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emergency services and what3words


Jim Riley

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9 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

With GPS you need an online map to know where you are

Surely this is true of all addressing systems? Though as @rusty69 pointed out, it doesn't have to be online. What3words on the other hand does - unless they provide offline functionality inside their proprietary app?

 

4 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

when you say GPS is free - I cant find a way "in my phone" to find my GPS location, lat and long, or whatever, for "free". As soon as we enter the world of free stuff on apps or the internet, we immediately become a part of that product that you so dislike. So, whether we all become educated on Google Maps, Bing, What3words, and so on, someone, somewhere, is aiming to make some money out of us.

This isn't true though.

 

GPS is independent of any app. Your phone has hardware that spits out the GPS coordinates, and you can use any app you like to read them, including actually free ones like OsmAnd. Or, if you know what you are doing, you can read them directly. What3words requires an app to convert GPS coordinates to words, and then the operator on the other end requires the What3words solution to convert them back into coordinates.

I don't use an iPhone but I did a little searching and apparently there is a built in "compass" app in every iPhone, which displays your GPS coordinates at the bottom. (You may need to give the compass app permission to access your location, but that's the case with every app, including what3words)

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4 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

Surely this is true of all addressing systems? Though as @rusty69 pointed out, it doesn't have to be online. What3words on the other hand does - unless they provide offline functionality inside their proprietary app?

 

It's been said many times in this thread, w3w does not need to be on line

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This is worth a read, if just to see that I'm not some crazed survivalist conspiracy theorist. Well maybe I am, but at least there are people out there who agree with me.

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/What3words

 

EDIT: Oh and this one
 

https://blog.ldodds.com/2016/06/14/what-3-words-jog-on-mate/

Edited by ivan&alice
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53 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

If they carry a phone, anyone can if they carry a phone. Sorry smartPhone not my old Nokia

Does this mean it relies on the crew using their own personal phones rather than the radio and communication equipment in the emergency services vehicles?

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1 hour ago, ivan&alice said:

You could have - and still can - give them a precise GPS location. It also works everywhere in the world in every language, requires no signup from users or emergency services, and is completely free.

Not if the phone doesn't have GPS! 

And I've just tried to do it on my wife's Nokia Moto C, which has no maps loaded on it, and cannot find a way of doing so.

 

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2 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

Not if the phone doesn't have GPS! 

And I've just tried to do it on my wife's Nokia Moto C, which has no maps loaded on it, and cannot find a way of doing so.

 

However, my money is on WotEvers phone having GPS (even the one he had a few years ago) 

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3 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

Not if the phone doesn't have GPS! 

And I've just tried to do it on my wife's Nokia Moto C, which has no maps loaded on it, and cannot find a way of doing so.

 

No indeed, if the phone doesn't have GPS you cannot use any location based service, including what3words.

 

All what3words is, is an attempt at making a standard for encoding GPS coordinates into three words, and for What3Words the company to have an exclusive monopoly over those addresses.

 

Surely, even if you are not technically minded, you should be able to see the problem with having a monopoly over addresses? Imagine if someone came up with a solution to turn postcodes into words, encouraged everyone to use the words instead of the postcodes, yet forbade (yes forbade) anyone else from using, storing or converting these words back into postcodes unless they used the company's services?

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59 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

GPS is independent of any app. Your phone has hardware that spits out the GPS coordinates, and you can use any app you like to read them, including actually free ones like OsmAnd. Or, if you know what you are doing, you can read them directly. What3words requires an app to convert GPS coordinates to words, and then the operator on the other end requires the What3words solution to convert them back into coordinates.

I don't use an iPhone but I did a little searching and apparently there is a built in "compass" app in every iPhone, which displays your GPS coordinates at the bottom. (You may need to give the compass app permission to access your location, but that's the case with every app, including what3words)

If Osmand is free, we/you are the product - somehow.

 

OK... found the compass app, and it does give lat and long. Took me ages to find the app, but now I know - I know :)

 

It's all about publicity now :) 

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14 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

As far as I can see only if the phone is Android and equipped with ELS.

No - all Android phones since 2010 & Apple phones since early 2018 have it.

 

Google announced in July 2016 that all Android phones running version 2.3.7, Gingerbread (released in December 2010) or later include AML. Google calls their implementation Emergency Location Service (ELS).

Apple devices running iOS 11.3 (released in March 2018) or later also support AML.

AML is deployed in 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States.

Several countries around Europe are testing AML with the aim of deploying it by April 2020. Furthermore the European Electronic Communications Code mandates that all EU states must implement AML by December 2020

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1 minute ago, ivan&alice said:

Surely, even if you are not technically minded, you should be able to see the problem with having a monopoly over addresses? Imagine if someone came up with a solution to turn postcodes into words, encouraged everyone to use the words instead of the postcodes, yet forbade (yes forbade) anyone else from using, storing or converting these words back into postcodes unless they used the company's services?

No, I see no problem with what they are trying to do. 
And I don't see them doing anything different to lots of other companies.

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We just put all of them in on Canalplan - so as long as you allow Canalplan access to your location and your browser gives good values to Canalplan, your options are almost endless!

