When faced with a tough issue one always has two options: solve it, or put “lipstick on the pig” as one of my favorite American expression calls it. North Korea inventing “hunger delaying noodles” is one of the best ever example of, well, the not solve it solution…

N Korea ‘develops special noodle’

North Korean scientists have developed a new kind of noodle that delays feelings of hunger, a Japan-based pro-Pyongyang newspaper has reported.

The noodles were made from corn and soybeans, the Choson Shinbo said.

They left people feeling fuller longer and represented a technological breakthrough, the newspaper said.

Link

The irony of this is that these noodles will be a huge hit in the western world. Weight & watchers has probably already dispatched experts to Pyongyang to steal the formula. And patent it.

As I head to the Seoul airport to fly back to Europe  (I will spend the next 9 days there, before promptly coming back to Korea) allow me to paste the Lift Asia program in case you haven’t seen it. I just rewrote it completely and it looks exciting, a good mix of Asian and Western speakers, great social events, time to visit the country, and a (rare) occasion for me to speak at my own conference as the event’s theme needs a bit of explanation! Original page is here. Register at only 250/650$ until the end of the week.

The program of Lift Asia 08 is built around one main theme: beyond the browser. We will discuss the upcoming changes that the internet, now moving past the browser and into objects, cities or robots, will soon generate in our society.

Thursday Sept. 4

[13:00 Doors opening and coffee]

14:00 Welcome Speech by Laurent Haug (Lift) and Seo Young Roh (Nabi Art Center).

14:15 Session: Beyond the web we know
What can we expect from the web in the near future, what comes after web2.0?
Laurent Haug will explain the vision behind the main theme of the conference, and what a mature web means for our society.
Then Eric Rodenbeck of Stamen Design (USA) will share his perspectives about how the web becomes a “richer” media through the use of information visualizations.

[15:30 Break and Lift experience]
The breaks will be dedicated to networking and inspiration, with comfortable sofas and warm coffee dispatched among the various art installations created by the Nabi Art Center. Meet other lifters, take a break, write your ideas and get ready for the next session!

16:30 Session: Virtual money
Recent changes in the digitization of money are less perceptible than more glamorous technologies, but they are of considerable importance. This session will explore the upcoming cashless economy with international expert David Birch (Consult Hyperion, UK) and American science fiction writer Bruce Sterling (initiator of the cyberpunk movement, writer on Wired).

[17:30 Break and Lift experience]

18:00 Sustainable Development Evening
The traditional session on our planet’s biggest challenge, organized in partnership with WattWatt, will welcome American gadget guru Dan Dubno (Gizmorama, USA) and Swiss adventurer Sarah Marquis who will explain how one can travel the world in energetic independence.

[19:30 Cocktail and Dinner]
Lifters are invited to share a cocktail and dinner at the magnificent Hyatt hotel, on the terrace overseeing the ocean. Enjoy international wines & dishes and take the chance to meet participants from all over the globe.

Friday Sept. 5

09:00 Session: Aiming for a better society
How can technologies help us shape a more inclusive and sustainable society, as well as take advantage of the world’s diversity? Wonsun Park (The Hope Institute, Korea) and Raphael Grignani (Nokia Design, USA) will address this question alongside a final speaker to be announced soon.

[10:30 Break and Lift experience]

11:30 Session: Networked city
The new digital layers provided by ICTs on contemporary cities have now become reality. What does that mean for its inhabitants? What changes can we expect? How will ubiquitous computing influence the way we live? « Everyware » author Adam Greenfield (Nokia Design, Finland), as well as architects Jeffrey Huang (EPFL, Switzerland) and Yang Soo Yin (The Living, Korea) who will provide their vision on this not so distant future.

[13:15 Lunch]

In the purest Lift tradition, Swiss Chef Roland Hini will prepare a Swiss meal where dishes imported directly from the Alps will be served. Expect to discover new tastes like Gruyère and Roesti!

14:30 Open Afternoon
Present your company, moderate a workshop, introduce your ideas to the world. The floor is yours, make your propositions!

