An iPhone app has been launched to give users a tour of the major sites connected to the revolution in Egypt in January.
Available on Rama, an iPhone augmented reality app that serves as a portal for users to find and take photographic walking tours, Revolution in Cairo uses the iPhone’s mapping and GPS functions to guide users around the locations in Tahrir Square that served as the foci of the protests. ”
The app also allows users to see how the streets of Cairo actually looked during the days that followed the start of the protests on January 25, a statement from Rama said.
Scenes include a plaza turned into a camp of protestors’ tents, injured protestors bleeding from rubber bullet wounds, and volunteers repainting the street curbs during the post-revolution clean-up.
Written by Hend Elhallage, a Cairo native, the tour represents Rama’s first foray into a contemporary, and still developing, historical event.
Will Bevins, a senior editor for Rama, said: “Hend and I agreed early on that having first-hand accounts of the protests from those present would heighten the sense of immediacy and give an understanding of the human costs of the revolution.
“We decided to issue an open call to those who were at Tahrir Square to submit their own stories and photos to add to the tour, with the goal of better representing not only the events that occurred before Mubarak’s fall, but also current developments, as the protests continue even now.”
The first story to be featured in the tour is an account by Amr Salama, an Egyptian director and writer who was detained by soldiers and suffered blows to his “head and stomach, and… every inch of [his] body”.
Bevins added that, while authors could submit their stories and photos by posting them on Rama’s Facebook page, they could also e-mail them directly to the company and request that they be posted anonymously, though he also emphasised that “due diligence” would be conducted to ensure the accuracy of the accounts, before they are added to the tour itself.