01/31, 5:40pm
Egypt's Noor last ISP down in protest dispute
Attempts by the Egyptian government to silence dissent escalated again on Monday as multiple reports have emerged that the last freestanding Internet provider has had its Internet access taken down. Noor's ADSL service appears to be shutting down in phases as the Mubarak regime hopes to prevent coordinated resistance. Only the National Technology Group, handling traffic from some banks, financial institutions and flights, is known to be offline.
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01/25, 6:25pm
Google acquires SayNow for Google Voice upgrade
SayNow on Tuesday confirmed that it had been bought by Google in what's now suspected to be a video chat upgrade to Google Voice. The service earned a reputation for handling custom celebrity phone lines but also for integrating both live and recorded calls into mobile apps and video chats, such as turning recordings into messages in Smule's I Am T-Pain app for the iPhone and letting fans call into a 50 Cent online video event. A source told AllThingsD that these and other features could be integral for an upgrade to Google Voice that would compete with both traditional VoIP and video chat systems from Apple.
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