6 ms·

What3words, the GPS app that can find anyone anywhere

15 points by camtarn 8y ago

UncensoredR 8y ago
I think this is a great idea and it sounds remarkably like what DNS servers do for IP addresses. Could we modify DNS servers to provide this information (and potentially better localize it--like how country TLDs are controlled by given countries)? I think could also be very helpful for kids or the elderly in the US--they could remember a phrase much easier than their full address.
rsre 8y ago
I used to find funny that my old school What3words was stress.cheat.mixture[0]. I guess that represents the feeling of studying Telecom Engineering quite right. 0. https://map.what3words.com/stress.cheat.mixture https://map.what3words.com/stress.cheat.mixture
reustle 8y ago
What3words is a proprietary licensed database that should be public/free.
- onion2k 8y ago
  It's a very useful service, and there are some strong arguments why it should be free, but getting people to actually adopt a standard is really hard. It takes a lot of effort, time and money. Without the possibility of revenue it's very likely no one would ever have funded it, so it would never have happened. It'd have been nice if W3W was the product of a foundation like Mozilla, but it's not. There's no reason to begrudge the founders wanting to turn it in to a business.
realusername 8y ago
I'm not a huge fan of their service for copyright reasons, they don't publish a database of the words (https://support.what3words.com/hc/en-us/articles/207769875 https://support.what3words.com/hc/en-us/articles/207769875) and the whole thing is copyrighted so you can't reuse it. It makes it pretty much useless as an universal address system for this reason. Also on the downsides, I don't know for other languages but in French the words are NOT common words and a good half of them would require a dictionary for a native speaker, making the address system useless.
- lozenge 8y ago
  Note the simple words are assigned to populated areas. In the ocean it might give you "overripe.thoroughbreds.salads".
  - realusername 8y ago
    In French, on their map demo which centers the map in Paris, it's already pretty bad. I honestly have no idea what some of the words mean. Edit: A few examples taken randomly of mostly unused words in French (require a dictionary for a good 90% of native speakers): Volute, redise, dépiler, rapière, ânier, putatif, toison. All of that is in the center of Paris, and it took me 5 mins to find them, there's probably hundreds of rare words.
    - onion2k 8y ago
      I honestly have no idea what some of the words mean. Do you need to? If you don't speak the appropriate language you won't know the meaning of the words for any place. That doesn't make it any less useful so long as you can pronounce them.
      - Findus23 8y ago
        But you need to know how to write the word and in which grammatical case the word is or otherwise you end up on the wrong end of the earth because every homophone also maps to a real location.
      - realusername 8y ago
        The main goal of this project is to have memorable words instead of a meaningless address name, if that's not any better than the existing system, why would we use it?
      - BrandoElFollito 8y ago
        I French this is extremely important. For one we have plenty of homphones. Is it saut, seau, sôt sceau ? Then if you do not know a word, say châtière, it can become chattière. So only homophonically unique words and well known ones should be used
bcaa7f3a8bbc 8y ago
> “When someone asked where you lived, it would be like trying to remember your wifi router password.” That’s when this idea of three words came up. A bit of maths proved it was possible. “With 40,000 recognisable dictionary words, you have 64tn combinations, and there are 57tn squares.” Sounds like Diceware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diceware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diceware
edent 8y ago
This is an advertorial - paid for by W3W. > Tim Adams travelled to South Africa as a guest of what3words and Gateway Health In reality, they have a closed, proprietary algorithm. They charge for usage. They are the sole arbiters of what goes on there. They have weak internationalisation. Hell of a PR team though.
throwawayqdhd 8y ago
The problem with this approach is of course language limitations. Can we bypass this with a combination of numbers and universal symbols?
- edent 8y ago
  Numbers are not universal. In that 8 can be represented as Ⅷ, ב, ၇, 八 etc. But I like your idea of a mapping system based on emoji :-)
  - wingerlang 8y ago
    Except not all devices show emojis, and the discrepancy between symbols across operating systems. Not to mention, how do you even explain (say) some of them?
- mstef 8y ago
  it has been done ages ago, is called the maidenhead locator system, it is better in many ways, for example you can choose the granularity of the grid providing some privacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System
tebbers 8y ago
This is basically like DNS for latitude/longitude coordinates. Pretty cool if you think how revolutionary DNS was in making the web much more accessible. If this has the same impact then it will be spectacularly successful. Although it will be interesting to see how they can make money out of it given it is a closed model and how that conflicts with bringing its benefits to poor communities.
eliaspro 8y ago
"plus codes" [1] are a far better approach: - no language involved, only ASCII chars and + signs - open source algorithm to derive location codes - works completely offline, as codes are generated on-the-fly - no central DB of statically defined keywords needed - no dependency on a company which might go bankrupt at some point or change licensing terms at will W3W looks to me more like a strategic sell-out - implementing an already existing idea, hype it up, cooperate with some big brands (e.g. Daimler/Mercedes-Benz [2]), sell it for profit… [1] https://plus.codes/ https://plus.codes/ [2] https://blog.daimler.com/en/2018/03/28/what3words-mercedes-benz/ https://blog.daimler.com/en/2018/03/28/what3words-mercedes-b...

