What3words

Ah, so it is cryptic to ask where advertisers get their money. :D:D
 
This is just getting silly. We can either install it on our phones or not.
And if, as claimed, we have to pay for it via taxation then we may as well have use of what we pay for.
And as around 80% of emergency services in the UK have now adopted this technology it's probably fair to say that it must be worth funding it. We are, after all, all forced to pay for the useless Coronavirus app that the government wasted our money on, and a lot of other things besides.

As for privacy, that ship sailed long ago. My mobile phone tracks my movements, my car satnav tracks my car movements, my 'private' medical information is available to people who aren't medical professionals, ad nauseum.

I looked up the Maidenhead locator system, and very interesting it is too, but it doesn't replace what3words. I typed in the name of our small hill farm in a remote location and it immediately showed the farmhouse location on its map, but predictably when I typed in " main gate top field nameoffarm" it came back with the farmhouse location.

My guess is that some of the people who are against the what3words app don't understand the realities of what can easily happen in remote places. For example, my youngest son had a minor accident, he turned his 15 ton drott over.
back view_red.jpg
He was completely unhurt but if he had needed help then he would have needed what3words. I posted about it here https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/this-farming-life.711419/
And, right now, it's harvest time and he's out drilling - somewhere - with no help at hand if something goes wrong
 
Garry Edwards said:
This is just getting silly. We can either install it on our phones or not.
And if, as claimed, we have to pay for it via taxation then we may as well have use of what we pay for.
And as around 80% of emergency services in the UK have now adopted this technology it's probably fair to say that it must be worth funding it. We are, after all, all forced to pay for the useless Coronavirus app that the government wasted our money on, and a lot of other things besides.

As for privacy, that ship sailed long ago. My mobile phone tracks my movements, my car satnav tracks my car movements, my 'private' medical information is available to people who aren't medical professionals, ad nauseum.

I looked up the Maidenhead locator system, and very interesting it is too, but it doesn't replace what3words. I typed in the name of our small hill farm in a remote location and it immediately showed the farmhouse location on its map, but predictably when I typed in " main gate top field nameoffarm" it came back with the farmhouse location.

My guess is that some of the people who are against the what3words app don't understand the realities of what can easily happen in remote places. For example, my youngest son had a minor accident, he turned his 15 ton drott over.
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He was completely unhurt but if he had needed help then he would have needed what3words. I posted about it here https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/this-farming-life.711419/
And, right now, it's harvest time and he's out drilling - somewhere - with no help at hand if something goes wrong
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As you say, silly.

Other opinions and facts are, of course, just as valid.
 
Garry Edwards said:
And if, as claimed, we have to pay for it via taxation then we may as well have use of what we pay for.
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I'd much rather that my taxation money was used on open systems rather than lining the pockets of the venture capitalists who have developed this closed, proprietary system.

Garry Edwards said:
As for privacy, that ship sailed long ago.
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While complete privacy is almost impossible in the connected world, that doesn't mean we should just give our privacy away. Then again, it is unfathomable to me why somebody would allow Alexa/Siri/Google to place a microphone in their house to listen to everything that they say and relay sections of it back to their paymasters.

Garry Edwards said:
He was completely unhurt but if he had needed help then he would have needed what3words.
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I'm glad that he was unhurt, but to suggest that he would have "needed" W3W is utter nonsense. There are a plethora of apps which can provide very, very accurate location data in an open, mature, well-understood manner and which he could have communicated to the emergency services - none of which have any of the cost, technological or privacy implications of W3W.

Their marketing department has done a very good job on you!
 
Contax said:
I'd much rather that my taxation money was used on open systems rather than lining the pockets of the venture capitalists who have developed this closed, proprietary system
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But it isn't. You can't control how your tax is spent.
Even if you don't use it you're contributing.
Might as well get your monies worth....oh wait, the privacy....
:LOL:
 
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Bobsyeruncle said:
You can't control how your tax is spent.
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You've obviously never heard of a thing called "voting", I take it.

(We'll leave "political activism" and "helping to educate people" for a later lesson, after you've managed the basics)
 
Had an advert on YouTube earlier from a fire brigade telling me to download w3w...
Now who paid for that? Me? The fire brigade. W3w? Aliens?
But YouTube pays me every month, and I pay taxes, so I pay the fire brigade, but I also buy things, so the advertisers use my money to pay google who charge the fire bridge, who then pay me or, no wait....


I’m so confused.
 
Contax said:
You've obviously never heard of a thing called "voting", I take it.

(We'll leave "political activism" and "helping to educate people" for a later lesson, after you've managed the basics)
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Of course I've heard of voting.
Which parties only spend your tax money on open source projects?
And if that's how you choose who to vote for, then you need to educate yourself before you start worrying about me :LOL:
 
TCR4x4 said:
Had an advert on YouTube earlier from a fire brigade telling me to download w3w...
Now who paid for that? Me? The fire brigade. W3w? Aliens?
But YouTube pays me every month, and I pay taxes, so I pay the fire brigade, but I also buy things, so the advertisers use my money to pay google who charge the fire bridge, who then pay me or, no wait....


