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Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#41

Post by tomcooks »

aaron695 wrote: post #29

> jump.legend.warblers which was in Vietnam So they knew exactly that it was wrong. So it worked perfectly. If you want to be hip you could write a program to work out what was actually said given other information, ie what cell tower it came from. I hate 3 words, I can't remember why, maybe it was copyright or something, but this article isn't selling why it's a problem. Rescuers will also get all the normal info li…

Lat and long are scary? It's 2 numbers eh.

Lat/Lon is already integrated in all mapping apps or GPS devices.

You can easily make a lat/lon visualizer with simple html and JavaScript; it would require GPS and a web connection, but so does this stupid what3words.

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#42

Post by cbo100 »

akira2501 wrote: post #26
cbo100 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None. Any app that can lookup your words can show you the coords. The only justification is the ease of communication over the phone. I only don't like that it's proprietary and the company responsible is pretty aggressive about enforcing their rights - there shouldn't be a place for that in public emergency services.

> The only justification is the ease of communication over the phone. I mean.. as opposed to two numbers? A slow speed high error correction audio encoding of them would be easy. Call emergency services, press the button, they decode the tones, immediate, accurate, simple. If you mixed the calling and playback into a single action, you could make calls and direct people without even the ability to speak.

Well yeah, I'm not convinced either, but I also don't deal with panic ridden callers to emergency phone lines. I think I've called emergency 3 times in my many years.

Maybe it helps with an issue they have noticed with certain callers that I'm not aware of.

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#43

Post by kilroy123 »

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…

So few people know about this. I actually wish it was used a lot more.

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#44

Post by 7952 »

bhawks wrote: post #17
parhamn wrote: post #3

What are the scenarios where you know the 3 words but not the lat-long?

None. Lat longs usability isn't the best (people don't like long numbers). But it's failure mode won't send you to Vietnam when you meant a public park in the UK. even if this system is constrained with simple, short, not confusable words (which would entail shrinking the earth or lowering the resolution) the fact that addresses are randomly assigned extremely reduces it's utility. Can you look at 2 addresses and kno…

Getting sent 1km or even 100m away by accident could be critical depending on the geography. The closeness of the numbers increases that possibility. And an error that reports Vietnam is easy to coorrect.

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#46

Post by another-dave »

moooo99 wrote: post #40
tomcooks wrote: post #33

Terrible: based on a single language, proprietary, IP owners being assholes, creates problems to the user case it was supposedly designed for, doesn't feature distance computing algorithms, takes even more space in a DB cell than latlong, I can go on for days. Use numbers.

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…

Though What 3 Words requires you to download a custom app & for the emergency services to use a back-end for the same app when handling incoming calls — if we're doing that, could we not just have a simple app that checks your GPS and then dials 999 with your lat/lng added to the phone number?

My bank get me to key in my sort code & account number while using telephone banking. If we did the same here, we could get the precision of GPS without the user needing to call out any numbers

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#47

Post by tomcooks »

moooo99 wrote: post #40
tomcooks wrote: post #33

Terrible: based on a single language, proprietary, IP owners being assholes, creates problems to the user case it was supposedly designed for, doesn't feature distance computing algorithms, takes even more space in a DB cell than latlong, I can go on for days. Use numbers.

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…

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 ends", as there is no chance of mispelling. How do I know that? Because numbers are used in military standards for comms that have to be clear even through unreliable channels. Languages that have numbers which might be misunderstood specifically use a different number set (one example is the military in China).

Building your own solution when you have a GLOBALLY ACCEPTED standard that took YEARS to be agreed upon is criminal in my opinion, rescue missions on the Alps where different cultures meet being a great example why you should stick to numbers.

Re: Rescuers question what3words' use in emergencies

#48

Post by tomcooks »

another-dave wrote: post #46
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…

Though What 3 Words requires you to download a custom app & for the emergency services to use a back-end for the same app when handling incoming calls — if we're doing that, could we not just have a simple app that checks your GPS and then dials 999 with your lat/lng added to the phone number? My bank get me to key in my sort code & account number while using telephone banking. If we did the same here, we could get t…

Bonus points: all modern browsers understand coordinate based location, no need to add an app.
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