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Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#101

Post by tomcooks »

avh02 wrote: post #74
tomcooks wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 end…

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 multit…

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

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#102

Post by bellyfullofbac »

g_p wrote: post #77
blkhawk wrote: post #18

I wonder if a more efficient system for this kind of use-case would be possible by giving up on "global" positioning. by relying on context you can lower the area you need to have address combinations for. In practice you would simply repeat the addresses every couple of 1000km or so. needing help and calling in rescue from the other side of the world while also being unable to say you are in such and such area is pr…

In addition, the user knows their own location by virtue of having access to a GPS device - for W3W to work they've used a GPS and it's really just an in-band voice protocol for exchange of location. It strikes me that W3W will eventually be replaced by the emergency location standards built into mobile which effectively SMS your location to the control centre on starting the call. Then there's little need for voice…

The few times I've accidentally called emergency services, my Android phone asks me first if I want to allow the phone app to access my location...

It would've been more logical to automatically share it, to be honest...

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#103

Post by treeman79 »

cbo100 wrote: post #23
cseleborg wrote: post #19

The article seems wrong about some of these locations: > duties.factory.person was located in China I get Switzerland [1] > refuse.housework.housebound was in Australia I get Belarus [2] > demand.heave.surprise was actually in Canada I get China [3] Now that's really confusing. Is that a bug in the system that changes the locations of three-word-codes, or is that (very) poor reporting? [1] https://what3words.com/duti…

Is it possible the reporters were using a different localisation of w3w, and translated the words before giving them to the rescuers? Edit: scratch that - it doesn't really lead to this problem does it.

Many years ago me and some friends were geocaching late Into the evening.

Around midnight, we called it quits after standing in the middle of a major highway holdings a large metal plate with mag mount on it.

Hooked up to a gps that only displays lat long.

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#104

Post by avh02 »

tomcooks wrote: post #101
avh02 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 multit…

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

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.

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#105

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #83

Recent and related: Why What3Words is not suitable for safety critical applications - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27058271 - May 2021 (35 comments) Why What3Words is not suitable for safety critical applications - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27029706 - May 2021 (3 comments) What3Words: App used by emergency services under scrutiny - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26985759 - April 2021 (14 comm…

[deleted]

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#107

Post by LorenPechtel »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #66
m12k wrote: post #51

Sounds like they need to prune the word list and/or group together possible mispronunciations, misspellings and misreadings. If "correct horse battery" is a location, then "correct hose battery" and "correct house battery" need to be synonyms of the same location, not alternate locations. Either that or remove horse, hose and house from the word list entirely.

Shouldn't those things be as far apart as possible? Then the conversation would be Person: "emm, I'm lost on the Yorkshire Moors...". Rescuer: "no problem sir, just take advantage of the completely flawless wireless telephony system we have to download this app..." Person: "ok, it says I'm at correct house battery" Rescuer: "hmm, I'm showing you at the top of a mountain in Nepal. Let's try that again..."

It would be safe enough if the ones that are close are *guaranteed* to be exceedingly far apart and the lookup algorithm allowed specifying an area.

If correct horse battery is in England and correct house battery is in China and you have a well designed lookup it would know you're looking for something in England.

correct house battery is in China at x, y. Do you mean correct horse battery in England at z, w?

The real danger comes when the mistakes are a few miles apart.

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#108

Post by moooo99 »

politelemon wrote: post #56
moooo99 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ab…

> 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…

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.

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#109

Post by dariusj18 »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #35
sandGorgon wrote: post #20

Google "Plus Codes" are being used in India - especially in underserved communities like slums. https://www.addressingtheunaddressed.org/ . If you want to use this tech + operations expertise in other geographies...just reach out to them. They intend to share their knowhow and expertise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd3gGspgVGs Also from what i understand, after the success in Kolkata, this was then used in Native…

The fake image carousel which is actually a lightbox on https://www.addressingtheunaddressed.org/ is one of the more interesting things I've seen on a website

That's what happens when you send a non specific support request to someone who doesn't care.
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