[LINK] Egypt

stephen at melbpc.org.au stephen at melbpc.org.au
Tue Feb 1 21:28:34 AEDT 2011


Egypt protesters use voice tweets 

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12332850  1st February 2011


Google and Twitter have launched a service which circumvents the ban on 
net services in Egypt.

The so-called "speak-to-tweet" system allows people caught up in the 
unrest to post messages without any need to use an internet connection.

The service, which is already live, allows people to dial an 
international telephone number and leave a voicemail message.

The message is then sent out as a tweet with the hashtag #egypt.

People can listen to messages by dialling the same phone numbers 
(+16504194196 , +390662207294, +97316199855) or going to a special 
Twitter page.  http://twitter.com/speak2tweet

Last ISP
 
Google said its engineers worked with Twitter and its newly acquired 
voice technology company SayNow over the weekend to set the service up.

"Like many people we've been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and 
thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground," said SayNow 
co-founder Ujjwal Singh on the official Google blog.

Net access in Egypt has dropped almost to zero "We hope this will go some 
way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult 
time," he added.

The last of Egypt's main internet service providers, the Noor Group, 
became unreachable on Monday, according to reports.

The ISP had managed to stay online after Egypt other big four net 
providers stopped sending and receiving traffic on Friday.

--

Cheers,
Stephen



More information about the Link mailing list