[tomcooks]

Terrible: based on a single language, proprietary, IP owners being assholes, creates problems to the user case it was supposedly designed for, doesn't feature distance computing algorithms, takes even more space in a DB cell than latlong, I can go on for days.

Use numbers.

[moooo99]

There are really are issues with such a system and you listed some of them, but your recommendation makes me feel like you didn't read beyond the headline.

They need a way to transfer location data by the word of mouth, which is extremely difficult when you're using numbers. With longer numbers, such as a comparatively precise location, you have a high risk of errors on both ends, so searching for a solution makes absolute sense.

Nevertheless, based on the proprietary IP maybe the rescue services should consider building an own solution or evaluating open source alternatives if there are any

[another-dave]

Though What 3 Words requires you to download a custom app & for the emergency services to use a back-end for the same app when handling incoming calls — if we're doing that, could we not just have a simple app that checks your GPS and then dials 999 with your lat/lng added to the phone number?

My bank get me to key in my sort code & account number while using telephone banking. If we did the same here, we could get the precision of GPS without the user needing to call out any numbers

[teruakohatu]

In New Zealand if you call the emergency number 111, the operator can automatically request the location of the device from the telco (with no opt out) if they belive there is a serious emergency and the location is not communicated. There is also some standardised way for the mobile phone to automatically send GPS coordinates to emergency numbers.

[OxO4]

There's a standard for automatically sharing the current location with emergency services, which is supported by both Android and iOS [0]. According to the wiki article, the UK is even one of the countries that uses AML.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Mobile_Location

[tomcooks]

Bonus points: all modern browsers understand coordinate based location, no need to add an app.

[PinguTS]

AFAIK, this is required in the US. If you call 911 they can request your GPS position. All cell phones for that reason are required to do GPS. Even simple feature phones can do GPS in some way. They can acquire the GPS signal and then will forward that to the cell tower, which then is able to do the required calculations to translate that in coordinates. Somewhere around that line it was working, IRC.

[tomcooks]

Why would I read only the headline and comment? To gain imaginary internet points which I can spend literally nowhere? No worries my friend, I don't have ADHD and can read 2 minutes long articles.

It's not clear to me how a stupid system like this is used in favour of, say, 5 numbers+5 numbers (4 decimals coordinates lead to a ~5.5m radius)

I'm not sure I understand what you mean with "high risk of errors on both ends", as there is no chance of mispelling. How do I know that? Because numbers are used in military standards for comms that have to be clear even through unreliable channels. Languages that have numbers which might be misunderstood specifically use a different number set (one example is the military in China).

Building your own solution when you have a GLOBALLY ACCEPTED standard that took YEARS to be agreed upon is criminal in my opinion, rescue missions on the Alps where different cultures meet being a great example why you should stick to numbers.

[avh02]

have you ever tried providing a phone number/account number/id number over the phone? how easily/correctly was it transferred?

Now add in hypothermia, noise, weather, or bodily harm to that equation.

The only improvement would be if the app could provide the NATO phonetic alphabet version of your coordinates to you - but you're not going to remember those without looking at your screen while talking - which is multitasking in a situation that you probably aren't going to do it well in.

Finally, the verbal transfer time is about 1/3.

I don't like this thing for the reasons provided (proprietary and clearly has issues), but would rather see this in use than trying to provide ten numbers while bleeding out.

[tomcooks]

Have you tried having an injured foreigner spell words, maybe foreign, in the exact same situation? Yeah

[avh02]

I can ask the same about knowing and pronouncing numbers.

regardless, this is an article about a UK company's product being used by UK emergency services. An injured foreigner who can't speak English is going to have trouble with numbers too (granted, you may learn numbers first). You don't just make a call to emergency services and start spewing out numbers with no other vocabulary.

I can see your point on an international scale, and agree with you that this product is not globally scalable. Language barriers are language barriers until we all have the fictional babel fish.

edit: besides, you can always provide phonetic 'translations' if you want in to a foreigner's language/script if you must - not my preferred solution either though.

[PinguTS]

In military your are speaking about trained people to use proper pronunciation to eliminate disambiguation.

In rescue we are talking about untrained people how give an initial communication by word of mouth. This data is then translated to coordinates and then communication by then trained people in the chain of rescue.

So the problem is this initial communication by untrained people.

[PeterisP]

It's less about difference between words and numbers for encoding information and about the fact that what3words have chosen a very, very bad way of reliably encoding information in words. With their set of words there is an extreme risk of error and miscommunication, searching for a solution makes sense but their particular solution is not it.

There's a lot of research on how to choose words to ensure reliability of communication and reduce risk of misunderstandings, for example, the criteria used for Aviation Phonetic Alphabet - and what3words fails to take all that into account.

