What 3 Words

[EM2]

We had a presentation on this at work today, and I was immediately struck by how much time could be saved in an emergency.
What 3 Words divides the whole surface of the world into 3m x 3m squares, fifty-seven trillion of them! And each of those squares is given three words to work as an address.
So for example, instead of 'I'm somewhere near Atherstone, on the B4116. I think I went through Bentley last, about a mile back maybe?' you switch on location on your phone, open the app, press Locate, and it gives you the three word address - sometimes.parade.button and your location can be pinpointed to that 3m x 3m square.
You can do it in a browser, www.what3words.com or there's an app for iOS and Android.
Does anyone else use it?

 

[pdeaves]

Does anyone else use it?

Personally, no I don't use it. I prefer to use grid references as they are easily matched against a map.

 

[AndrewE]

Personally, no I don't use it. I prefer to use grid references as they are easily matched against a map.

Me too. I suppose that using it a) locks you into their app and direction-finding and b) gives "them" access to all your cookies - for their benefit of course.
If something seems to be free, then it's likely that you are the product!

 

[Puffing Devil]

I first saw this over a year ago and think it's a great idea. It makes it very easy to give a precise location anywhere in the world. No worry about transposed digits in Grid Refs, or even which mapping system covers the county that you're in.

I saw a company website using it as a location identified earlier this week. I hope it cacthes on.

Want to meet your friends in a crowd, maybe at a festival: big.rockers.here easy.

 

[edwin_m]

The confusion between similar-sounding words is why the phonetic alphabet is generally used by professionals for safety-critical communication. Do they block similar words (difficult as some sound similar in some accents but not others) or is there a risk of the emergency services heading for donut.hive.plug instead of don't.live.pig?

 

[yorkie]

It's clearly a gimmick, designed to trap you into their platform.

The confusion between similar-sounding words is why the phonetic alphabet is generally used by professionals for safety-critical communication. Do they block similar words (difficult as some sound similar in some accents but not others) or is there a risk of the emergency services heading for donut.hive.plug instead of don't.live.pig?

There are loads of similar sounding phrases, which are nowhere near each other.

 

[E_Reeves]

I've just had a quick play around with this and it's amazing! I've never really though about how many combinations there could be until now...

 

[EM2]

It's clearly a gimmick, designed to trap you into their platform.

In what way? If you search for a location, then press Navigate, it gives a number of options to use, include Google Maps and Waze (as I have them installed).
A number of police and also fire and rescue services are using it to locate incidents.

 

[EM2]

There are loads of similar sounding phrases, which are nowhere near each other.

Which is a design feature. If you call Bedfordshire Police, and they mishear slightly but get an address in rural Hungary, it's obviously wrong.

 

[najaB]

What 3 Words divides the whole surface of the world into 3m x 3m squares, fifty-seven trillion of them! And each of those squares is given three words to work as an address.

Nice idea. If you're an English speaker.

 

[EM2]

Nice idea. If you're an English speaker.

Available in 35 different languages.

 

[najaB]

Available in 35 different languages.

So they aren't unique and unambiguous then, are they?

 

[Josie]

It's clearly a gimmick, designed to trap you into their platform.

Only in as much as any other new app/website/service is designed to 'trap' you into their platform. It provides a mapping service which you can use if you like it; if you don't, or if you're communicating with someone who doesn't have it, you can just switch to Google Maps or grid refs or whatever else you want to use.

So they aren't unique and unambiguous then, are they?

I can't think of a problem caused by one location having multiple names. The location which is robot.vent.crew in English is anís.cartera.corrosivos in Spanish, and if you have either one of those it uniquely identifies a place. As long as you don't have one name resolving to multiple locations it should be fine.

I've never used what3words before but I had heard of it. I've just been having a play around with it and I quite like it.

 

[EM2]

So they aren't unique and unambiguous then, are they?

I'm not sure what your point is.
You can share any address in any of the supported languages, so for example the address oppose.tape.fantastic can be shared in Polish as trawniki.kurka.sernik.

 

[ComUtoR]

Sitting here, at my Laptop.

I click use location - I get 3 words
I type in my postcode - I get 3 different words

What happens if the user can't read ?
Can't access their current location ?

 

[Josie]

Sitting here, at my Laptop.

I click use location - I get 3 words
I type in my postcode - I get 3 different words

What happens if the user can't read ?
Can't access their current location ?

