According to North Korea, the Taepodong-2 missile was carrying a weather satellite when it was launched at 7:39am local time this morning. The trajectory had it flying over the Yellow Sea, with the first stage landing in the sea 165km west of Seoul. Sometime thereafter, according to South Korea, the rocket was disintegrated into about 20 pieces. Boom. No more.

Yes, the official word from North Korea was that this was a peaceful rocket for the purposes of launching a satellite into orbit, but skeptics will tell you this was a “poorly-disguised missile test.” This “Unha” classification of carrier rocket reportedly has the same delivery system as the Taepodon-2 long-range ballistic missile.

To make matters worse for the new North Korean leader, this is the third failure in as many attempts to launch a long-range missile. Now, we just have to question whether these attempts are really for peaceful purposes or if they have a military-minded objective.

[Source]

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We already know that things are pretty strict in North Korea, but even with the passing of “Dear Leader,” it looks like the rules are getting even stricter. In fact, if you are caught using a cell phone, you will be a deemed a war criminal and dealt with accordingly. And you don’t want to be dealt with.

Apparently, this is part of an official 100-day “mourning period” for the death of Kim Jong-il. During this time, there is a cell phone moratorium. That’s right. If you want to call your mom to tell her that you’re going to be late for dinner, that’s a war crime. It’s unclear what the prescribed war criminal punishment will be, but we know that Pyongyang doesn’t mess around. Forced labor camps and execution are definitely within the norm.

But there is a silver lining. It’s unlikely that too many people are going to be caught using a cell phone in North Korea during this “mourning period,” because less than five percent of their population can afford to have one in the first place. Speaking for myself, I know I’d be pretty ronery without my phone. How else would I be able to tweet on the go… oh wait, I guess I’m not allowed to do that either. Poor rittle me.

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We all know how hardcore the North Korean government and military can be. Now, we also know how hardcore their technology can be too. Apparently, they’re working on a GPS jamming device that would work with an effective range of over 100 kilometres.

Yes, this would be very frustrating for any foreigners who are trying to make their way around Pyongyang, but it’s not like North Korea is terribly open to random tourists either. This clearly has more of a military application, disrupting GPS signals to the point of making them utterly unusable.

There are already GPS jammers in place near the Demilitarized Zone and these are mounted onto a number of different vehicles. They currently have a range of 50-100km, but this new device would step that up considerably. The original jammers came by way of the former Soviet Union, but it’s unclear where the new tech is coming from.

This isn’t the first time that North Korea has gone around disrupting signals either. They’ve deployed “jamming attacks” on South Korean weapons and navigation systems earlier this year. No wonder Kim Jong-il is so ronery…

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Samsung SGR-A1 robotic military sentry gun

Anyone planning on illegally crossing the North/South Korean border better think twice, the government has deployed a couple sentry robots that can sense heat and motion and deploy 40mm grenades at the target, or just fire off a couple thousand rounds of ammunition its way. Audio and video is sent back to the command center allowing them to make the call on whether or not the response requires such offensive action.  Check the video below for a peak at the command UI.

These robots rang in at 400 million won ($330,000 USD) per unit, allowing South Korea to maintain the stronghold in their largely outnumbered military force of 655,000 troops, compared to 1.2 million of the North.  It hasn’t been revealed whether or not these are the Samsung SGR-A1 killing machines that were developed four years earlier, but my suspicions lead me to believe it is so.  Thanks Samsung, it’s nice to know you are keeping us connected socially, while simultaneously milling down North Koreans.  Will you be implementing twitter updates each time a sentry robot makes a kill?

South Korea also plans to develop additional robots which will be armed with weapons and sensors, these robots will be a complement to human soldiers on battlefields.

[CrunchGear via Telegraph]

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