What3words

Rapscallion said:
They are then charging developing nations to use this proprietary technology. These nations are basing a lot of their infrastructure around the technology. My crystal ball says that these nations will be charged a LOT of money in the future for a technology where better versions exist that are genuinely free and open source.
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So why aren't the developing nations using the better versions that are genuinely free and open source?
 
Marc said:
Yet you knew what everyone meant by "paying". The app is free to use, we don't pay for advertising and I'm really not sure how using a location app skews attitudes and knowledge to benefit a select group but I suppose you're free to wear tinfoil hats and spread fear.
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Marc, saying that a closed source implementation of a technology that could be much better served by open source tools is far from tin foil territory.

I appreciate that many will not see the problem, but those that work in and around GIS technologies see this tool as being a problem in the future. E.g. if all our emergency services end up using this, we as taxpayers will be handing over a small fortune each year for a poorly implemented tool, wishing that in the past we had gone down the open source route.
Ps. I work for an organisation that uses a lot of GIS data and tools and regularly hear what a potential problem this tool is. I hope we have enough mutual respect to consider this may not be tin foil hat thinking.
 
Garry Edwards said:
Using new technology to save lives? Nonsense. Those people don't need what3words, helicopters, jet skis or anything else. Someone should have run to the nearest lifeboat station and the crew could have carried their rowing boat to the location by horse and cart and then launched - that's how they did it in the good old days before this unnecessary and new-fangled interwebby thingie.

If you had it you'd know that as soon as you launch the programme the 3 words that you need are clearly displayed. There's also a map, your 3x3m location is shown in a square, with an arrow leading to it, and the map confirms exactly where you are. And, if you want to be anal about it, you can press a button to show you where you are on Google earth, or press another one to show you where you are on a map - so yes, you do know exactly where you are in relation to a map, nearby features and everything else.
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The point pound coin is making is that the proximity of locations can’t be derived from the codes. Whereas with traditional lat long or OS coordinates you can identify proximity and with a just bit of knowledge, direction.
 
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Rapscallion said:
Because w3w have a huge marketing budget convincing people (successfully) that their way is the best way.
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Ok, so as a result of that they end up with many more millions of users, and therefore, potentially many more lives saved.
As opposed to only using the alternatives because they're free?
 
Rapscallion said:
Because there are venture capitalists investing in this company and will expect significant returns on their expenditure. A lot of that will come from the public purse.
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Ok, fair enough, but if as a result of higher investment and better marketing they save more lives, I still dont see why it it such a big issue?
 
Rapscallion said:
Marc, saying that a closed source implementation of a technology that could be much better served by open source tools is far from tin foil territory.

I appreciate that many will not see the problem, but those that work in and around GIS technologies see this tool as being a problem in the future. E.g. if all our emergency services end up using this, we as taxpayers will be handing over a small fortune each year for a poorly implemented tool, wishing that in the past we had gone down the open source route.
Ps. I work for an organisation that uses a lot of GIS data and tools and regularly hear what a potential problem this tool is. I hope we have enough mutual respect to consider this may not be tin foil hat thinking.
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But, our emergency services (and others) already hand over "small fortunes" to other tech companies for their (often patented) technology. Whilst we might all love everything to be open sourced. Their are drawbacks in this. Not least that of security.

I don't believe W3W will become the "be all" of location finding, it is an aid.
 
munch said:
But, our emergency services (and others) already hand over "small fortunes" to other tech companies for their (often patented) technology. Whilst we might all love everything to be open sourced. Their are drawbacks in this. Not least that of security.

I don't believe W3W will become the "be all" of location finding, it is an aid.
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Agree with most of that. But why commercialise location information when open source options are available?
 
munch said:
I still don't understand what the issue is. Why do I need to know the algorithm?

Let's turn this back to photography, do you think Adobe would give you the algorithms they use for Photoshop?
No they wouldn't as it is their intellectual property.
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Ah, good choice... Adobe - a fantastic example of altruism for the world.
 
Just checked a few squares around my house. One was
///XXX.souk.best
That middle word would need spelling out. At that point any advantage to this system vs something like Maidenhead locator system is lost imho.
 
Rapscallion said:
The point pound coin is making is that the proximity of locations can’t be derived from the codes. Whereas with traditional lat long or OS coordinates you can identify proximity and with a just bit of knowledge, direction.
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You realise that's deliberate, right?

