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What3Words: a giant grid of the world made up of 57 trillion squares of 3m x 3m

what3words.com

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Re: What3Words: a giant grid of the world made up of 57 trillion squares of 3m x 3m

#41

Post by jay-anderson »

icebraining wrote: post #31
mostly_harmless wrote: post #16

The biggest problem I see with these global addressing schemes is that they have nothing to do with the location, and they dont have any locality. Snake.Dog.Rabbit is in a location with no snakes, dogs or rabbits and is right next to Lamp.Chair.Guitar? Theres no visible logic to it. its just easier to say 123 River Road. By the name you know its likely to be near a river, and it will be right next to 124 River Road

But how many street names are actually related to the local geography? At least where I live - an old European country -, they're either based on the name of a more-or-less obscure dead personality (e.g. my street is named after a marquis from the 16th century) or after something that happened there decades or centuries ago (e.g. Merchants' street).

In Phoenix, Arizona the major streets vaguely relate to the location. The layout is a big grid (for the most part). The north-south streets are numbers and east-west streets are named (you need to memorize the order). There is a central avenue with street numbers increasing both east and west. "Avenues" are on the west side and "Streets" are on the east. Given the major cross streets it's pretty easy to find your way there.

I believe many Utah cities are more extreme than this with a grid and all street names being a number + a direction.

You're right though. These are the exception and not the rule.

Re: What3Words: a giant grid of the world made up of 57 trillion squares of 3m x 3m

#42

Post by freyfogle »

adventured wrote: post #39
freyfogle wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're commenting from the perspective of someone who comes from a culture with addresses. Most of the world doesn't have addresses. Try to go to a meeting in India. It typically involves three or four phone calls to find the place.

You really think most people live at locations without addressing systems? How can we even prove that? The only locations I'm aware of that that is true are: very poor parts of Asia, Africa, India, and maybe some of the favelas of Brazil. With essentially all of North America, South America, Europe, and much of China, along with all of Japan, Australia, being covered by an addressing system. I'd wager 2/3 of all peop…

There's a world of difference between "an addressing system" and one that is effective.

Try to go anywhere in India by using the address. You will find it challenging.

Re: What3Words: a giant grid of the world made up of 57 trillion squares of 3m x 3m

#43

Post by chippy »

cjrsheldrick wrote: post #14
bratao wrote: post #7

I wonder what the motivation that a nearby location have a completely different name. It is hard to know if two places are close just by the name.

Context is being sacrificed for a very slick auto-correct system (in beta, going live v soon). When similar sounding 3 word combinations are shuffled around the world, it's pretty clear based on user location which result is the intended one. As a result, you can misspell pretty badly and the system will still handle it. Most exciting is that processing of voice input of 3 words is virtually 100% accurate using the s…

That's two "3 words" that are textually close to each other not two places which are spatially close.

Re: What3Words: a giant grid of the world made up of 57 trillion squares of 3m x 3m

#45

Post by cabirum »

Similar precision can be achieved by using GPS coordinates with four (10 m accuracy) to five (1 m) decimal digits, sometimes even fewer depending on location as you don't need trailing zeroes.

The coordinate system is old, ubiquitous, and it's readability is similar to that of ipv4 addresses.

So it's [13.054:5.237] vs "surcharge.caveman.echo".

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_degrees

[2] http://gis.stackexchange.com/a/8674

Re: What3Words: a giant grid of the world made up of 57 trillion squares of 3m x 3m

#46

Post by danneu »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #17

Tl;dr DNS (human readble names) for physical locations on earths surface. It's a nice idea "I will meet you at chair.lion.knowledge" is better than meet you at grid location 123.456.5676 But to be honest I know roughly where in London SW1 2EE is and the amount of times I will need that level of accuracy for an address in Mumbai or LA is quite limited. In addition "chair.lion.zebra" is actually less readable to billio…

It seems useful for unfamiliar locations and all the 3x3m locations without addresses, like where your tent is pitched or where on the trail you've fallen.

I'd rather (A) read out "chair.lion.knowledge" than (B) try to figure out the address of some little one-room shop in Guadalajara that's just an unmarked door on an unmarked corner and then hope the address-lookup round-trip resolves to the same place.

Re: What3Words: a giant grid of the world made up of 57 trillion squares of 3m x 3m

#48

Post by [deleted] »

codingdave wrote: post #13

Clever, but not very practical. Addressing and city/state/country names are very well ingrained into our culture and have real-world meaning. We can understand the general location of an address just by reading it. w3w takes all context out of location names, and forces you to map it with a tool. I don't see how that will improve anything. As you can purchase a one word name for a specific location, this really just…

[deleted]

Re: What3Words: a giant grid of the world made up of 57 trillion squares of 3m x 3m

#50

Post by bastijn »

amolgupta wrote: post #36

Assuming everythig and everyone is having a GPS device its good. But in real world, anyone would understand that 1st cross 2nd main is near 2nd cross 2nd main but its impossible to know if lion.chocolate.news is near to bottle.key.bed or half way across the world.

Aah, crossings of numbered streets. You must be living in the US? Numbered streets are relatively rare in the world. I invite you to Google the street names in Amsterdam, capital of the Netherlands. That logic won't work there.

However, despite your not so well chosen example I do agree that this solution isn't my main view of the future. I think in a few years we will have Internet everywhere, even outside the boundaries of our country. I kind of have it, even when travelling (work or holidays). But I understand I'm still a minority. Once this happens we just WhatsApp, message, send our location via our mobile device. The other person clicks it and is navigated to your location.

Who needs (three) words?

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