South Korea’s culture minister, Yu In-chon, strode into a government briefing room Monday for what seemed to be a routine photo-op as his ministry announced a $50 million program to help develop the country’s budding electronic-books industry. However, he had an iPad — and that caused trouble.
When he pulled out an iPad, held it up and remarked about how nicely it displays electronic books, tech bloggers pounced on hims because South Korea’s communications “Wall Street Journal” (http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/04/26/south-korean-officials-ipad-causes-a-stir/?mod=rss_WSJBlog&mod).
The ministry later issued a statement saying the minister chose the iPad to “maximize his presentation” because of its large screen, the article adds. It said it borrowed the iPad from a book distribution company, and that the company had bought the device in the U.S. as part of its research effort to develop e-book software. The “Journal” says that, technically, Yu didn’t violate regulations because he only used the iPad to demonstrate e-book software and didn’t use its Wi-Fi networking capability.