With latt and long and a bit of trig you can work out distances. Awesome.

With w3w you can identify a location on the surface of the earth precisely and ERROR CORRECT for faulty information. Misread one word and the error is so big you're in another country. That's actually really handy for lots of purposes.

Grid references do one thing, w3w something completely different. Room for both on my phone :)
 
Perhaps we have different definitions of error correction, but I dont see any correction in the example given. Though appreciate that the output may be so wildly out it is obviously wrong- but I seen no guarantee that it will be wildly out.

Once you come across a word that you have to spell out (souks in the example above) you lose almost all benefits of w3w.
also let’s say the police are given a w3w location by a kidnapped persons (using the a scenario from w3w) and the text is slightly out, no way to help whereas a lat long, grid ref or Maidenhead location could get you within metres.
 
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Rapscallion said:
Perhaps we have different definitions of error correction, but I dont see any correction in the example given. Though appreciate that the output may be so wildly out it is obviously wrong- but I seen no guarantee that it will be wildly out.

Once you come across a word that you have to spell out (souks in the example above) you lose almost all benefits of w3w.
also let’s say the police are given a w3w location by a kidnapped persons (using the a scenario from w3w) and the text is slightly out, no way to help whereas a lat long, grid ref or Maidenhead location could get you within metres.
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What if you read out an incorrect lat/long reference?
As in get 2 digits the wrong way round?
 
Rapscallion said:
Perhaps we have different definitions of error correction, but I dont see any correction in the example given. Though appreciate that the output may be so wildly out it is obviously wrong- but I seen no guarantee that it will be wildly out.

Once you come across a word that you have to spell out (souks in the example above) you lose almost all benefits of w3w.
also let’s say the police are given a w3w location by a kidnapped persons (using the a scenario from w3w) and the text is slightly out, no way to help whereas a lat long, grid ref or Maidenhead location could get you within metres.
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We are getting into silly territory now. Why would spelling a word make the app "loose" it's benefit?

The Kidnapping example is just silly.

Because:

You make an assumption that a kidnapped person has access to other means of telling people their location.

They know where they are.

That they can actually read a map,

That they actually have a map for that area.





I fully accept that a kidnapped person may not have access to a phone and the application may not be installed, but the same could be said for any other means of location
 
munch said:
We are getting into silly territory now. Why would spelling a word make the app "loose" it's benefit?

The Kidnapping example is just silly.

Because:

You make an assumption that a kidnapped person has access to other means of telling people their location.

They know where they are.

That they can actually read a map,

That they actually have a map for that area.





I fully accept that a kidnapped person may not have access to a phone and the application may not be installed, but the same could be said for any other means of location
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Hi. the kidnapping example is pretty silly but has been used by what 3 words in this marketing which is why I used it here.
If they were in contact with the emergency services with data signal (which in most press reports they are) then all the emergency services has to do is send a url that captures the location. No need to download an app.
The comment regarding spelling was comparing w3w to other systems. If you have to spell one or all the words, you may as well give a grid reference or Maidenhead location which are already in common use and not proprietary / closed source.
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
What if you read out an incorrect lat/long reference?
As in get 2 digits the wrong way round?
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You will not get to the location, same as if you get the words wrong with w3w. Though you will be closer than an incorrect w3w location. You could potentially fault find the error and get pretty close.
 
Pete R said:
What I have come to realise is I’m paying for an app I didn’t even know existed. So I’ve downloaded it just so I can start clawing my money back.
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Oh, be aware that you are paying for a bucketload of apps that you are not using.
 
I'm saddened to see how many people have been sucked in by W3W's marketing department.

They are operating the same sort of business model as the dealers who give away free cocaine outside schools - get people hooked, and then increase the price as high as you want. And when businesses/services have to pay to use it, who do you think the cost will be passed on to?!

W3W is entirely proprietary, so they have full control over who can translate their "three words" into a real physical location. Wanna build a system using it it? Tough - pay up or don't bother.

And if you're hoping that W3W will help the emergency services find you when you have a problem, then you'd better hope that the W3W servers are working - and accessible - at the time. Talk about a potential single point of failure!

Meanwhile latitude/longitude is ubiquitous, free, open source, mature, well implemented - and doesn't have an army of venture capitalists waiting in the wings to monetise it.
 
Contax said:
I'm saddened to see how many people have been sucked in by W3W's marketing department.

