91–100 of 109 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The word list
In the UK, my understanding is that "skill, labour, and judgment" have to be involved in the compilation of a list for it to be eligible for copyright. TFA seems to suggest that this isn't such a list.
I always thought that a combination of a geohash-like z order curve over a 15km radius, with an offline gps coordinates list of the 5000 most populated cities on earth would be sufficient to cover 99% of people on earth. Not sure what's the average number of characters required for a 20m to 100m precision with such method. It's true that the idea of plus codes of using city names makes a lot of sense.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Easy to recognise . I'm not sure the emergency services having to play a process-of-elimination word game is 'easy to correct'.
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…
If it wasn't funded and publicised by Google, I think Plus codes would have disappeared already. These codes feel quite difficult to remember and less logical than the long/lat that they try to replace; additionally, the letters are very ambiguous to pronounce in English for a non-native (E and I, J and G). It feels like it was a quick hack of base64-ish encoding of the long/lat that evolved into a product to get an…
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.
You can trivially do distance calculation by using their algorithm (which works offline if you use their sdk) to get the coordinates. The DB space is completely irrelevant: this algorithm is intended for humans being able to memorize three words. So, not sure what you are going on about here. Again, they have paying customers that are getting value out of this. Hard to argue with that, which you seem to be attempting here.
I'm not aware of a better solution that is usable by normal people. Good luck communicating a geohash to the emergency services. It's not going to be a thing as much as I like using them. Placekey seems one of their competitors but they don't produce human readable codes and they are US only. In any case, most people don't even know their latitude or longitude to any kind of precision. Coordinates are hard for people.
Regarding the IP, they use a combination of patents (the algorithm) and copyright (the word list) to protect their IP. They built a customer base around this stuff and they are well within their rights to protect their own work, which is what they are doing. IP law is what it is and w3w is simply using that as it was intended (protecting IP). That's just normal behavior for VC funded startups. Try to get some IP through some honest work, protect it, build a business around it. They are not being patent trolls here.
The way I see it, w3w has built their business without edge cases like in this article being a major obstacle to them. You could argue emergency services are important enough that they might want to improve their word list a bit. But still, it's not a basis for dismissing their business model, solution and general right to exist.
IMHO they are a bit over valued at this point and a likely acquisition target for someone so the investors get their bail out. Their current strategy is a long term dead end from the point of view of people adopting this. The proprietary nature of their solution is an obstacle for that. Once patents expire, similar solutions might emerge with different word lists, numbers of words, etc. that are more successful. Alternatively, post acquihire, a visionary company might just use some more liberal licensing to make this a bit more attractive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The word list
In the UK, my understanding is that "skill, labour, and judgment" have to be involved in the compilation of a list for it to be eligible for copyright. TFA seems to suggest that this isn't such a list.
But if you take a look at the ripped off algorithm (google what free words, take a look at the html and the script block inside it), you'll see it includes an array of words with a specific order.
That list and the order the words are in are copyright protected. Copyright is about protecting the particular form of something. This a very specific word list in a very specific order (the indices matter). It's a clear cut case of those specific words in that specific order being protected under copyright. If you want to be compatible with w3w, you have to use that specific list.
If you write a book, poem, or article that's clearly a copyrightable work even if all of the words are commonly used ones. This not different in any meaningful way from the point of view of the law. The fact that the words in that order spell out nonsense is not relevant. Copying and using it in its entirety is not fair use and a clear infringement.
You could use the same algorithm with a different word list and then you'd merely be facing patent infringement here. I would not recommend building a business around such a thing until the patent expires.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the UK, my understanding is that "skill, labour, and judgment" have to be involved in the compilation of a list for it to be eligible for copyright. TFA seems to suggest that this isn't such a list.
The article is not about the copyright lawsuit but about some issues related to using this for emergency services. But if you take a look at the ripped off algorithm (google what free words, take a look at the html and the script block inside it), you'll see it includes an array of words with a specific order. That list and the order the words are in are copyright protected. Copyright is about protecting the particul…
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…
Not a good system.
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
You wrote "lightbox" and I read "mapbox", I thought someone implemented an image carousel by adding photos instead of map tiles in a Google Maps-esque UI (like this but with unconnected pictures: https://www.nightcity.io)