holding us back.

South Koreans use futuristic technologies that are years away in the United States; companies like Microsoft and Motorola test products here before introducing them in the United States.

Since January, Koreans have been able to watch television broadcasts on cellphones, free, thanks to government-subsidized technology. In April, South Korea will introduce the first nationwide superfast wireless Internet service, called WiBro, eventually making it possible for Koreans to remain online on the go — at 10 megabits per second, faster than most conventional broadband connections.

South Korea, perhaps more than any other country, is transforming itself through technology. About 17 million of the 48 million South Koreans belong to Cyworld, a Web-based service that is a sort of parallel universe where everyone is interconnected through home pages. The interconnectivity has changed the way and speed with which opinions are formed, about everything from fashion to politics, technology and social science experts said.

Sure, Cyworld is basically just Myspace with an avatar, but its cultural significance is not dismissed in SK like Myspace is here (even if Myspace deserves it, which it does). The conventional wisdom in the states, even in the blogohedron, is wrapped up in traditional media and the pulse of the dial tone, and the upshot is that I still don’t have a 10 meg fiber laid to my doorstep. Consider that the iPod is already 5 years old, and yet I still read news stories about how it is ‘shaking up the way we consume media’.

We move so slow that we are worried about the speed of glacier migration. Its a shame that deserves a sad robot: