
Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard - ssclafani
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/some-weekend-work-that-will-hopefully.html
======
dholowiski
Very cool. I assumed it would be filled up with Spam right away, but it's not
- they must be doing some kind of filtering to make sure only Egyptian callers
can leave a message. Most of the messages are not in english (duh) but here
are a couple english messages. I'm surprised google isn't doing speech
recognition and translating these for us too.

[http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=TkxFNENGTHVQQzdTdVE4N0...](http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=TkxFNENGTHVQQzdTdVE4N0xILzlLdz09)

[http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=ajRkanRVekNqSGdwZWw4ZX...](http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=ajRkanRVekNqSGdwZWw4ZXorRFRmQT09)

[http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=dkxLMm1KTER2cG5jWkd2Z2...](http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=dkxLMm1KTER2cG5jWkd2Z2NzbGxZUT09)

[http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=b1FveVRBQ2tyRlpWNjFMam...](http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=b1FveVRBQ2tyRlpWNjFMamJmRVZtUT09)

~~~
ars
"I'm surprised google isn't doing speech recognition and translating these for
us too."

It's because speech recognition does not exist for Egyptian Arabic.

There are some research programs, but no actual completed products.

This may be surprising to some, but speech recognition is only available in a
small number of languages. Mainly European languages plus Chinese.

There is nothing preventing speech recognition in other languages, it's just
no one has done it.

~~~
randomtask
The language Egyptians speak is Arabic. Voice recognition software for that
language does exist:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAKHR_Software_Company#Speech_R...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAKHR_Software_Company#Speech_Recognition_.28ASR.29)

~~~
ars
All Arabic is not the same, it's not always even interunderstandable so it's
important to distinguish which dialect you are referring to.

But I did not not know about them, and I did search. Perhaps Google doesn't
either.

~~~
randomtask
I understand that. Just from reading your comment I didn't know whether you
were referring to the dead language, a nonexistent one, or the dialect...I'll
go sit with the rest of the pedants ;)

------
JonnieCache
Some amazing stuff on there. This message brings a tear to my eye.

[http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=TkxFNENGTHVQQzdTdVE4N0...](http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=TkxFNENGTHVQQzdTdVE4N0xILzlLdz09)

~~~
randomtask
Yeah, that one got me too.

~~~
iacvlvs
I can't listen to it right now. Could someone please transcribe it?

~~~
psyklic
I strongly recommend listening for the full effect, but here is a rough
translation for those who cannot. My apologies on likely misspelling the
lady's name. The grammar tries to reflect her speed/pauses/etc:

Hi, this is Monasef from Cairo. I just wanted to let the _world_ know that we
have been disconnected from our last point of communications through the
Internet .. and there is a strong word going around that we will be _again_
disconnected from mobile phone calls. So I wanted everyone to know, in case we
don't get .. in case you don't get any feedback from what's happening tomorrow
.. and I didn't want anyone to worry about us.

They did this before ... the only difference is the last time when they did
this I was completely freaked out I was so scared they are going to shoot us
all and nobody would know about it. _This_ time, I am not scared at all. I see
that this .. like I wanna tell them bring it on! - we are excited we are happy
we are going to be at Tahrir Square tomorrow, we are going to be _huge_ and we
are going to do our march and do our protest .. and Mubarak is going -- _out_
\-- < _cry of relief/excitement_ > Be with us! byebye

~~~
Mafana0
You are a gentleman and a scholar...

The name of the lady is Mona Saif, who sent another tweet in Arabic (native
speaker here): <http://bit.ly/dTj11s>

------
InfinityX0
This Egyptian situation puts new perspective on Malcolm Gladwell's popular
article, "The Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted". I'm not sure how it applies (if
at all) - but it's interesting that the revolution comes from the fact that
people really _can't_ tweet (or use the internet, more importantly). Would
love to hear 2nd thoughts from people here RE: that article.

