emergency services and what3words

[WotEver]

1 hour ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

Does it however run on Windows 10? (another Microsoft programme dumped upon me).

I believe so, yes. But best to phone the guys at the link I posted earlier and confirm with them. 

[jetzi]

3 hours ago, Jerra said:

So the police are actively encouraging a destructive thing.   You have informed various police HQs of this?

I haven't, but you're right and I will write some letters of protest. I'm sure they just aren't aware of the danger.

 

3 hours ago, Jerra said:

There are masses of things in life we pay for I see no reason why eventually W3W shouldn't become subscription.  Then Like all businesses it will sink or swim on how many folk find it useful enough to pay for.

There is a subtle distinction that seems lost on everyone commenting. It isn't that what3words shouldn't make money, it isn't that they shouldn't charge for their services, and it's not even about whether you have to pay for it.

 

The problem is that the standard itself is proprietary.

 

If the standard was open, but their implementation was not, I would not have even commented. Heck, I might have even bought it.

 

2 hours ago, Graham Davis said:

So is OS Mapping, so is that wrong as well?

No. OS mapping is great. See above.

 

1 hour ago, Jerra said:

Should we have avoided using mobile phones because they were going to draw people into the expense of a smart phone and data package?

No. See above.

 

If you don't want to understand, no amount of flogging of this dead horse is going to help. I've tried to explain as best as I can, which I admit is very flawed. I see no sense in making it an argument when we're at cross purposes... I left links to explanations from better people than me, if you want to know more, click 'em

 

And if you understand, but disagree... well, then, good luck to you.

 

I'll even quote the simplest reasoning from the OpenStreetMap wiki:

Quote

what3words is very much not an open system for location reference/addressing. There are several levels of non-openness:

• The algorithm/idea is patented, very actively preventing anyone from implementing a compatible algorithm or developing anything like it as a competing standard (although the validity of this patent is questionable given the existence of what would seem to be prior art on the idea)
• Hand-in-hand with this patent, the software for encoding/decoding is copyrighted. Any software you can find or reverse engineer from the website or mobile apps, could not be copied and re-used legally. what3words have actively served github with a DMCA takedown notice to remove some reverse-engineered code.
• The scheme also requires a database look-up to some extent. The encoding/decoding is partially algorithmic (It doesn't use a database of every three word location code) however it does require a database. The database is (at least) a dictionary of words, plus some information on regions to apply different languages, plus some information on ocean regions where the system uses longer words. The database is shipped with apps for offline use, and is copyright what3words. For online use the need for database look-ups creates a requirement for calls to the what3words server, which reinforces the "lock-in" aspect of using the service. It also means that even if patents and copyright protections on the software were deemed to be unenforcible in court, an alternative encoding/decoding approach would require a copy of this copyrighted database in order to achieve compatibility.

These types of protection are very common for many software companies of course, and so one might put this down to the old closed-source vs open-source debate. Many in the OpenStreetMap community will favour an open approach to software anyway, but this is a choice we make. However...

 

what3words is fairly simple from a software point of view, and is really more about attempting establish a standard for location look-ups. It will only succeed through the network effect of persuading many people to adopt and share locations. If it does succeed, then it also succeeds in "locking in" users into the system which they have exclusive monopoly over.

 

The modern norm for any new simple standard, is to specify it openly and release decoding/encoding implementations as open source. This is something many people have come to expect, and to insist upon for new simple standards. This is a lesson tech experts and tech users have learned time and time again, with negative experiences of "lock-in" when private companies succeed in driving adoption of their closed systems. As such, you will tend to find people not only refuse to adopt a closed standard like what3words, but also strongly advise others not to adopt it.

 

I'll mute this thread now... promise...

[Jerra]

14 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

The problem is that the standard itself is proprietary.

 

If the standard was open, but their implementation was not, I would not have even commented. Heck, I might have even bought it.

A couple of points.

 

The first is it may have escaped your notice but the app is free no need to even consider buying it.

 

Second can I assume you use no software that isn't open?