I’m so confused.
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:LOL:
 
It works anywhere in the world. Emergency services understand it. it can be used by anyone at any time. what is not to like.
It adds no more privacy issues than already exist on your phone.
 
Contax said:
I'm glad that he was unhurt, but to suggest that he would have "needed" W3W is utter nonsense. There are a plethora of apps which can provide very, very accurate location data in an open, mature, well-understood manner and which he could have communicated to the emergency services - none of which have any of the cost, technological or privacy implications of W3W.

Their marketing department has done a very good job on you!
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Which other apps?
 
Pound Coin said:
If there is no data connection, then it is utterly useless for the purposes upthread.
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How so?

When you make an emergency phonecall, it can piggy back on other networks. It's quite common in remote areas to either have voice, but not data, or no connection at all on your network, but still be able to make an emergency call.
 
Contax said:
Their marketing department has done a very good job on you!
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They haven't done any kind of 'job' on me. My farmer son suggested that I install it because he found it invaluable. Just two days later I went to pick up a trailer that he had viewed, he had found it a real struggle to find the location, well off the beaten track, and when eventually found it he simply used what3words to get the exact location, which he then sent to me by text.
I then set my satnav to the postcode, which took me within a few miles of the actual location, and when I got there I switched to what3words, which finished the job perfectly.

Using it for this type of routine (rather than emergency) location communication is probably the bread and butter of this app.
 
KitsuneAndy said:
Which other apps?
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Pretty well every navigation app in the world understands Latitude and Longitude. And you don't even need an app or any technology (other than a map). The level of resolution required can be achieved by changing the number of significant digits used.

On my (Android) handset, I also have GPSlogger, GPS Status, GPS Test and Automagic - and probably others - which can display my current location in a format which the emergency services, and anybody else using a mature, non-proprietary, free, transparent, proven mechanism can easily understand and navigate to. But there are a vast number of apps out there which use Lat/Long - one of the big advantages of using a non-proprietary system. With W3W there is one, and only one, app, because it is a closed system.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
It works anywhere in the world. Emergency services understand it. it can be used by anyone at any time. what is not to like.
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What's not to like is that it is a closed, proprietary system whose only purpose in existing is to make money for the venture capitalists who fund it - especially as there is a free, open source, mature, transparent alternative available.

Terrywoodenpic said:
It adds no more privacy issues than already exist on your phone.
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That's simply not true - by using W3W, you are providing your existing and historic location information to a third party, with no knowledge of what they will do with it or who they will sell it to. Many of us are very careful about which apps we run on our handsets, what permissions we allow them, and what organisations we allow to access that information.
 
Contax said:
Pretty well every navigation app in the world understands Latitude and Longitude. And you don't even need an app or any technology (other than a map). The level of resolution required can be achieved by changing the number of significant digits used.

On my (Android) handset, I also have GPSlogger, GPS Status, GPS Test and Automagic - and probably others - which can display my current location in a format which the emergency services, and anybody else using a mature, non-proprietary, free, transparent, proven mechanism can easily understand and navigate to. But there are a vast number of apps out there which use Lat/Long - one of the big advantages of using a non-proprietary system. With W3W there is one, and only one, app, because it is a closed system.
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So you don't have an example of an app that gives your location in a much easier way to read out than Latitude and Longitude that doesn't require a data connection then?

Also they don't track your location, they only track searches that are made, it's all set out in their privacy policy.


" We cannot (and would not) track your movements – we only receive data on squares you open/click on or 3 word addresses that you search for when using our services (so we can give you the relevant 3 word address or location). We also use data to analyse our customer and visitor behaviour as a whole (and never on an individual level). Like most online service providers, we do this so that we can improve our users’ experience on our website and apps and improve our services."
 
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Contax said:
especially as there is a free, open source, mature, transparent alternative available.
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That a lot of people don't know about because they are marketed poorly.
Why can't you get over the fact that you're beating a drum that a lot of people don't give 2 hoots about....
If people want to use it, and are happy to use it, and companies are prepared to pay to use it, then so what if there are alternatives?
Let them use what they want to use, not what you would like them to use.
 
Contax said:
What's not to like is that it is a closed, proprietary system
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You do realise that on your phone is a proprietary chip that receives the GPS signal and closed proprietary driver software that and presents the Lat, Long, etc to the OS which in turn provides it to those other apps?