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell)

~~~
itistoday
I think the events in Tunisia and Egypt show just how wrong that perspective
is. Twitter and social media in general are in their infancy and yet already
are having such a massive impact on social change around the world.

The ability to communicate thoughts, events, instantaneously, as they happen,
and from the people _actively involved_ in those events around the world, is
unprecedented in human history.

The revolution has been tweeted. It does not depend solely on twitter and the
like, but these are not tools to be underestimated.

Just compare the quality of the content you're getting by following people
actively engaged in the revolution on twitter, with what you see on CNN. This
is revolutionary.

~~~
loire280
I think the revolutionary effect you are seeing can be better attributed to
the fact that these populations have access to the Internet, especially
through mobile phone. These people aren't leveraging the unique features of
social media (the web of interpersonal relationships) so much as they are
leveraging the ability to quickly get text, pictures, and video out of the
country and onto servers hosted in countries sympathetic to the protestors. It
just happens that Twitter and Facebook are currently the fastest ways to get
something published and seen.

~~~
brc
I disagree - because the ability to get text pictures and video out of the
country reliese on the fact you're putting it onto a network where plenty of
people are linked together. Just posting it onto the internet - with no social
network apps - it's much less likely to catch and go viral.

The networking capabilities of these appliations is what makes them useful to
protesting organisations. Otherwise there woudl be a deluge of emails going
out to notify of each individual update - rather than a simple, distributed
notification which people can jump on at any point.

------
mvandemar
They just shut off the cell networks too:

[http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/31/5962180-egyp...](http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/31/5962180-egypt-
shutting-off-cell-networks-again)

~~~
dmvaldman
that's very sad. the service still works for landline phones, which are still
operational for now.

------
halo
YouTube are now offering a live stream of Al Jazeera (scroll half-way down the
page): <http://www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish>

------
austinB
This is an absolutely great idea that strikes a blow to regimes who try to
suppress uprisings by shutting down the internet. I can't say I am entirely
optimistic about the direction Egypt will take if open elections are held, but
their citizens have a right to have their voice heard.

That being said, the 'nonchalantness' in this line regarding the SayNow
acquisition was quite funny, "We worked with a small team of engineers from
Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea
a reality."

Well done Google.

------
elliottcarlson
I am surprised no one is concerned about this in regards to the safety of the
callers. The government is obviously taking all steps in silencing in or
outbound communication - with the obvious control structure in place over
communications, it would seem feasible for the government to trace calls to
these specific numbers (even if they block them) and punish people who do so.

Don't get me wrong, I want to know what is going on there, and anyone willing
to leak that information out is doing something heroic imho - but the safety
of these individuals could be in serious threat - or maybe I am just overly
paranoid...

~~~
gbhn
Of course. Protests and revolutions are dangerous business. It makes me
thoughtful about whether I'd be brave enough to take advantage of these kinds
of tools should the necessity arise.

~~~
corin_
I'd rather take my chances of being one of hundreds (or thousands) of people
speaking out on twitter than being one of hundreds of thousands marching on
the streets against tanks and men with guns.

Regardless, personally I'd do both. While it's nowhere near comparable to the
situation in Egypt, witnessing police brutality in English demonstrations
(yes, FAR FAR FAR less severe than in Egypt, but still... one of my earliest
memories was being on a political demonstration at age four in which troops of
policemen on horses were charging at us with riot police behind) hasn't
stopped me. And, where I in the Egyptians' situation, it wouldn't stop my
then, either. The danger is far worse, but so the need for action is also far
greater.

~~~
Unseelie
Last I heard, the people with tanks were fans of the revolution...

------
p90x
Seeing Americans companies take sides in the politics of foreign countries in
such enthusiastic, carefree ways leaves me feeling very uneasy.

~~~
moultano
Why?

~~~
hugh3
I'm not the OP, but I can see his point. Foreigners (not just Americans)
taking sides in political disputes which they don't really understand might
wind up helping the wrong side. Even if we just define "the wrong side" as
"not the side they would have supported if they'd known more about the
situation".

Alternatively, even if they pick "the right side", they might wind up
inadvertently helping the wrong side, since the right side can then say "Hey
look, our enemies are being propped up by foreign interests!"

Does this mean that foreigners can't take sides in political battles going on
in other countries? No, but they should certainly be circumspect about it and
do their research and not jump on a bandwagon just because it happens to smell
nice.

