South Korea hands Yellow Sea islands over to North Korea

Or at least, that's what Google Maps would have you believe.

So I was looking for an aerial view of Paengnyŏng-do the other day. That's one of the Sŏhae-odo (서해5도), the so-called "Five Islands of the West Sea" which are technically a part of the City of Inch'ŏn (인천광역시) but hug the coast of North Korea.

The Northern Limit Line (or NLL, the blue line above), which has formed the de facto maritime border between the ROK and DPRK since the Korean War armistice in 1953, is drawn in such a way that these islands form what would be a "natural" maritime border, one that follows the universally accepted principle of equidistance from populated land on the North Korean and South Korean sides.

The North Koreans, however, insist on the red line in the graphic. It ignores South Korea's Five Islands of the West Sea and runs equidistant from the mainland, with corridors South Korea can use to access its islands (and fish, presumably). It has become a very contentious issue lately, and North Korea has used it as a pretext to attack Yŏnpyŏng-do, ostensibly to sink the Ch'ŏnan, and engage in other sea battles out there.

Note that these islands are not disputed territory (former US Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg's words notwithstanding), and they were ROK-held even before the Korean War (the islands and the Ongjin Peninsula just above them are south of the 38°N line (the Thirty-eighth Parallel) that was Korea's Mason-Dixon Line (the KNTO should put a sign up like that: "Welcome to 38-Line! It's Mason-dixon Line of Korea!" including those capitalization and article errors).

And so that makes it quite odd that Google Maps would list this key territory (one that makes Inchon a very long city, though not as long as Honolulu) as North Korean. You see, as I typed P-a-e-n-g-n-y-o-n-g, a list with various options for my search would pop up, each selection getting more precise and specific as I went along. Finally, Google Maps offered "Paengnyong Do North Korea." There was no biased input on my part.

Interestingly, though, if I use the Revised Romanization and type Baengnyeong (the Paengnyong spelling is based on McCune-Reischauer), a proper South Korean address appears. Hmm...

Google Maps doesn't list Yonpyong-do, but asks if you are looking for Yeonpyeong Do, which it lists as in South Korea. However, check out the list if you type in Y-e-o-n-p-y-e-o-n-g and see what pops up:

Yup. Check out number four. That "Yeonpyeong-ri" is the principal village on Yŏnpyŏng-do Island, and Google Maps has it listed as North Korean territory. Below is visual verification.

This is very sloppy work on the part of Google. What's next? Saying Calexico is part of Mexico just because they rhyme? (Though frankly, they can have it.)

Mapapropisms can happen to anyone, even some big names in media. The BBC apparently sent a drunken Mancunian out on a dinghy to redraw the NLL, and the Wall Street Journal ceded the US territory of Saipan to South Korea. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

But don't worry. I'm not going to go all VANK on Google (although I wouldn't rule out VANK going all VANK, since that's what they do). But it does make me wonder: Can I now no longer trust the accuracy of what I find when I search on the Google?

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Google honors "Hangul Day"

Everyone is familiar with the Google doodles, the clever and sometimes elaborate ways that Google changes their standard and simple logo to honor some event or the anniversary of this or that person's birth. (They're tough to make. My one, possibly slightly NSFW attempt is here.)

Well today is October 9, Han•gŭl Day, where in Korea the invention of the Korean "alphabet" is honored on the anniversary of its promulgation in 1443. Koreans are immensely proud of this achievement, which was part of a forward-thinking plan by King Sejong the Great to dramatically expand literacy (Chinese characters were essentially the only means of reading and writing prior to this) and thus allow the spread of knowledge among the masses on all sorts of matters from farming to statecraft to government regulations. If I remember correctly, this day used to be a national holiday, but I might be mixing it up with Arbor Day. (Wikipedia has a nice write-up on Hangul.)

Anyway, this year Google again paid homage to King Sejong the Great with a Hangul-themed Google doodle:

This one is all in Korean. It says 구글, which is the Hangulization of Google, roughly ku•gŭl. It's kind of nice how the last syllable ends up corresponding with the exact same final element in Han•gŭl, which refers to letters and writing systems. (The han part refers to the Korean people, 한/韓.)

You can see how the Google doodle has evolved over time. In 2005, the second o in Google was replaced by the ㅎ character, not for sound (ㅎ symbolizes h) but only for the similarity in appearance. They could have used the i•ŭng character (ㅇ, which represents -ng or serves as a soundless placeholder), but it wouldn't have been very obvious what they're doing.

In the 2008 Google doodle, the lowercase g is replaced by 글, which applies meaning while neatly replacing the gl with nearly the same pronunciation.

In the 2009 Google doodle, they took to stripping away any actual meaning and just used a mishmash of Hangul characters that roughly mimicked the appearance of the original Google letters. Were you to pronounce this, it would be t-j-m-p-yong-n-t, probably a swear word in some country.