[Wanderer Vagabond]

2 hours ago, Lily Rose said:

I think it is highly unlikely Royal Mail will switch from postcodes to W3W, no matter how successful the latter becomes. Given that, I also think it highly unlikely that other organisations would switch away from using postcodes in order to use W3W exclusively. More likely is that they would use both systems side by side, with W3W being useful when a precise location is needed. 

 

 

There a some assumptions here, the greatest is that Royal Mail (now a private company) will continue. If they go under and postal delivery is taken on by other private companies who knows what they may choose to do. The major difference between W3W and postcodes is that I can get a variety of detailed maps of postcodes, can you get me a detailed map of W3W co-ordinates? only by selecting a location on their website. The postcode has become ubiquitiuous for a whole variety of purposes not all connected to navigation (your bank will need your postcode to open an account, you will need a postcode to buy a TV licence), can you guarantee that in future the W3W co-ordinates will not become equally ubiquitous? As I've said I'm not against using W3W as a supplemental means of navigation, if it becomes the standard (as postcodes have become) and, for instance, you are unable to order a taxi without a W3W co-ordinate (it's not that easy to order one without a postcode now) that is putting too much power in the hands of W3W, much the same as too much power has already concentrated in the hands of Google, Microsoft, et al.

[jetzi]

25 minutes ago, Jerra said:

A couple of points.

 

The first is it may have escaped your notice but the app is free no need to even consider buying it.

 

Second can I assume you use no software that isn't open?

1)

It is not about price. Free as in freedom. Not free as in beer.

 

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you don't have to pay. It means you have the right to use it.

 

2)

Standard. Not software. The software can be proprietary while the standard is open. What3words is all about trying to establish a standard that they themselves have exclusive control over. That's the crucial difference.

 

[Jerra]

8 minutes ago, ivan&alice said:

1)

It is not about price. Free as in freedom. Not free as in beer.

 

Freedom of speech doesn't mean that you don't have to pay. It means you have the right to use it.

 

2)

Standard. Not software. The software can be proprietary while the standard is open. What3words is all about trying to establish a standard that they themselves have exclusive control over. That's the crucial difference.

 

1)   I was commenting on your words "Heck, I might have even bought it." as I said not even a need to consider buying it.

 

2)   Is establishing a standard that you control yourself any worse than patenting something (and if so why) or do you disagree with people patenting things?

[jetzi]

2 minutes ago, Jerra said:

1)   I was commenting on your words "Heck, I might have even bought it." as I said not even a need to consider buying it.

 

2)   Is establishing a standard that you control yourself any worse than patenting something (and if so why) or do you disagree with people patenting things?

1) Yes I realise. It was a hypothetical - if they had made the standard free but their app paid-for, I might have considered buying it.

 

2). Yes, much worse. There are a number of reasons why.

 

The obvious one is the ripping off that people seem concerned about - monopolies are in a position to hold their userbase to ransom. Whether they do or not depends, but it is an uncomfortable position to be in once things like your emergency services rely on it.

 

The other big one is censorship. You might have seen news articles recently about how companies like Google and Facebook wield the power to shape elections, for example. They can do this because of the near-monopolies they hold over search and social media, respectively. If what3words came under the control of a religious zealot or political extremist they could censor or promote places as they pleased.

 

Consider if a future incarnation of what3words decided to stop addressing or incorrectly address things it deemed unsavoury. Or perhaps if it gives companies who pay them priority access to their system - so that perhaps such companies get a "nice" address like bunnies.nice.happy and companies that don't evil.smelly.clowns.

 

Or what if they simply decided to throttle down those companies so searching for those addresses takes ever so slightly longer.

 

Or what if the whole company shuts down, after people become dependent on it. Unlike GPS that is a real possibility.

 

There are more reasons that I can't think of right now. But they are out there if you want to find them.

 

The problem comes in that you need what3words to make any sense of their system. There is no way to avoid them, even though creating such a way would be extremely easy to do. These.three.words mean squat without the company to interpret them for you. You are relying on them for something as fundamental as coordinates or location. And that's all it is, coordinates! You're taking something international, easily understood, arbitrarily precise, elegant, relative and above all free - GPS coordinates - converting it into gobbledegook, and then relying entirely on the whims of one private company with the monopoly on decoding it back into the GPS coordinates you started with. Why promote the middleman?