You're not physically at the exact centre of your postcode area. Searching just your postcode, instead of defining exactly where you are, will give you an inaccurate location - just like with any other mapping system.

If you can't read then you probably can't use w3w, unless it has voice functions I haven't noticed yet, or unless it integrates with other assistive apps - but in that case you probably wouldn't be able to use many other map/address systems either.

 

[ComUtoR]

My phone and my iPad also ping different locations.

but in that case you probably wouldn't be able to use many other map/address systems either.

In an emergency, I can call 999 and tell them where I am. When you're reliant on very specific technology you are bound by its limitations.

 

[Puffing Devil]

My phone and my iPad also ping different locations.

In an emergency, I can call 999 and tell them where I am. When you're reliant on very specific technology you are bound by its limitations.

Can you really - stuck in the backend of nowhere with a smartphone; You're stuck with vague descriptions. AFAIK Google Maps won't give you a National Grid Reference for the UK and I'm not sure LAT/LONG is readily accepted by many police control rooms.

 

[ComUtoR]

Can you really - stuck in the backend of nowhere with a smartphone;

I've called 999 on a few occasions. One that springs to mind is when I was driving down some backwater country lane and I was able to give the operator a good description of where I was. This was the days before phones were all singing and dancing.

I've also had to ring 999 somewhere I had no idea where I was. Whilst this app would undoubtedly been helpful I was still able to give clear information to the Operator.

Technology isn't the solution to everything and it still has limitations. Sometimes I wonder how we ever managed.

Where my ex lives. You are lucky to get any kid of data signal, you're lucky if your mobile works.

 

[najaB]

...I'm not sure LAT/LONG is readily accepted by many police control rooms.

Maybe not by the police control room, but 999 have the ability to convert coordinates to street addresses.

Speaking of coordinates...

You can share any address in any of the supported languages, so for example the address oppose.tape.fantastic can be shared in Polish as trawniki.kurka.sernik.

Do you know what 56.655°N 3.120°W in English translates to in Polish...?

The phrase "Solution looking for a problem" comes to mind for some reason.

 

[Josie]

When you're reliant on very specific technology

I don't think anybody would suggest relying on this app for anything. It's just one way to turn your phone's location data into something human-readable to pass to somebody else (e.g. emergency services, friends trying to find each other). I can easily envisage using this during a 999 call if offered, alongside a postal address or a road description. Or giving my current location words to a friend after saying "I'm underneath the third tree on the right" or whatever. I currently use Glympse to do this but w3w could well be quicker and easier if passing the information by voice/phone call.

 

[edwin_m]

Can't 999 operators access the GPS on mobiles anyway?

 

[Puffing Devil]

Can't 999 operators access the GPS on mobiles anyway?

Maybe not by the police control room, but 999 have the ability to convert coordinates to street addresses.

Location services is certainly live in Android and the phone location passed to the Emergency Service - I'm assuming to the control room with the call - there's little a 999 operator can do with the information.

No more than 15 years ago I came across an accident on a rural back lane. Back then the police could not work with a Grid Reference over the phone, I had to give them directions back to the nearest main road, which I did using my OS map.

 

[ComUtoR]

Or giving my current location words to a friend after saying "I'm underneath the third tree on the right" or whatever. I currently use Glympse to do this but w3w could well be quicker and easier if passing the information by voice/phone call.

I have just come back from holiday and went out on my own for a day. My Sister said if I get lost, WhatsApp can share location. A small side note : I couldn't use any data services whilst there (Damn you EE !)

Various apps can already share location to another user. The website uses Google Maps which also has location sharing services.

Another thing I just noticed. The google map for my area is out of date. It's also weirdly showing roads that haven't been built yet.

 

[etr221]

There is an alternative to what3words called Mapcodes - they both do the same thing: provide a label/address for a square with a side of a few metres, to enable you to quote a location (random example: Mapcode GBR VBM.B1H equates to what3words saves.quaking.sensitive, and various sets of coordinates).

In their slightly different ways, they are both user friendly ways of doing this: equally they both have the same issues of being - in some sense - 'propriatery' systems, reliant on you having their app/algorithm to encode and decode location, and a GPS (or similar) system to identify where somewhere is on the ground - their precision is comparable to GPS accuracy; and neither will permit you to read a location off a map. And given two locations, there is no indication of how far apart they are.

So within Great Britain, my preference remains the National Grid...

 

[najaB]

And given two locations, there is no indication of how far apart they are.

