Google Earth, the Islamic Version

Title got your attention? Iranian authorities decided to come up with their own version of Google Earth, the 3D version. Now that you’ve stopped laughing, surely you must be wondering why? Easy: Because Google Earth “belongs to the ominous triangle of the U.S., England and the Zionists”, as per an Iranian minister.

Oh, and it will be an Islamic version, of course. Whatever that means.

This news was a great topic for commenters on Slashdot. Here’s the set of comments I loved.

One guy explained the intent of this project:

“They have long wanted to wipe Israel off the face of the map and this is how they will do it. Just make their own maps and pretend they don't exist.”

And ended with the hope:

“Now if only they would do support virtual terrorism instead of real terrorism.”

An “expert” on the Quran pointed out that the great book says the earth is flat. Would the map reflect that? To which came the smartass answer:

“No, It'll be round, just wearing a burka.”

The flat earth point also raised a very valid question:

“So, what would be the point of creating a 3D image of a proclaimed 2D world?!?”

And also raised the very scientific/military question:

“what impact (pun intended) does that have when an islamic rocket scientist tries to calculate an ballistic missile trajectory?”

Someone suggested making the maps audience friendly:

“They could replace street view with Terrorist View, showing all the best places for terrorist bombings.”

To which was proposed the following UI improvement:

“They could replace the magnifying glass cursor with a crosshairs cursor.”

To wrap up, in an America dominated world (and Internet), the question of how they would show America on the map had to come up:

“I wonder if it will show a crudely drawn America with the caption – “Here be dragons”.”

Which was immediately corrected:

“I think you misspelled 'Satan'.”