16:30 Session: The future of social worlds
Social networks and Massive Multi-Player games are now merging in a new category of digital entertainment platforms with new business models, reaching consumers via different screens. What does the usage of such platforms tell us about new forms of socialization? Where is gaming heading? What are the new opportunities?
Joonmo Kwon (Nexon, Korea) will share his profound experience in this field, and present the vision he has for his 300 millions customers strong company. Then Jury Hahn (Megaphone, USA) will talk about the latest and most innovative forms of social mobile entertainment, using cell phones as the main platforms.

[17:30 Break and Lift experience]

18:00 Session: Techno-nomadic life
The wireless and mobile technologies have freed us from the tyranny of “place”, but what are the new constraints? What is the new behavior? Is the mobile web going through the same process as the Web of the 90s?
Star design researcher Jan Chipchase (Nokia, Japan) will present some insights nomadic work/life practices enabled by mobile technologies, while i-mode father Takeshi Natsuno (Keio University, Japan) and Christian Lindholm (Fjord, UK) will talk about the future of mobile services.

[19:00 Cocktail and karoake]
The day will end in style at a karaoke party where Westerners will try to challenge the unequivocal Asian domination on this soon-to-be-Olympic discipline.

Saturday Sept. 6

10:00 Session: From robots to networked objects
Current robots are going beyond the traditional anthropomorphism and start to communicate. What can we expect? What’s hot in that domain that we will soon see all around us?
Japanese inventor Tomoaki Kasuga (Speecys, Japan) will show his latest robotic creation, while researcher Frédéric Kaplan (EPFL, Switzerland), known for his work with the Sony Aibo, will talk about the future of robots as part of our daily life. Legendary French entrepreneur Bruno Bonnell, founder of Infogrames and former CEO of Atari, will close the session by presenting the differences between the Asian and Western perception of robotics.

11:50 Conference wrap-up
Various speakers and members of the audience will be on stage to provide their vision on the conference, the ideas and insights they will take home, and their wishes for the next editions of Lift.

[12:30 End of conference]
See you at Lift09 in Geneva!

[13:30 Social Activities and visits]
In partnership with Jungtour, we will encourage Lifters to head for a visit of one of the many attractions in Jeju like the Stone park, some of the world’s most beautiful golf courses, and the teddy bear museum!

Faking death to force a better valuation of life, that’s the recipe a Korean entrepreneur has found to help prevent suicide among his stressed compatriots:

In a country infatuated with “well-being” […] training companies are now offering courses on dying a good death.

“Korea has ranked number one in many bad things such as suicide and divorce and cancer rates, so I wanted to run a programme for people to experience death,” says Ko Min-su, a 40-year-old former insurance agent who founded Korea Life Consulting, which offers fake funerals as a way to make people value life.

Korean corporations […] send their employees on Mr Ko’s courses regularly, partly to encourage them to question their priorities in life and partly as a suicide prevention measure.

Link (thx Michelle)

The FT describes the whole experience, one nobody will ever go through as it is a funeral from the first person perspective.

Mr Ko […] begins the course with a motivational presentation that includes a “life calculator” counting the time until one’s death down to the millisecond.

Then participants are led to a dark room where they are told to sit at candlelit desks and write their wills, prompted by some sample questions. If you died today, what would you tell your family? What would you say about your job and your life?

As they start to write, the room becomes filled with sniffing, women in particular struggling to hold back their tears.

Will completed, they collect their funeral portraits – participants are asked to pose on the way in – and enter the “death experience room”, a large, dark space containing a series of open coffins and decorated with posters of famous bygones such as Ronald Reagan, Diana, Princess of Wales, and Lee Byung-chull, Samsung’s founder.

In front of an altar covered with flowers and his funeral portrait, Mr Ko instructs his trainees to choose a coffin, put on a traditional hemp death robe and then read out their wills one-by-one.

Next, it is time to be buried. Participants lie down in their coffins, while a man wearing the outfit of a traditional Korean death messenger places a flower on each person’s chest. Funeral attendants place lids on the coffins, banging each corner several times with a mallet. Dirt is thrown down on the lid, as loud as stones on a tile roof. The attendants leave the hall for five minutes – but it seemed like 30 minutes to those taking part.

Once the lids are lifted, Mr Ko asks the trainees how they felt. “When they were nailing the coffin and sprinkling the dirt, it felt like I was really dead,” Ms Baek says. “I thought death was far away but now that I have experienced it, I feel like I have to live a better life.”

How long until we have such courses in Europe? Is playing death acceptable in western societies?