South Korea’s Culture Minister Causes a Stir with iPad

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."

(Via Mac|Life all.)