That's a very good point - thee word locations can't be used for navigation without converting them through a 'normal' grid coordinate system (National Grid, WGS 84, etc.)

 

[yorkie]

Very good points here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technol...t-postal-addresses-you-have-ever-read/487160/

....What3Words seems less like a novel and revolutionary approach and more like a new way of extracting money from public coffers.

“If you just want to find a location [on What3Words], you have to go through this middleman who has exclusive control,” says Tom Lee, a data developer at Mapbox and the former director of Sunlight Labs. “That’s lousy.”

The setup reminded him of Dun & Bradstreet, a business-intelligence firm that assigned numerical IDs to other businesses in order to index them. In the early 2000s, the federal government and other organizations began using these IDs, called DUNS numbers, to organize companies that wanted to bid for contracts. This meant that even bidding on a government contract required a DUNS number.

“The goal here was basically: get the government to give us a subsidy,” said Lee. When a private company gets entangled in public infrastructure, “they can keep extracting money from anyone who has to touch it,” he told me. The U.S. government has paid Dun & Bradstreet millions to use the DUNS system.

(In a statement, a spokeswoman for Dun & Bradstreet said “the public sector, much like the private sector, has relied on the value of Dun & Bradstreet data and standards for operational efficiency, and utilizes our data—organized by the DUNS number—for actionable insight.”)

For Leigh Dodds, a U.K. consultant who works on open-data issues, the problems only start with finding a location. Because of the terms of What3Words’ software license, someone cannot say which addresses line up with which locations without owing money to What3Words.

“Once you want to use that [What3Words] data set as a piece of infrastructure, you’re immediately hampered by licensing,” Dodds told me.

In other words, he thinks What3Words might be a fine system for labeling letters and packages. But someone could not lawfully use it to make a database of which addresses correspond to which GPS coordinates. In a blog post critical of What3Words, Dodds rattled off how this could become a problem: when describing land ownership, when running a census or statistical agency, or when mapping an area during a natural disaster.

In fact, What3Words seems to come in for almost universal criticism by U.S. and U.K. open-map developers....

I challenge anyone who thinks this is a good idea to read that, and still think it's a good idea. If anyone still thinks it's a good idea, then I'd be curious to learn what vested interests they have!

 

[EM2]

Speaking of coordinates...
Do you know what 56.655°N 3.120°W in English translates to in Polish...?

I do. A lot of people don't know what that means at all though. To them, it's a string of numbers with a couple of small circles and letters, and they'd not have the first idea in how you'd say it.

/
I challenge anyone who thinks this is a good idea to read that, and still think it's a good idea. If anyone still thinks it's a good idea, then I'd be curious to learn what vested interests they have!

I guess all the police services and fire & rescue services that are using it must be in the pocket of big business then.

That's a very good point - thee word locations can't be used for navigation without converting them through a 'normal' grid coordinate system (National Grid, WGS 84, etc.)

And why does that matter? How does my home address in the usual format allow you to navigate to it without doing that (I guess you could do it with a multitude of paper maps if you had them to hand)?

Another thing I just noticed. The google map for my area is out of date. It's also weirdly showing roads that haven't been built yet.

W3W addresses will never change. post.bat.merry will always be post.bat.merry, whether that square is the middle of a field or it becomes the driveway of 17 Elm Road.

 

[yorkie]

(@EM2 I have merged the previous 4 posts into one post, as there is no need for 4 consecutive posts)

I guess all the police services and fire & rescue services that are using it must be in the pocket of big business then.

The fourth paragraph I quoted is very relevant here.

A bit more:

...Designing privately owned systems into essential public infrastructure can end catastrophically. Sheldrick told me that “we look to act responsibly and give people something that works,” and I am sure they do. But it doesn’t matter if users personally trust Sheldrick or the What3Words team. Intellectual property rights can easily change hands, and they always outlive their owners and their owners’ good intentions. By nestling its private addressing system into a necessarily public addressing system, What3Words will be too well positioned to hike its fees and charge the public.....

The article also goes on to discuss the selling off of the Royal Mail's postcode registry and the £millions being spent re-creating a usable version.

 

[Josie]

I challenge anyone who thinks this is a good idea to read that, and still think it's a good idea.

These are some good points and something to be concerned about, definitely. It's not a meaningful criticism of the system itself - I can still imagine use cases for me personally and with friends - but it's a convincing argument against integrating it into public infrastructure.