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Here is my latest feature article for Yonhap News.  I started working on this in Seoul then finished it when I came back to New York.  I am introducing a few different options for people who are considering a Korean cooking class in Seoul.  The table below didn’t make it to the article, but I thought some of you might find it useful.

Click Image to Enlarge Table

(Yonhap Feature) Visitors learn to make their own Korean dishes

By Shin Kim
Contributing writer
SEOUL, March 16 (Yonhap) — When Robin Searl came to Seoul from Hong Kong for a weekend getaway, she didn’t just settle for trying the local cuisine.  She learned to cook it herself.

“I just took a cooking class and I’m heading to the rice cake museum later,” she said.  ”I like taking cooking classes when I go on vacation because I learn something new and I get to eat something delicious.  Besides, it’s fun.”

As Korean food gains recognition and popularity abroad, more visitors to Seoul are taking time to not only eat various Korean dishes, but also include hands-on Korean cooking classes as part of their itinerary.

There are a handful of culinary institutions in Seoul that offer various Korean cooking experiences, conducted by English- and Japanese-speaking chef instructors in classrooms equipped with cooking facilities.  These schools are located in the tourist and shopping districts, such as Insadong and Myeongdong in the heart of Seoul….

You can read the full article from the link here.

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The latest object of my affection is my new Asus Transformer.

No it’s not a robot in disguise – rather it’s a new netbook. Or it’s a new Android Tablet.

Actually its both. On top we have a 10.1 inch resistive touch screen tablet with 1280×800 LCD display. It packs 1GB of RAM and 16GB of memory. You’ll purchase it in Korea running Android Honeycomb, but will be prompted to upgrade to Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) as soon as you are connected via wifi and have enough juice in the battery.

Down below is the thing that separates the Transformer from other Tablets – the Keyboard. Yes you can get Keyboard docks for the Galaxy Tab, or Bluetooth it with the iPad but the integration of keyboard and tablet is where there is more than meets the eye. (There’s your gratuitous Transformers toy reference). The keyboard includes a multi-touch track pad, dedicated function keys including a system settings, camera, wifi, back and home buttons.

Excuse my horrendously messy desk!

But it is the USB ports that are amongst the greatest draws here.

Plug in a normal USB stick and browse files at will. SD card reader? No problem. USB charging? No worries – the only thing I haven’t done is plug my camera into it yet. Great for playing video (especially on the NVIDA powered 16:1 screen).

And has Android come of age or what? Ice Cream Sandwich is amazing (compared to The Galaxy Tab’s Gingerbread), and being able to use Chrome (in beta) from Google is bliss! Full web browsing on a tablet, Its been close in the past with The Dolphin Browser, but even in Beta, Chrome for Android is just like the Desktop experience. Finally Asus bundles in a slew of useful apps – including Polaris Office – the best Android Office Suite I have seen! (My horrid work documents that always get screwy format wise in anything but Word appear perfectly on screen and export nicely).

Other software includes An ebook thing, a UPnP thing you can stream media to on your home network app backup utilities and Asus offers a year of free cloud storage when you sign up.

Possible things I am going to have to watch out for: Lack of a protective case (bought one on eBay – it’s a’comin’) means the Transformer hasn’t left my desk (except to go on the radio this morning) so it has remained plugged in to the wall. Purported battery life is 5 and a half hours. We’ll see. Notably the keyboard also has a battery and charges the tablet when the two are attached.

The biggest issue I’m having at the moment is opening the damn thing!when attached to the keyboard and folded closed the tablet and keyboard lay flush. Most laptops have a little groove to give your fingers some purchase when opening. The Asus lacks one. The hinge on the keyboard side is new so quite stiff. Hopefully it’ll loosen up over time – not too loose though of course!

If you have a spare W499,000 and in the market for a netbook give the Transformer a look. (Technically an Asus EEE Tablet Transformer T101) Its ability to handle documents alone might be enough to persuade some people.

Score★★★★ 4/5

With Instagram still not available on Android, the market is open to competitors to stake their photo-sharing claims. Pudding.to is the latest, promising to be “The most innovative photo sharing app ever”. That means filters, yes, but also the ability to upload multiple photos, and richer tags including music and location.

