FireChat Helps Hong Kong Protesters Overcome Traffic Jam
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Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrators finding it difficult to communicate over congested mobile-phone networks are downloading the application FireChat about 100,000 times a day in an effort to stay connected.
Open Garden Inc.’s FireChat, which gained popularity during protests this year in Iraq and Taiwan, allows users to send messages using Bluetooth or peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, which is optimal for places where cellular networks are congested.