I could go on and on about the need for a standard like this to be open and free, but I am getting weary of this conversation. I really don't think I will be able to convince you or even help you see where I'm coming from. So I'm going to leave it here and hit the hay. Goodnight all!

[ditchcrawler]

I don't normally check GPS on our phone, I dont need it, but I do plot our travels with an Ipad and I have noticed it often loses its GPS signal, do Iphones do this as well?

[Jerra]

1 hour ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

The postcode has become ubiquitiuous for a whole variety of purposes not all connected to navigation (your bank will need your postcode to open an account, you will need a postcode to buy a TV licence), can you guarantee that in future the W3W co-ordinates will not become equally ubiquitous? 

There is a big difference IMO between a postcode and a W3W.  Postcodes were brought in by government edict, the GPO were then state owned.  W£W is never going to be required by government edict.  Because govt forced everybody to have a post code they became ubiquitous I can't see any situation where a govt will force people to know their W3W code.  Apart from that it is inaccurate it would be hard to tell which 3m square my letter box is in and what about flats?  My #2 daughter would have 4 flats all with the same W3W code whereas a number and the post code sorts things out nicely, e.g Flat 4 1001 some road somewhere AB1 2CD

 

This can be expressed as 1001/4 AB1 2CD a lit5tle longer than W3W but sorts out problems such as flats

[1st ade]

13 hours ago, Jerra said:

So the police are actively encouraging a destructive thing.   You have informed various police HQs of this?

Er, yes, actually. But more phrased as (via the proper channels) "The UK Government has, after considerable research and development involving those who operate the 999 call centre, the mobile network operators and those who manufacture and update mobile handsets developed a system which tells you exactly where the call is coming from with no caller action required. Why are you not using it?"

[Alan de Enfield]

9 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I don't normally check GPS on our phone, I dont need it, but I do plot our travels with an Ipad and I have noticed it often loses its GPS signal, do Iphones do this as well?

That sounds strange.

It is virtually impossible to 'loose' a GPS signal as there are so many satellites up there.

Whilst a GPS may use 6 - 9 or 12 satellites to find its position it can work with a little as 3 to get a triangulation.

 

Are you sure you are actually using GPS and not riding on a phone signal ?

Edited August 28, 2019 by Alan de Enfield

[jetzi]

9 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I don't normally check GPS on our phone, I dont need it, but I do plot our travels with an Ipad and I have noticed it often loses its GPS signal, do Iphones do this as well?

GPS is a really amazing technology. 33 satellites orbiting the earth in such a way that you are guaranteed to see a number of them no matter where you are. Each of them constantly send out a signal with a timestamp. Once a GPS receiver like that in your phone has the signal from at least three satellites, it knows how far away each satellite is by how long the signal took to get to you, and can trilaterate your position. It even has to take into account Special Relativity because the clocks on the satellites run slower owing to their high speed!

However being that these signals have to travel to consumer-grade receivers that fit in the pocket, 20 000 km through the atmosphere, with clouds, birds, planes and superman in the way, not to mention going inside aor underground, there are bound to be times that the GPS signal drops off.

 

I'm not aware of any significant differences between phone manufacturers and models. The main thing is where the GPS antenna is mounted and how clear a line of sight it is to the satellites. If you stand on the roof and hoist your phone as high as you can taped to a barge pole on a clear day, you are going to get better results than if it's in your pocket while you sit on your couch inside the Faraday cage that is your boat in the middle of a thunderstorm.

 

There are other additional technologies too, such as GLONASS which is the old Soviet version of GPS, and aGPS (assisted GPS) which uses trilateration from mobile phone towers to get an approximate location (note this has nothing to do with GPS satellites and is so a bit of a misnomer). Any phone can be approximately located using towers. Not all phones make this available to the user - it does require a database of towers and processing on the phone. Almost all modern smartphones have a GPS receiver though, and most use a combination of aGPS, GPS and GLONASS to get a very accurate location. However there will always be times that the position is inaccurate or unavailable for the reasons listed above and others.

 

Whatever method you use, you end up with a latitude, longitude coordinate and sometimes an "accuracy factor" which will tell you to within a certain radius how accurate this location is.