You don't want separate things that are pronounced nearly the same, what3words fails in this regard as it contains many pairs like wants/once, secretary/secretory, ordinance/ordnance.

You'd want a person that can reconfirm that word multiple to be certain that they've got that right, but what3words includes singular and plural wordforms (e.g. leader/leaders) which has caused miscommunication even when the responder has understood that they've got the right concept for the word or when the person who recites the three words from memory mistakenly thinks they've memorized it right.

You'd want to ensure that the words are limited to a set of sounds that are clearly pronouncable and understandable by non-native speakers of different backgrounds, what3words does not even attempt that.

In short, the particular system is poorly designed and fundamentally flawed because of that.

[rich_sasha]

> Nevertheless, based on the proprietary IP maybe the rescue services should consider building an own solution or evaluating open source alternatives if there are any

Weren’t there a bunch of people trying to do exactly that (FOSS, translatable etc) only to get sued or as-good-as by what3words?

[politelemon]

> They need a way to transfer location data by the word of mouth, which is extremely difficult when you're using numbers.

That doesn't sound correct. Numbers are universal, easier to remember, and less ambiguous than three English words. I don't see how it's more error prone to use numbers based systems, which many organisations and communities have been using for decades. And also considering the length of the three words which is roughly the same.

[Brainmulch]

Woah I really have to disagree with numbers being easier to remember. I would imagine 3x words is far easier to remember than 12-16 numbers, and I don't see how it couldn't not be the case. The problem with using words that I see are as you've said - English locale isn't global, words without context can be misheard easily etc

[moooo99]

Most people nowadays don't even remember their own phone number, let alone can remember two 4-5 digit numbers for their location. If I'd take 100 peoples to test what combination they can remember easier, I bet they have a harder time remembering 5.2345 + 6.2342 than dog.fridge.coffee.

[zimpenfish]

> With longer numbers, such as a comparatively precise location, you have a high risk of errors on both ends

Although the numeric location gets more precise as you add more numbers - if they only get 3 decimal places, that's about 110x80m in the UK.

If you use degrees, minutes and seconds, you only need 6 numbers to get ~30x20m in the UK (and a decimal place on the seconds brings it down to ~3x2m - the same as W3W.)

[jokoon]

What about geohash?

Not sure it's good enough over a crappy phone line...

[tiew9Vii]

I was thinking the exact same thing.

With a geohash someone only needs to provide 7 to 9 characters depending where they are and the accuracy needed.

Also as each additional character in the hash adds accuracy it should be easy for an operator to easily sanity check i.e caller to operator "I am hiking in the lake district...my geohash is ..." the operator only needs the first four characters to confirm if the general location is correct or not.

I guess it's still prone to spelling errors from operators inputting the data from a call.

As others say if you are installing an app to give you a location i.e. a geohash you can use an app to give a lat/lng.

[jillesvangurp]

Actually, w3w has localized their system for multiple languages. You can select a different language on their website. They have customers in several of the countries speaking those languages.

You can trivially do distance calculation by using their algorithm (which works offline if you use their sdk) to get the coordinates. The DB space is completely irrelevant: this algorithm is intended for humans being able to memorize three words. So, not sure what you are going on about here. Again, they have paying customers that are getting value out of this. Hard to argue with that, which you seem to be attempting here.

I'm not aware of a better solution that is usable by normal people. Good luck communicating a geohash to the emergency services. It's not going to be a thing as much as I like using them. Placekey seems one of their competitors but they don't produce human readable codes and they are US only. In any case, most people don't even know their latitude or longitude to any kind of precision. Coordinates are hard for people.

Regarding the IP, they use a combination of patents (the algorithm) and copyright (the word list) to protect their IP. They built a customer base around this stuff and they are well within their rights to protect their own work, which is what they are doing. IP law is what it is and w3w is simply using that as it was intended (protecting IP). That's just normal behavior for VC funded startups. Try to get some IP through some honest work, protect it, build a business around it. They are not being patent trolls here.

The way I see it, w3w has built their business without edge cases like in this article being a major obstacle to them. You could argue emergency services are important enough that they might want to improve their word list a bit. But still, it's not a basis for dismissing their business model, solution and general right to exist.

IMHO they are a bit over valued at this point and a likely acquisition target for someone so the investors get their bail out. Their current strategy is a long term dead end from the point of view of people adopting this. The proprietary nature of their solution is an obstacle for that. Once patents expire, similar solutions might emerge with different word lists, numbers of words, etc. that are more successful. Alternatively, post acquihire, a visionary company might just use some more liberal licensing to make this a bit more attractive.