I just struggle to understand why, of all the problems in the world, of all the hills on which you could choose to fight, you choose this mole hill.
 
duty_calls.png
 
I can remember a 3 word combination fairly easily but have problems with a 6 digit number let alone more than that. How many people here can recite their lat/long coordinates to the nearest second and/or their map reference, including letters to within 10 metres?
 
Format.Moral.Status couldn't possibly be related to any religion, could it?
 
TCR4x4 said:
But YouTube pays me every month, and I pay taxes, so I pay the fire brigade, but I also buy things, so the advertisers use my money to pay google who charge the fire bridge, who then pay me or, no wait....
I’m so confused.
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I'm not ;)

59827_WiOMq.jpg
 
Cobra said:
I'm not ;)

View attachment 289744
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I always think of it more as cows being milked, after all if facebook killed and ate it's users it would run out of ad revenue. Put out some nice stuff for people to graze on and people keep coming back for more, when they come back you milk them a little.

That said, I once heard an interesting point of view that the cows are actually farming us. Ten or fifteen thousand years ago all humans were lactose intolerant, the cows bread lactose tolerance into us so that we would look after the cows, protect them from predators, provide them with better food and generally make sure there were more cows. Natural selection at work ;)
 
Looks like they are making more money.

View: https://BANNED/cybergibbons/status/1579726108546994177
 
Pound Coin said:
Looks like they are making more money.

View: https://BANNED/cybergibbons/status/1579726108546994177
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That's a shame. It's a useful service and it would be nice if they did well. Though if I remember stuff my accountant used to drone on about, administrative expenses includes things like salary so at least the workers are getting paid.

Meanwhile I had to call the coastguard the other day. I don't know if the W3W location actually helped but they were on scene jolly fast. As other people have mentioned, drifting RIBs don't often have postcodes.
 
Pound Coin said:
You do not have to read a coordinate! The tech is already there.

with what three words you need a smartphone and the app. With coordinates you don’t.
with what three words you are reliant on the proprietary and secret algorithm that belongs to a private company that is trying desperately to make money. With coordinates you are not.
with what three words each square of definition bears absolutely no connection with the square next door, unless you have the algorithm you cannot find out what is right next to where you are. With coordinates you can.
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FFS. Just don't use it. We don't care
 
I don't know enough about What3Words to know if this could be included, but it would be useful if there was some way of sending the three words to emergency services, rather than the words having to be spoken..

There have been problems with the spoken words being mis-heard.

Dave
 
Tringa said:
I don't know enough about What3Words to know if this could be included, but it would be useful if there was some way of sending the three words to emergency services, rather than the words having to be spoken..

There have been problems with the spoken words being mis-heard.

Dave
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I doubt whether this is an issue. The words used appear to be random but in fact are not, for example, my current location is amaze.tortoises.boom. amaze.tortoises.boon is 15,000 km away . . .
 
Tringa said:
I don't know enough about What3Words to know if this could be included, but it would be useful if there was some way of sending the three words to emergency services, rather than the words having to be spoken..

There have been problems with the spoken words being mis-heard.

Dave
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There is already a way that mobile phones can send location data in the emergency call, I think. Can’t remember what it is called, but it already exists.
 
ecoleman said:
Did you ever or do you still work?

Did you or do you work for free?
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Well, I have worked, do work, both for pay and for free.

A sum in the region of £43,000,000 would have been very well received…

Obviously that isn’t all pay. It does seem an awful lot to spend to get a turnover of £440,000.
 
W3W as pointed out is a proprietary system unlike GPS.

Talking of GPS I was listening to a tech/business news item about the Chinese version of GPS (?) navigation that is being sold globally (soft power in action again?) and apparently does garner personal data along with precise(?) locationing.

They have their own population under strict surveillance and are now putting in place a none camera based system in other (mostly poorer(?) countries!
 
Pound Coin said:
There is already a way that mobile phones can send location data in the emergency call, I think. Can’t remember what it is called, but it already exists.
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AML, but it's not particularly accurate unless you're around lots of wifi points etc. In remote locations it's likely to give a big radius around the transmitter you're connected to. Which while better than nothing, isn't very specific.
 
Ah yes, AML. Thanks.

Advanced Mobile Location - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

edited to add it seems it isnt just dependent on the transmitter location, but uses GPS too to get the best accuracy.

When a person in distress calls the emergency services with a smartphone where AML is enabled, the telephone automatically activates its location service to establish its position and sends this information to the emergency services via an SMS.[4] The services uses either a global navigation satellite system or WiFi depending on which one is better at the given moment. It was estimated that this technique is up to 4000 times more accurate than the previously used system.[5]
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Pound Coin said:
There is already a way that mobile phones can send location data in the emergency call, I think. Can’t remember what it is called, but it already exists.
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you may be thinking of SARLOC which quite an impressive system developed by mountain rescue members in 2011 to locate a persons grid reference position by sending them a text with a link to click on. Looks like it was an early version of AML created in 2014.
 
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