 

Note that none of this has anything to do with what3words. All they do is take that coordinate above and see which of their 3m x 3m grid the coordinate falls into. What3words still requires GPS or some other positioning system. If the coordinate is inaccurate, so is the what3words address. And unlike GPS, which can tell you -0.123, 52.123 ± 9 metres, what3words will tell you you are at trap.inch.trades but you could also be at bunch.began.grant, chats.incomes.ends or any one of another 33 completely different, unordered nearby addresses, with no way of knowing how likely any of them are. And since what3words does not include altitude or any other identifying information within that 3m x 3m square, you could be next door (if the doors are < 3m apart) or at the flat above.

Edited August 28, 2019 by ivan&alice

[Wanderer Vagabond]

10 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

I don't normally check GPS on our phone, I dont need it, but I do plot our travels with an Ipad and I have noticed it often loses its GPS signal, do Iphones do this as well?

 

37 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

That sounds strange.

It is virtually impossible to 'loose' a GPS signal as there are so many satellites up there.

Whilst a GPS may use 6 - 9 or 12 satellites to find its position it can work with a little as 3 to get a triangulation.

 

Are you sure you are actually using GPS and not riding on a phone signal ?

I don't know about actually losing the signal, but there can be considerable variation in accuracy. The hand held I use sometimes gives me an accuracy of about 12 to 15 feet and on other occasions struggles to get an accuracy of better than 60 - 80 feet. The actual satellite signal isn't that strong and can be 'lost' in dense woodland or even in a cutting on the canal system. I am rarely able to get a satellite fix indoors.

[tree monkey]

24 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

 

I don't know about actually losing the signal, but there can be considerable variation in accuracy. The hand held I use sometimes gives me an accuracy of about 12 to 15 feet and on other occasions struggles to get an accuracy of better than 60 - 80 feet. The actual satellite signal isn't that strong and can be 'lost' in dense woodland or even in a cutting on the canal system. I am rarely able to get a satellite fix indoors.

I regularly used to lose GPS signal when surveying in woodlands, almost guaranteed  under the canopy and fairly common when stood on a ride open to the sky

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, Wanderer Vagabond said:

I don't know about actually losing the signal, but there can be considerable variation in accuracy. The hand held I use sometimes gives me an accuracy of about 12 to 15 feet and on other occasions struggles to get an accuracy of better than 60 - 80 feet. The actual satellite signal isn't that strong and can be 'lost' in dense woodland or even in a cutting on the canal system. I am rarely able to get a satellite fix indoors.

I think that may be down to the device used.

I certainly always seem to get around 15 feet on my dedicated Hand Held navigation system, but is has a 'proper' GPS antenna in built.

I wonder if devices whose primary objective is a communication device will have secondary features 'added in' but not utilising 'primary technology' ?

 

I do suffer with 'higher' accuracy figures indoors when the signal is attenuated, but I rarely need to know where I am when I'm indoors. If I can get the emergency services to within about 30 feet of me I would hope that they will be able to do the last bit themselves.

 

I am currently sat indoors below a huge steel RSJ and the GPS is showing an accuracy of 32 feet, but it has the height correct at 29 feet ASL

 

I moved out to the 'front-door' and the accuracy improved to 16 feet.

 

My PLB has an actual external antenna and (supposedly) will receive and transmit the location even from underneath dense tree-cover, or, deep ravines.

[tree monkey]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I think that may be down to the device used.

I certainly always seem to get around 15 feet on my dedicated Hand Held navigation system, but is has a 'proper' GPS antenna in built.

I wonder if devices whose primary objective is a communication device will have secondary features 'added in' but not utilising 'primary technology' ?

 

I do suffer with 'higher' accuracy figures indoors when the signal is attenuated, but I rarely need to know where I am when I'm indoors. If I can get the emergency services to within about 30 feet of me I would hope that they will be able to do the last bit themselves.

 

I am currently sat indoors below a huge steel RSJ and the GPS is showing an accuracy of 32 feet, but it has the height correct at 29 feet ASL

 

I moved out to the 'front-door' and the accuracy improved to 16 feet.