In the 2010 Google doodle, the lowercase g is replaced by han (한), both for meaning and for its kinda sorta squiggly similarity. The lowercase g sees a lot of action this way.

Anyway, all this is kinda cool, but it's mostly just seen by people in Korea or those who use the google.co.kr search engine. Everyone else gets a regular Google, I believe.

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Samsung to make televisions equipped with Google TV?

So hints Bloomberg:

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest television maker, is planning to make an announcement in January about introducing TVs using Google Inc.’s software, as the company aims to spur demand.

Details of the plan have yet to be decided, Yoon Boo Keun, head of Samsung’s TV business, said in Seoul. The company is “open” to using Intel Corp.’s chips for its TVs, Yoon said.

A partnership between Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung and Google will follow a similar move by Sony Corp., the world’s third-largest TV maker. In October, the Japanese company began offering Internet-enabled TVs in the U.S. as consumer electronics manufacturers try to combat falling prices with products based on new technology.

Internet-enabled TVs will let viewers buy third-party video games and programs that do anything from forecasting the weather to measuring the string tension of a tennis racket. Apple Inc. fueled its expansion into music players and phones by developing the iTunes software that made it easier to buy and organize songs, TV shows and games and is expanding the model to television.

Frankly, I never really got the whole Internet TV thing, but that may be because I live in a dorm room where my iMac's screen is as large as my Samsung TV's screen anyway. I do watch a lot of TV on my iMac and my MacBook Pro, through hulu.com and the various network's own sites (e.g., Survivor at cbs.com), but not the 20-inch computer screen experience is just fine when you live in a 10'-by-14' cement cell.

Perhaps if I lived in larger surroundings I might consider a Samsung equipped with Google TV, or an AppleTV hooked up to a larger television than I have now so as to enhance my Netflix membership. Truth be told, however, I'm more likely to watch Netflix on my iPhone4 than on either of my computers.

ROK authorities view Google's Street View with suspicion

It looks like South Korea is the latest entity to take issue with the pictures-from-the-street feature of Google Maps. And by taking issue I mean raiding their offices. As Seoul authorities are wont to do.

From CNET:

The Korean National Police Agency confirmed the probe of the search giant in a statement sent to Reuters and other news sources.

"[The police] have been investigating Google Korea LLC on suspicion of unauthorized collection and storage of data on unspecified Internet users from Wi-Fi networks," the agency said in the statement. "We began the probe after having confirmed that the company seized and kept open data as well as unauthorized private communication data collected by its special data-collecting vehicles."

The agency added that Google specifically kept information on users grabbed through Wi-Fi networks for around six months until May, according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

On its end, Google has acknowleged the probe.

"We can confirm that the police have visited Google Korea in conjunction with their investigation around data collection by Street View cars. We will cooperate with the investigation and answer any questions they have," Lois Kim, a Google Korea spokeswoman, said in a statement sent to CNET.

Google has been facing a host of lawsuits and government investigations after it revealed that its Street View service had inadvertantly collected information from Wi-Fi networks as it traveled various landscapes snapping photos. The company has maintained that it did nothing illegal since the data collection was done accidentally and without its knowledge or intent.

Inadvertently. Yeah, I'll bet.

Hmm... Although South Korea has sometimes weird and inconsistently applied rules on privacy, I'm sorta glad someone is coming along to put the brakes on what might otherwise be a wholesale jump toward Big Brother, or at least a lot of Little Brothers.

Has Google grown a pair?

Well, after helping Beijing channel Google searches toward state-friendly websites, it looks like Google has sprouted a conscience. After finding that an attack originating in China may have been aimed at tracking down human rights activists, Google has suggested they may pull out of China:

Google said Tuesday that it may pull out of China because of a sophisticated computer network attack originating in China and targeting its e-mail service.

The company said it had evidence to suggest that "a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts" of Chinese human rights activists. The attack was discovered in December.

Based on its investigation to date, Google said it does not believe the cyber attack succeeded. "Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves," the company said in a blog posting.

But David Drummond, Google senior vice president and chief legal officer, added that the attacks "have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China."

And not only that, they said they may review their policy of providing "censored search results":

Google has further decided it is no longer willing to continue censoring its search results in Chinese Google sites, Drummond said, and over the next few weeks it will discuss with the Beijing government how it may operate "an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all," he said.

"We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China," he said.

Privacy advocates applauded Google's move to disclose the attack and reverse its stand on censorship of its China search engine results.

Good on them, if they actually go through with this (more on how I feel about global corps kowtowing to China found here).

And in honor of Google and their newfound cojones, may I suggest the following artwork for tomorrow's Google home page?