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Shocking! North Korean man sentenced to death over smuggling copies Of ‘Squid Game’ in the country

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A few months back, the South Korean drama ‘Squid Game’ was released on Netflix and quickly became a worldwide sensation and Netflix’s most popular series. Despite all the sensation and madness around the show, its entry is still prohibited in North Korea and anyone who breaks this law will face severe punishment.

Despite the ban, a man in the country smuggled the copies of the smash hit into the country and now as a punishment he’s reportedly sentenced to death for bringing back a copy of the show.

As per an American agency,  the man has sentenced to death a man after authorities caught seven high school students watching the Korean-language global hit show, sources told.

The series was smuggled in from China on USB drives. Sources said his sentence would be carried out by firing squad.

A student who bought a drive received a life sentence, while six others who watched the show have been sentenced to five years hard labor, and teachers and school administrators have been fired and face banishment to work in remote mines or themselves, the sources said.

A source in law enforcement in North Hamgyong province of North Korea told RFA’s Korean Service, “Early last week, seven high school students from Chongjin City, North Hamgyong Province, were caught watching ‘Squid Game.’ They were caught by the 109th Joint Command of Staff’s inspection.”

This is the first time minors in North Korea were convicted under the law, ‘Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture’ for watching the series. Last year, in December, North Korea passed the low, which prohibits the entry and dissemination of cultural material like films, plays, music and books in the country.

The nine-part thriller follows the story of a cash-strapped contestant playing childhood games with deadly consequences in a bid to win 45.6 billion won ($38 million).

Meanwhile, the director of the dystopic South Korean TV series on Netflix, expressed confidence that the wildly popular show will return for a second season.

“We are in the talks for Season Two,” writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk said in an interview on Monday. “It’s all in my head. I have the basic storyline, the broad plan, so we`re in the brainstorming stages.

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Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones

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CasinoDays India

International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.

Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.

The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.

Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile

The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.

CasinoDays India

The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.

“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.

Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings

Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.

 

CasinoDays India

Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).

Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.

The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.

Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.

Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities

The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.

On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.

Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.

“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.

The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.

 

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