3 ms·

Rescuers pinpoint location of injured walker on Flinders Island using what3words

6 points by martyvis 6y ago

martyvis 6y ago
Location referred to in the story was https://what3words.com/murky.founding.spoonfuls https://what3words.com/murky.founding.spoonfuls
Nextgrid 6y ago
Here we go again. They seem to have taken a bit of a break but looks like they dusted off the good old propaganda machine again. For those who don't know, W3W is a proprietary service which maps locations to a unique 3-word identifier, similar to Plus Codes aka Open Location Codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code The company behind it is extremely scummy. They provide absolutely no additional value compared to existing Plus Codes and their only attempt to profit is heavy PR/marketing (like this article) to encourage adoption, after which they will presumably be charging lots of money to developers for the right to do W3W <-> GPS coordinates lookups. Their terms explicitly forbid reverse-engineering the algorithm and even caching results of past lookups. They have also used DMCA claims to take down alternative clean-room implementations even though no copyright was violated; at best it would be a patent infringement (if it even stands, as some jurisdictions don't recognise software patents). Seems like their new domain is now available and still working as of now: https://whatfreewords.net https://whatfreewords.net The stories around W3W are always the same. Someone gets stranded somewhere, magically has a fully functional phone with GPS & cell reception, can call emergency services and open Google Maps but is apparently unable to read back GPS coordinates or use "send my location" in their messaging app but manages to click on a link that takes them to the W3W webpage where it displays the W3W code which they relay back to the emergency responder and get saved. The problem of course being is that if you have a phone and data connection to be able to click a link and access W3W, you can also click a link that just relays your GPS coordinates directly or use your messaging app's location-sharing feature, or open your maps application and relay the GPS coordinates manually or even rely on E911 which should absolutely work in these specific conditions, and thus W3W is absolutely unnecessary and is an extra step and point of failure. It's almost like they are paying people to get stranded on purpose in very controlled and favourable conditions (where both phone and data service is available) and then to play dumb and unable to use GPS coordinates until W3W magically comes up and saves the day. Sad.

6 points by martyvis 6y ago

Location referred to in the story was https://what3words.com/murky.founding.spoonfuls https://what3words.com/murky.founding.spoonfuls

Nextgrid 6y ago

Here we go again. They seem to have taken a bit of a break but looks like they dusted off the good old propaganda machine again. For those who don't know, W3W is a proprietary service which maps locations to a unique 3-word identifier, similar to Plus Codes aka Open Location Codes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code The company behind it is extremely scummy. They provide absolutely no additional value compared to existing Plus Codes and their only attempt to profit is heavy PR/marketing (like this article) to encourage adoption, after which they will presumably be charging lots of money to developers for the right to do W3W <-> GPS coordinates lookups. Their terms explicitly forbid reverse-engineering the algorithm and even caching results of past lookups. They have also used DMCA claims to take down alternative clean-room implementations even though no copyright was violated; at best it would be a patent infringement (if it even stands, as some jurisdictions don't recognise software patents). Seems like their new domain is now available and still working as of now: https://whatfreewords.net https://whatfreewords.net The stories around W3W are always the same. Someone gets stranded somewhere, magically has a fully functional phone with GPS & cell reception, can call emergency services and open Google Maps but is apparently unable to read back GPS coordinates or use "send my location" in their messaging app but manages to click on a link that takes them to the W3W webpage where it displays the W3W code which they relay back to the emergency responder and get saved. The problem of course being is that if you have a phone and data connection to be able to click a link and access W3W, you can also click a link that just relays your GPS coordinates directly or use your messaging app's location-sharing feature, or open your maps application and relay the GPS coordinates manually or even rely on E911 which should absolutely work in these specific conditions, and thus W3W is absolutely unnecessary and is an extra step and point of failure. It's almost like they are paying people to get stranded on purpose in very controlled and favourable conditions (where both phone and data service is available) and then to play dumb and unable to use GPS coordinates until W3W magically comes up and saves the day. Sad.