~~~
mkelly
I agree in principle, but in this case there's one side attempting to cut off
all uncontrolled communication in and out of the country. It seems like an
easy choice to side against their position on communication.

~~~
qq66
What if the revolution is successful but the current government is replaced
with something far worse? Would you want to be part of a company that
encouraged that?

~~~
jbri
Yes, let's support brutal dictatorships on the off-chance that a revolution
might result in an even more brutal dictatorship.

~~~
hugh3
The sarcasm is unbefitting of the seriousness of the occasion. What if it's
not an "off-chance" but a 90% probability. Or even a 50% probability?

The situation the way I see it is this: currently the bad guys are in power.
The opposition forces are the not-so-bad guys (liberal democracy types) and
the much worse guys (radical Islamists).

The Muslim Brotherhood (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood>)
are, after all, not just radical Islamists -- they're pretty much the dudes
who _invented_ radical Islam. Their obtaining power would... well, it would be
bad, especially for non-Muslims in Egypt. And probably anywhere else.

My opinion on whom to support? Well, I'm just thankful that it's _none of my
fricking business_ and I can't do anything to change the situation anyway, so
I don't really have to make a decision. But I am uncomfortable with the level
of optimism I'm seeing from some western folks who assume the good guys will
necessarily triumph (or worse, that the Muslim Brotherhood aren't _really_ bad
guys after all because they _say_ they're not in favour of violence and they
only want to form a unity government with the liberal forces whom they're
_totally_ not going to kick out at the earliest opportunity).

~~~
nkassis
The support for the Muslim brotherhood is overestimated. By the best data we
can have they have about a 25% support rate. That is not enough in my view to
take over. The situation in Egypt right now and in Iran during their
revolution is very different.

------
sfphotoarts
Thousands of years seemed to go by where uprisings didn't need social
networking.

The Babylonians didn't need Twitter when they rose up against the Assyrian
Empire. The Inaros' didn't need Facebook when they confronted the Persians in
Egypt (although they did have the help of the Greeks). Julius Caesar didn't
tweet 'hey watch out Pompey' when he marched on Roma. Did the Sicilian Vespers
need Twitter to alter the balance of European power under King Charles 1st.
Maybe the great Peasant revolt in Medieval England would have been more
successful had they used Twitter - although they did manage to keep the term
poll tax out of the tax lexicon for 600 years. Then, of course, the period of
history after Elizabeth 1st where pretty much everyone revolted at some point
(even here in America) those all seemed to happen without need for social
networking.

I think humans are perfectly well equipped to revolt without social media. The
currency of revolt has always been large numbers and big sticks.

Maybe our (the HN community) sees the world through a lens that makes it
impossible to accomplish what is an everyday occurrence (on the historical
scale) without the internet.

~~~
dholowiski
No, and I don't need pants. But when it's -30 out and I have to shovel snow,
they're sure a nice luxury.

------
ptornroth
A profoundly beautiful project, with profoundly beautiful results. Honestly, I
really think there's something more permanent here. We ought to experience
more world events with this degree of humanity, and lack of abstraction.

------
JonnieCache
Telecomix are working on their own system - they are taking faxes which they
will then post. Unfortunately they do not have the resources to set up on the
trunk in egypt like google so its an international call to germany.

[http://interfax.werebuild.eu/2011/01/31/fax-to-interfax-
for-...](http://interfax.werebuild.eu/2011/01/31/fax-to-interfax-for-egypt/)

------
nathanb
Interesting...in the old days, those phone numbers would go to the news desk
of some major media corporation. The fact that (at least purportedly)
Egyptians would consider getting their tidbits on Twitter--and the fact that
Twitter scales better for this sort of thing than even the largest old-media
institution--seems profound.

~~~
blhack
I included this point on a "reasons it's already the future" list I made the
other day (<http://www.thingist.com/t/pageview/1674/>).

We all more-or-less own internationally syndicated newspapers now. Twitter is
just the most common one.