 

My PLB has an actual external antenna and (supposedly) will receive and transmit the location even from underneath dense tree-cover, or, deep ravines.

I was using a dedicated GPS system and still lost signal

[Alan de Enfield]

18 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

I was using a dedicated GPS system and still lost signal

No answer for that one then.

I can only quote my experiences, but when out hiking up-hill, down-dale and thru woods I don't recall ever losing the signal completely.

[tree monkey]

10 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

No answer for that one then.

I can only quote my experiences, but when out hiking up-hill, down-dale and thru woods I don't recall ever losing the signal completely.

I am aware the systems have got better but it's still a common complaint from others who now work the woods that signal loss causes issues.

My fav was woodsheves cutting trying to plot a location and watching the signal disappear as I slowly slid down the shale closer to a dunking in the canal. 

[Graham Davis]

1 hour ago, tree monkey said:

I am aware the systems have got better but it's still a common complaint from others who now work the woods that signal loss causes issues.

My fav was woodsheves cutting trying to plot a location and watching the signal disappear as I slowly slid down the shale closer to a dunking in the canal. 

I use a handheld Garmin Etrex to plot mine shafts and adits for NRW in the Hafren Forest, and like you find that it is all too easy to lose the GPS signal or to go down to only one satellite, resulting in very inaccurate plots. Not ideal when there are unprotected shafts!

[tree monkey]

6 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

I use a handheld Garmin Etrex to plot mine shafts and adits for NRW in the Hafren Forest, and like you find that it is all too easy to lose the GPS signal or to go down to only one satellite, resulting in very inaccurate plots. Not ideal when there are unprotected shafts!

When I lived in North Wales my habit of wandering off track almost led me to an unfortunate end down a forgotten mine shaft or two.

Also stumbled on the occasional bell pit as well

[ditchcrawler]

9 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

That sounds strange.

It is virtually impossible to 'loose' a GPS signal as there are so many satellites up there.

Whilst a GPS may use 6 - 9 or 12 satellites to find its position it can work with a little as 3 to get a triangulation.

 

Are you sure you are actually using GPS and not riding on a phone signal ?

Yes its an ipad with the wifi turned off and a pay as you go sim that id 4 years old and only had £10 on to start with. It sits on top ot the slide so not inside the boat. This is a plotted track from last week, you can see where it loses it if you enlarge it  http://gps.motionx.com/maps/ff1c5c921e028088c047e2fef8d244d5

[Alan de Enfield]

28 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Yes its an ipad with the wifi turned off and a pay as you go sim that id 4 years old and only had £10 on to start with. It sits on top ot the slide so not inside the boat. This is a plotted track from last week, you can see where it loses it if you enlarge it  http://gps.motionx.com/maps/ff1c5c921e028088c047e2fef8d244d5

 

My experiences differ, but if your 'mileage differs' then that is a fact as far as you are concerned.

 

I cannot see anywhere where the signal was 'lost' these are some 'spikey bits' at both ends of the trip where accuracy was lost, but as your provider says "if you are indoors, in woods, or surrounded by buildings you may not acquire an accurate signal"

 

A canal cutting surrounded by trees is not an ideal place to try and get a signal.

[ditchcrawler]

24 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

My experiences differ, but if your 'mileage differs' then that is a fact as far as you are concerned.

 

I cannot see anywhere where the signal was 'lost' these are some 'spikey bits' at both ends of the trip where accuracy was lost, but as your provider says "if you are indoors, in woods, or surrounded by buildings you may not acquire an accurate signal"

 

A canal cutting surrounded by trees is not an ideal place to try and get a signal.

All these bits here 

[Alan de Enfield]

42 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

All these bits here 

 

Ok - I understand, we are talking at cross purposes.

 

You are calling this loss of GPS signal.

You still had a signal from (maybe 5 satellites out of 12) so your accuracy was affected, but you still had a (multiple) GPS signal.

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Ok - I understand, we are talking at cross purposes.

 

You are calling this loss of GPS signal.

You still had a signal from (maybe 5 satellites out of 12) so your accuracy was affected, but you still had a (multiple) GPS signal.

did I? The speed indication shuts down as well when that happens