15 points by camtarn 8y ago

I think this is a great idea and it sounds remarkably like what DNS servers do for IP addresses. Could we modify DNS servers to provide this information (and potentially better localize it--like how country TLDs are controlled by given countries)? I think could also be very helpful for kids or the elderly in the US--they could remember a phrase much easier than their full address.

rsre 8y ago

I used to find funny that my old school What3words was stress.cheat.mixture[0]. I guess that represents the feeling of studying Telecom Engineering quite right. 0. https://map.what3words.com/stress.cheat.mixture https://map.what3words.com/stress.cheat.mixture

reustle 8y ago

What3words is a proprietary licensed database that should be public/free.

onion2k 8y ago
It's a very useful service, and there are some strong arguments why it should be free, but getting people to actually adopt a standard is really hard. It takes a lot of effort, time and money. Without the possibility of revenue it's very likely no one would ever have funded it, so it would never have happened. It'd have been nice if W3W was the product of a foundation like Mozilla, but it's not. There's no reason to begrudge the founders wanting to turn it in to a business.

realusername 8y ago

I'm not a huge fan of their service for copyright reasons, they don't publish a database of the words (https://support.what3words.com/hc/en-us/articles/207769875 https://support.what3words.com/hc/en-us/articles/207769875) and the whole thing is copyrighted so you can't reuse it. It makes it pretty much useless as an universal address system for this reason. Also on the downsides, I don't know for other languages but in French the words are NOT common words and a good half of them would require a dictionary for a native speaker, making the address system useless.

lozenge 8y ago
Note the simple words are assigned to populated areas. In the ocean it might give you "overripe.thoroughbreds.salads".
- realusername 8y ago
  In French, on their map demo which centers the map in Paris, it's already pretty bad. I honestly have no idea what some of the words mean. Edit: A few examples taken randomly of mostly unused words in French (require a dictionary for a good 90% of native speakers): Volute, redise, dépiler, rapière, ânier, putatif, toison. All of that is in the center of Paris, and it took me 5 mins to find them, there's probably hundreds of rare words.
  - onion2k 8y ago
    I honestly have no idea what some of the words mean. Do you need to? If you don't speak the appropriate language you won't know the meaning of the words for any place. That doesn't make it any less useful so long as you can pronounce them.
    - Findus23 8y ago
      But you need to know how to write the word and in which grammatical case the word is or otherwise you end up on the wrong end of the earth because every homophone also maps to a real location.
    - realusername 8y ago
      The main goal of this project is to have memorable words instead of a meaningless address name, if that's not any better than the existing system, why would we use it?
    - BrandoElFollito 8y ago
      I French this is extremely important. For one we have plenty of homphones. Is it saut, seau, sôt sceau ? Then if you do not know a word, say châtière, it can become chattière. So only homophonically unique words and well known ones should be used

bcaa7f3a8bbc 8y ago

> “When someone asked where you lived, it would be like trying to remember your wifi router password.” That’s when this idea of three words came up. A bit of maths proved it was possible. “With 40,000 recognisable dictionary words, you have 64tn combinations, and there are 57tn squares.” Sounds like Diceware. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diceware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diceware

edent 8y ago

This is an advertorial - paid for by W3W. > Tim Adams travelled to South Africa as a guest of what3words and Gateway Health In reality, they have a closed, proprietary algorithm. They charge for usage. They are the sole arbiters of what goes on there. They have weak internationalisation. Hell of a PR team though.

throwawayqdhd 8y ago

The problem with this approach is of course language limitations. Can we bypass this with a combination of numbers and universal symbols?

edent 8y ago
Numbers are not universal. In that 8 can be represented as Ⅷ, ב, ၇, 八 etc. But I like your idea of a mapping system based on emoji :-)
- wingerlang 8y ago
  Except not all devices show emojis, and the discrepancy between symbols across operating systems. Not to mention, how do you even explain (say) some of them?
mstef 8y ago
it has been done ages ago, is called the maidenhead locator system, it is better in many ways, for example you can choose the granularity of the grid providing some privacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidenhead_Locator_System

tebbers 8y ago

This is basically like DNS for latitude/longitude coordinates. Pretty cool if you think how revolutionary DNS was in making the web much more accessible. If this has the same impact then it will be spectacularly successful. Although it will be interesting to see how they can make money out of it given it is a closed model and how that conflicts with bringing its benefits to poor communities.

eliaspro 8y ago

"plus codes" [1] are a far better approach: - no language involved, only ASCII chars and + signs - open source algorithm to derive location codes - works completely offline, as codes are generated on-the-fly - no central DB of statically defined keywords needed - no dependency on a company which might go bankrupt at some point or change licensing terms at will W3W looks to me more like a strategic sell-out - implementing an already existing idea, hype it up, cooperate with some big brands (e.g. Daimler/Mercedes-Benz [2]), sell it for profit… [1] https://plus.codes/ https://plus.codes/ [2] https://blog.daimler.com/en/2018/03/28/what3words-mercedes-benz/ https://blog.daimler.com/en/2018/03/28/what3words-mercedes-b...