So says the review I found somewhere. (Honestly I took an iPhone shot of it on a computer screen)

I have talked about Pudding before, specifically Pudding Camera – published by successful Korean App developers KT Hitel (part of the KT conglomerate of companies) who have brought you Pudding Camera (2011 iTunes App Store Best Seller, 20 odd thousand downloads on Android), Korean Celeb Face Match (Don’t ask!) and the original Korean Foursquare clone “I’m In” amongst others

KTH love their Phone cameras – as evidenced by the original Pudding Camera, which was translated to English and found great success outside of Korea. with their new App “Pudding.to” they’re taking on instagram with the ability to share those photos you’ve taken and add all the prerequisite filters it seems people are so craving to turn their “crap-snaps” and “sel-cas” into introspective lomo-ised works of art. (Not that I necessarily dislike that….)

KTH took the proactive step of launching pudding.to in both Korean and English simultaneously and have associated Blogs for Pudding Camera, pudding.to and Korean Celeb Face Match at – you guessed it – www.pudding.to (.to being the TLD for The Kingdom of Tonga and “to” being 2, as in their second camera app! Smart aye!)

Below is something of a walk-through of the app and some screenshots for Y’all:

Welcome to Pudding.to!

Like InstaGram, You can see popular photos

Recommendations on Pudding photographers to follow

User Profile

Take a picture

Add a filter, frame and add in a tilt-shift effect

Add a mood Tag

Or choose up to four photos for a collage effect

Be careful not to cut off any heads

Add a comment, Tag with hashtags, what you’re listening to or your current location

et voila!

These were taken on the iOS version of the app. I have had some trouble running Pudding.to on Android, specifically on Gingerbread 3.21 and Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0. I have been in touch with the developers at KTH and they note that the issue (not being able to login) is known and has to do with authentication on non-network devices, i.e. you can only use pudding.to on phones and tablets with 3G and LTE connectivity, my original Wifi Samsung Galaxy Tab 7 and Asus EEE Tablet Transformer (neither of which connects to a cell network) are sh*t out of luck – for now. I have been assured that the issue will be fixed in the next update – 1.0.3. I am not sure if this affects non-connected iPad 2s and iPod Touches with Cameras – Kudos to anyone who can test out the app and let me know.

Overall Pudding.to is a pretty good follow up to the original pudding camera. The addition of extra tagging options and ability to view users in your area add to the functionality and beat Instagram. In future updates I would like to see a couple of more filters and of course a fix for non-networked devices. Best of all – It’s free!

Score: ★★★★ 4/5

Last week I attended the Launch event for Samsung’s SmartTVs, the latest refresh in Samsung’s 3D, internet connected television line.

While Samsung continues to be embroiled in open warfare with Apple over phone patents and trade dress, the television part of its business goes from strength to strength and is arguably leading TV makers LG and Sony in both innovation and advances in flat screen technology.

Read the full story

Chris Backe of Chris in South Korea fame, has been working on an iPhone app called Seoul Taxi. designed to make life easier for visitors and residents alike, the app concentrates on making your communications with Seoul’s many and varied taxi drivers something of a more pleasant experience. Chris was  gracious enough to give me a free copy to review.

Designed for iOS 4 , the app is specifically for iPhone and iPad Touch and gets scaled if you use it on iPad. I can understand the choice here, if you are going to a destination I guess you are more likely to take your phone with you. On the other hand the iPhone’s display is a little small for your average middle aged taxi driver. Having to hand one’s phone over to a taxi driver is always a dodgy proposition while in contrast holding up the iPad’s 10 inch display is fine for even the most far sighted of Seoul’s taxi drivers!

The app lists over 2000 destinations in Seoul including over 800 restaurants and close to 100 hotels as well as other destinations ranging from art galleries (who knew there were so many galleries in Seoul) to over 150 bars.

Now if you know where you are going and are strictly using the app to assist you in your taxi dealings, simply enter the name of your  destination and hit search, odds are you’ll get the info you need.

