The "Glossary of Current Affairs and Economy," ranked third in the Books category of the app store's top free apps, is not available for Samsung's Omnia or Google's Android.
"An estimate of about 150,000 of the 300,000 iPhone users in Korea have downloaded the ministry's application as of today," Hwang Sun-gu, director of the media team at the Finance Ministry, told The Korea Herald.
"So many Omnia users have asked us to provide the same application, so we will launch the same application for Windows Mobile OS-based phones like Omnia and Google OS-based ones like Android by the end of this month at the latest."
The ministry's application offers explanations of 2,500 economy-related Korean terms and English acronyms in the Korean language.
The words were chosen jointly by the Finance Ministry and the state-run think tank Korea Development Institute to help Koreans understand the latest, economics terms.
The strength of the application is that if users can't find the word they are looking for, they are automatically asked whether to request the ministry to add the word.
"For the past month, we have received 1,200 requests. After screening out words unrelated to economics, we will update about 200 words by March 26," Hwang said.
Besides the glossary application, the ministry plans to launch another application for smartphone devices to open up government data to better promote and explain economic indicators and policies by March 20, he added.
An expert said the government's active using of cutting-edge IT devices to provide information for the general public is very encouraging and desirable.
"The more they open up government data to the general public, the more interaction between the government, citizens and business people there will be. It will improve the (utility) of the data," said Han Chang-min, secretary general of the Korea Internet Corporations Association.
"Although the Korean government is getting ahead when it comes to e-government, the e-government form is a supply-oriented form," he said.
Seoul would do well to develop various tools to let citizens get access to information more easily, he added.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Kim Yoon-mi
Quelle/Source: The Korea Herald, 12.03.2010
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
