With love from Iran: Islamic Google Earth in four months

BANGALORE, INDIA: For the Iranian authorities, Google Earth is a spying tool. That very thought has now prompted them to start an Islamic competitor to Google Earth.

According to Guardian, Iran's minister for information and communications technology, Mohammad Hassan Nami, has announced that Iran is developing an "Islamic Google Earth" to be called Basir (spectator in Farsi) which will be ready for use "within the next four months".

"Preparations have been made for launching our world's 3D map project and we are currently creating an appropriate data centre which could be capable of processing this volume of information," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Nami as saying.

"On the surface, Google Earth is providing a service to users, but in reality security and intelligence organisations are behind it in order to obtain information from other countries," Nami said.