Screenshot_2019-08-25_21-26-10.png

 

However getting an agreement from W3W was a bit messy as we cache "static" data and they don't like people doing that... which seems odd as surely a place can't change its W3W code....

Edited by StephenA
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2 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

If Osmand is free, we/you are the product - somehow.

Well spotted, I'm glad you pointed this out. I know this is tricky, but there is free and there is free. Free can mean it doesn't cost anything (as in free beer) and free can mean freedom (as in free speech). In the software world we refer to the latter as libre to distinguish the two. It's worth knowing that if something is free-libre then you get free-beer for... er... free.

Software programmes are essentially "recipes" that tell your device how to cook up the solution. Frequently, nefarious things are baked into the software programmes you buy (or download for free).

 

OsmAnd is free-libre and free-beer. It is made by a for-profit company as far as I know, but anyone at all can take it and modify it, repackage it and distribute it. It's not the same as a free-beer but closed-source app like what3words.

 

7 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

No, I see no problem with what they are trying to do. 
And I don't see them doing anything different to lots of other companies.

I'm sorry that you can't see the difference, but the difference is important.

 

A for-profit service using a closed source algorithm is one thing. A closed source standard is quite another.

 

I realise that the technical distinctions aren't easy to understand. Being that you pulled rank on me, not being an emergency services professional, all I can do is respond in kind on this one. What they are doing is very dangerous, very insidious and should be condemned. You should not use what3words and you should tell everyone you know not to use what3words.

If you don't understand why, then I suggest that before you make comments you find out!

(Sorry but I couldn't resist! If you are interested to know more follow the links I posted. I've said my peace on this topic, and I'm running off to sleep before this gets nasty!)

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3 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

Well spotted, I'm glad you pointed this out. I know this is tricky, but there is free and there is free.

How many of us got our bums bitten when the wonderful 'free service' provided by PhotoBucket suddenly became very expensive ($84 per annum)- how many of us lost all our pictures ?

 

 

Photobucket is an American image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community. Photobucket hosts more than 10 billion images from 100 million registered members, who upload more than four million images and videos per day from the Web and connected digital devices

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7 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

How many of us got our bums bitten when the wonderful 'free service' provided by PhotoBucket suddenly became very expensive ($84 per annum)- how many of us lost all our pictures ?

 

 

Photobucket is an American image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community. Photobucket hosts more than 10 billion images from 100 million registered members, who upload more than four million images and videos per day from the Web and connected digital devices

On a similar level, we all bought Microsoft Office (Word/Excel etc) programmes for our computers in the mistaken belief that it was a one off purchase so we got all of our documents/spreadsheets etc onto the Microsoft programme  and then suddenly Microsoft decide that Office becomes an annual subscription service. This is what W3W will do if they get universal take up of it, by which time you'll have used it for all your addressing and they will have you (like Microsoft do) over a barrel.

Edited by Wanderer Vagabond
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Having been reading more about W3W I'm curious about travelling. If I had a smart phone (I don't) and travel to the Czech Republic do I have to get a Czech mobile phone to get the co-ordinates to pass to the Czech emergency services? Apparently is isn't a simple translation job that could be done on Google Translate, since, if my understanding is correct, the Czech system will be using a fresh list of Czech words to create the W3W co-ordinate for Czechs. If I bring up the English W3W co-ordinates and  translate them into Czech (via Google Translate) the location will not be correct. Perhaps I'm mistaken on that, but that is how it seems.

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3 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Having been reading more about W3W I'm curious about travelling. If I had a smart phone (I don't) and travel to the Czech Republic do I have to get a Czech mobile phone to get the co-ordinates to pass to the Czech emergency services? Apparently is isn't a simple translation job that could be done on Google Translate, since, if my understanding is correct, the Czech system will be using a fresh list of Czech words to create the W3W co-ordinate for Czechs. If I bring up the English W3W co-ordinates and  translate them into Czech (via Google Translate) the location will not be correct. Perhaps I'm mistaken on that, but that is how it seems.

 

W3W seems to create english word set for locations in Paris - not sure what it would present to a frenchman.

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Just now, StephenA said:

 

W3W seems to create english word set for locations in Paris - not sure what it would present to a frenchman.

That's essentially the question I was sort of asking. If I got my English W3W co-ordinates, translated them into French and passed them to the French Emergency Services would that still be the same location? From what I've read it would seem not, but as I say I could be incorrect. Do I need to download the W3W algorithm for each country that I may be in?

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8 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Do I need to download the W3W algorithm for each country that I may be in?

I suspect not - I haven't set up an account so when I checked the app just now I couldn't see a way to do but I would think that if you are signed in then you just change the setting to the language of the country that you're in and then it simply generates 3words in that language rather than your own. 

 

 

Edited by Tumshie
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1 minute ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

That's essentially the question I was sort of asking. If I got my English W3W co-ordinates, translated them into French and passed them to the French Emergency Services would that still be the same location? From what I've read it would seem not, but as I say I could be incorrect. Do I need to download the W3W algorithm for each country that I may be in?

No - keep it simple, just use the global GPS system.

 

53.177709,-4.2183597 will be the same in any language

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