They are operating the same sort of business model as the dealers who give away free cocaine outside schools - get people hooked, and then increase the price as high as you want. And when businesses/services have to pay to use it, who do you think the cost will be passed on to?!

W3W is entirely proprietary, so they have full control over who can translate their "three words" into a real physical location. Wanna build a system using it it? Tough - pay up or don't bother.

And if you're hoping that W3W will help the emergency services find you when you have a problem, then you'd better hope that the W3W servers are working - and accessible - at the time. Talk about a potential single point of failure!

Meanwhile latitude/longitude is ubiquitous, free, open source, mature, well implemented - and doesn't have an army of venture capitalists waiting in the wings to monetise it.
Click to expand...

It doesn't need a data connection, there's no reliance on their servers. It's all locally stored on your phone.
 
Rapscallion said:
I think the differentiation here is the old 'free as in beer vs free as in speech' analogy.
That this tool isn’t open and deterministic is / should-be a problem for any semi-technical person.
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Well I hope you don't have an iPhone...
 
Pound Coin said:
Not at all. Everyone is, or will be paying for it in a similar way to how we all pay for Facebook, whether that be in advertising, reduction of other communication methods, and skewing of attitudes and knowledge to benefit a select group.

if W3W becomes the de facto method of location finding, a private company with a closed algorithm will be used by our emergency services and we will pay. The main argument that we aren’t paying for it at the moment lies in the fact mentioned up thread that the company has only generated £500k of income over the last two years and the £26M needed to run it in that time has been found elsewhere.

On a grid the squares next to each other are related numerically, so you know or can easily work out the code for the location next to you. With W3W there is no connection, you have no idea what is next to you and no way of deciphering the code without access to the algorithm.
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So we are not paying for it, our usage is used to generate income via advertising. Much like this forum. But you seem quite happy to use that..
 
Contax said:
I'm saddened to see how many people have been sucked in by W3W's marketing department.

They are operating the same sort of business model as the dealers who give away free cocaine outside schools - get people hooked, and then increase the price as high as you want. And when businesses/services have to pay to use it, who do you think the cost will be passed on to?!

W3W is entirely proprietary, so they have full control over who can translate their "three words" into a real physical location. Wanna build a system using it it? Tough - pay up or don't bother.

And if you're hoping that W3W will help the emergency services find you when you have a problem, then you'd better hope that the W3W servers are working - and accessible - at the time. Talk about a potential single point of failure!

Meanwhile latitude/longitude is ubiquitous, free, open source, mature, well implemented - and doesn't have an army of venture capitalists waiting in the wings to monetise it.
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Don't be sad.
I'm sure if anyone gets hooked and the price is hiked massively in the future, then they'll have much less difficulty giving up w3w than the addicts will kicking their coke habit.
I don't see anyone turning to a life of crime to feed their W3W addiction.
:LOL:
 
KitsuneAndy said:
It doesn't need a data connection, there's no reliance on their servers. It's all locally stored on your phone.
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At your end. What if a visitor from another country using w3w came here and then gave our emergency services a french language location. The emergency services may need to lookup on the w3w servers then surely?
And you are dependent on nobody's server for lat long / maidenhead location or any of the other open source options.

As Contax has said, clever marketing indeed.
 
KitsuneAndy said:
So we are not paying for it, our usage is used to generate income via advertising. Much like this forum. But you seem quite happy to use that..
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So you are paying for it.

Advertising revenue doesn’t grow on a magic money tree, you know.
 
KitsuneAndy said:
It doesn't need a data connection, there's no reliance on their servers. It's all locally stored on your phone.
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If there is no data connection, then it is utterly useless for the purposes upthread.
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
I'm sure if anyone gets hooked and the price is hiked massively in the future, then they'll have much less difficulty giving up w3w than the addicts will kicking their coke habit.
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Only it's not that simple. If you are buying from a business (or, even worse, using an emergency/council/government service) who are using and paying W3W, then those costs will be passed on to you, either through the price or the taxation that you pay.

And once a business or service has started to build its systems or processes around W3W, then it becomes increasingly expensive to try to move away - the "cocaine outside schools" business model.

And that's before you go anywhere near the (lack of) privacy policy. You may be happy with W3W knowing where you/your children/your family are, and selling that information on to whoever; I'm certainly not.
 
OK - where do the advertisers get their money from?
 
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