The internet has taken center stage in Iran\'s post-election showdown.
With foreign media confined to their hotel rooms or expelled, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and the cellphone camera have been key actors in helping Iranians to share information and in bringing the unfolding drama to the world.
The most dramatic example is the death of a young woman, apparently called Neda, posted to YouTube, which has become a global news story.
It is one of thousands of Iran-related videos being uploaded to YouTube every day, documenting widespread protests and riots, Mashable said.
In other developments:
Mobile services were shut down for two days following the election. Government filters continue to block opposition party messages, as well as posts on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Iranian bloggers and election observers have resorted to using proxy servers to report on Iran\'s election controversy, CBC News said.
A number of activists groups have made software available aiming to bypass the censorship efforts. One such program is PsiPhon. Developed by the University of Toronto\'s Citizenlab, PsiPhon has been made available for Twitter users.
Google added Persian (Farsi) support to its Google Translate feature on Thursday. "We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran," Google principal scientist Franz Och posted on the official Google blog.
"You can now translate any text from Persian into English and from English into Persian "” whether it\'s a news story, a website, a blog, an email, a tweet or a Facebook message." he said.
Google also published recent satellite photos of Tehran, and said it will attempt to provide higher resolution photos in the coming weeks.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi - main rival to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - has protested the results of the June 13 election, in which the incumbents were said to have won 62% of the vote. He has attacked "obvious" violations in the poll, and has called on the result to be nullified.