------
nicpottier
Uhm.. isn't this what SMS is for? For one it is way cheaper for the callers,
for two it innately enforces the Twitter character limit. Doing voice to text
seems like a pretty roundabout way to do this, anybody have any clues?

It's nice and all, but just seems like a solution looking for a problem.

~~~
rayval
SMS was shut down at the same time.

------
dustyreagan
Here's a very active Google Docs spreadsheet of @Speak2Tweet translations:
[https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?hl=en&key=tVDU006Wt9...](https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?hl=en&key=tVDU006Wt97P_GkYYBmPOKQ&hl=en#gid=0)

~~~
jalammar
It stopped updating and allowing us to edit,any idea why?

------
citricsquid
This raises a thought for me with regards to my own Twitter usage. I find this
a great idea and would like to follow it, but the high level of tweets this
produces will saturate my stream and block out the other people I'm also
interested in (I follow ~30 people and keep the people I follow limited to
those I am truly interested in) so I wonder, could Twitter eventually have
some sort of "Watch" feature?

Display would be the same style as trending (maybe next to it and re-position
the suggested users) where each "watched" user is displayed with a running
tally of total tweets and next to that the # of new tweets since I last
visited their page? I guess lists would be a temporary solution, but even they
get saturated easily.

completely off topic, but maybe some others share the same desire, I figure
this is a good topic to use as an example :-)

~~~
ZoFreX
This is something I really like about Tweetdeck. You could add the Egypt
twitter feed as a "column", which would be a list of tweets alongside your
main feed, so you can more easily follow both.

If you're on the move a lot, you can sync your columns across computers /
phones, but that does involve trusting them with some of your account details.

------
ammmir
woah, i just posted <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2163688> about my
startup camp experience and doing something similar but in reverse: calling
you for new tweets.

doing my app with the google speech recognition API would be awesome!

------
ine
I find it pretty cool that Google is willing to get actively involved in this.
Some of the calls are even in English (ie.
[http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=TkxFNENGTHVQQzdTdVE4N0...](http://www.saynow.com/playMsg.html?ak=TkxFNENGTHVQQzdTdVE4N0xILzlLdz09))

------
danteembermage
This should significantly raise the economic cost to stifling speech in Egypt
for the current regime (shutting down the phone system is probably
significantly more disruptive to daily life that the internet there). Of
course assuming locals manage to find out about it.

------
mvandemar
Sad, a caller from an hour ago said they expect to have their phones
disconnected also, which would render this useless, I think:

<http://twitter.com/speak2tweet/status/32197204739362816>

------
kalpeshjoshi
This is an excellent idea, another medium to get the message, especially using
older phone technology. I think the arabic speech recognition / txt
translation is on it's way, we've come a long way with just character based
text translations (i.e. mandarin, hindi, etc.).

Another thought: it actually seems like the reverse strategy of the aftermath
of the floods in Australia. Where services need to keep the phone lines open
for rescue workers and orgs, so people could tweet their distress msgs and
location to relief orgs using broadband access over 3g.

------
yters
Hopefully the result of the revolution gets them a better government, unlike
pretty much every other revolution in history (America is a special case).

~~~
tastybites
So what you're saying is "pretty much every" current government is the worst
it's ever been?

Come on.

~~~
hugh3
No, what yters is saying is that governments installed via revolutions tend to
be worse than the ones that they replaced. Governments can and often do get
better over time, but through gradual change rather than violent revolution.

On the other hand sometimes revolutions _do_ produce better governments. I
think Indonesia kicking out the Soehartos and installing a fairly reasonable
democracy is a good recent example.

I'm not sure the American Revolution counts as a revolution at all -- it was
more of an independence movement, and I think these tend to have a better
record than true revolutions.

------
tobych
Couldn't translations be crowdsourced?

I've asked an Egyptian friend living in the UK if he could offer translations
(transcripts) of some of these.

~~~
nimda
<http://egypt.alive.in>

------
jdp23
kudos to Google and SayNow. good use of Twitter too!

------
_sebkom
Isn't this very different to the way twitter works?

I follow this account and get links that I have to click on and then click on
the "play" button again in order to listen to some(or any)one's broken
english?

