Now Bambuser live streaming mobile video of protests is blocked by Egypt

Well, so far the authoritarian regime in Egypt has taken steps to crack down on the uprising of its population by shutting down first Twitter andnow Facebook, and thus useful parts of the movement’s ability to organise itself. No-one is suggesting that these this are essential to the people on the ground, but they certainly can’t hurt.

Now the government is taking steps to shut down web video services, and one of them is the live mobile video startupBambuser. The company has now confirmed in a blog post that the service was shut down yesterday.

The government there is also reportely blocking 3G access in demonstration areas to prevent live streaming. Inspired by the recent Tunisian demonstrations against corruption, protesters are massing in Cairo to demonstrate against government corruption and policies.

Meanwhile, Bambuser (which also runs on over 250 mobile phones, including those on Android, Sambung Bada, Symbian and Windows) has updated its iPhone application (iTunes link) to combine lower latency and higher quality live broadcasting. It’s also using hardware accelerated video streaming, alongside on-demand frame rate enhancements to improve the service.

Bambuser remains independent while it’s main competitor, Qik, was recently acquired by Skype.

Here are some of the videos posted on Bambuser before the block came into effect. And here’s a list of the videos posted from Egypt before the block.

Source: Tech Crunch