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Iran Plans To Launch an 'Islamic Google Earth'

Posted by Soulskill on from the hope-they-can-come-up-with-a-better-name-than-that dept.

Shipwack sends this quote from the Guardian: "The Iranian authorities have long accused Google Earth of being a tool for western spy agencies, but now they have taken their attacks on the 3D mapping service one step further — by planning the launch of an 'Islamic' competitor. ... The minister, however, gave little information on what he meant by an Islamic 3D map. 'We are developing this service with the Islamic views we have in Iran and we will put a kind of information on our website that would take people of the world towards reality Our values in Iran are the values of God and this would be the difference between Basir and the Google Earth, which belongs to the ominous triangle of the U.S., England and the Zionists [a reference to Israel].' Experts, however, have serious doubts about the project. An IT consultant who has worked on Iran's national internet project in the past said the announcement was merely an excuse to obtain funds and secure working contracts for the future. 'They have claimed to run their service in four months and said their data centre capacity will reach Google's size in three years,' he said. 'Three-year project, no business model and only relying on government funding, a piece of cake indeed. To have a data centre with such capacity and security level they need power stations, cooler systems, bandwidth, etc, which will require billions of dollars of investment that doesn't fit with Iran's sanctions-hit economy.'"

5 of 181 comments (clear)

  1. I know what it will look like... by tnk1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It will look something like this:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T_and_O_map

    Only, it will probably be centered in Mecca.

  2. Real reason is probably the firewall by lamber45 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Right now, GMail, YouTube and Maps are all mixed together (not necessarily 100%, probably possible to do IP filtering, but Google may be moving away from that) ... take maps away and it's easier to block the other two.

  3. Re:So it will have burkas instead of smudges? by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    /. sure has a lot of them.

    Hey, nobody said anything about them having to be female, right?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. Re:Islamic 3D Earth by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "These two groups probably comprise the majority of Christians in the USA."
    no,. they don't. There just the loudest sects of that particular cult.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  5. Re:I'm confused... by Gogo0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    yeah, those are called "maps of the USA", likewise, a map of spain doesnt typically include the rest of the continent or neighbors.
    another sign that blind nationalism is really out of hand: when people base their criticisms on map orientation