Once you have found your destination you are presented with a couple of options. Selecting “Taxi Card”will display the address information in big , bold, white-on-black Korean which you then show your driver. Being an iOS app, hitting the phone number will place a call to the destination – particularly good if your driver still hasn’t figured out where to go from the address and hitting the location address option will bring up Google Maps just in case the taxi driver still has no idea where to go.

one of the best features of Taxi Guide Seoul is being able to share the taxi card information. You are able to send the address to people via MMS message – handy if you are meeting a group of people and need to give them directions. Finally you can create your own cards for destinations you find that Chris and his developer HoodHot have yet to discover.

The big advantage of Taxi Guide is its ability to be used off line – visitors to Seoul don’t want to be paying expensive roaming charges.

However this means some features that would otherwise be standard in an app like this are missing. Any app that deals with destinations these days needs Foursquare integration. It just makes sense that upon arrival at your destination you would “check-in”. And for the legions of people intent on sharing every aspect of their lives, Twitter is also missing. Elsewhere, Seoul is constantly changing and apps like this need frequent updates. Future updates will have to be potentially large downloads, where as a “live” app might be able to handle the dynamic nature of Seoul more efficiently. A way around this might be to make users own notes able to be uploaded and shared beyond just their friends.

the only other quibble I might have is the price. while I scored a free copy for review, HoodHot’s other apps for other destinations in Asia range from $4.99 at launch to a whopping $9.99. I would have to say I would not be prepared to pay that much for an app that has no social media integration and lacks the ability to upload and share user created information, and especially when there are a number of (albeit slightly more complicated) free alternatives, such as Google maps and even Foursquare which provide address and direction / destination information.

Bimbo Rating ★★★✩  – half a star off for lack of social, 1 star off for price.

Last night I sat down (virtually speaking) with Jeff Lebow of Koreabridge.net and freelance web designer Mattew Weingard, and discussed the state of the Internet here in Korea.

On the table, Google’s most recent run in with the Dongdaemun Police Station Cyber Crimes unit, a surge towards responsible web design, a merging of the way Korea and Koreans use The Internet with the way the rest of the world uses The Internet, The Galaxy Tab 10.1 and my new watch.

Of particular interest, aside from the topics discussed, is the voodoo that Jeff has put together to allow him to record interviews etc on Google+ using Hangouts, Live Stream, some chewing gum and Gaffer Tape, the results of which you can see below:

In April this year Apple came clean and said that its iPhone and iPad collected a whole lot more location data on users than it was letting on. As nefarious as it sounds the huge amount of data collected by the iPhone / iPad was sent to Apple’s servers and used to help the device zero in on its location for use with location aware apps. Read the full story

With one click, QR codes offer smart phone users contact information, websites, and more.

You may have noticed them cropping up in advertising, on the sides of buses and even street signs—strange black-and-white pixelated boxes that look like some madman’s attempt at a crossword. What are they? QR Codes.

Originally an alternative for tracking car parts and other inventory, the QR (standing for “quick response”) code is akin to the more recognizable bar code but can provide much more information. With a scanner and the right software, you can obtain phone numbers, web addresses and text from the little black and white boxes.

The most recent and growing use for QR codes is “mobile tagging,” which allows smartphone users to take a picture of the code with their phone’s camera and then access the information. Apple, Android, Nokia and Blackberry all support QR codes and have a number of apps available to decipher them.

Read the full story

This week COEX hosted the 2011 Seoul Photo show. On hand were the world’s leading manufacturers of cameras and lenses, Nikon, Canon, Sigma and Tamron as well as Olympus and Panasonic. Also in attendance: local favourite, Samsung.

One notable exception was Sony, who were conspicuous by their absence (notwithstanding the fact that they actually have a full blown store right next to the convention hall, not more than 20 meters from the front door!).

The Olympus booth (booths) had two dominant themes – their mirrorless four-thirds camera system “Pen” and the seemingly indestructible “Tough” line of water- and shock-proof point-and-shoots.

Ubiquitous to any such show in Korea (motor show, photo show, food retailer’s show I’m going to this week) are the scantly clad models – “booth babes” – that hundreds of people crowd around and take photos of. And while this might be an appropriate forum (taking photos of models at a photo show actually makes sense) I couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be a certain kind of infantilizing going on here that was… simply put… a bit odd. But I’ll let you make your mind up as the photos below show my exploration of the Seoul International Photo and Imaging Industry Show 2011.

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