Just three words

[bernardgreen]

Pleas speak clearly because

https://what3words.com/protester.mining.discuss......Michigan USA
https://what3words.com/protester.mining.discusses...Loch Insh Scotland boat with engine failure

 

[AngleEyes]

Don't you mean two letters?
That's the inherent problem with so much information/data, detailed attention is sometimes needed for an accurate retrieval.

 

[bernardgreen]

The call taker will see that a person calling and saying they are in boat on a Scottish loch cannot be in Michigan. The call taker then has to manually check possible errors and try to remove those errors to obtain a triplet that is likely to be accurate.

In this case the sibilant ( spoken ) difference between "discuss" and "discusses" was one of the most obvious errors that could have occurred and was the first correction that was tried.

 

[AngleEyes]

Oh, I see. I wasn't previously aware of this position locator process.
I guess it has its own inherent flaws.
I assume it is only of use to English speaking people.
And if a non-native English speaker tries it, there is the obvious potential for mistakes.

 

[pcaouolte]

It gets even better if the speaker and receiver have different native languages. The first example above protester.mining.discuss would have a location of sociolecte.exotiquement.mathématiquement for a French speaker. Good luck to the receiving operator if a French person in difficulty in the UK gives that location verbally over a low quality phone connection.

As the user of the system needs an app to find the three words that apply to their location I don't know why they couldn't use an app to give their grid location or Lattitude/Longitude.

It sounded like a good idea when it was first proposed but in practice mistakes are made when reading out or hearing the words which can lead to rescue teams being sent to locations miles from the actual location of an incident.

 

[pcaouolte]

Less than 100% accuracy,with a high chance of being rescued is much better than being injured, caught in poor weather etc and trying to give a pinpoint grid reference.

The OS locate app on my phone allows me to give a grid reference which consists of two letters and six numbers and can identify my position within a 10m x 10m square. Much less chance of the grid reference being misinterpreted than the W3W location.

 

[bernardgreen]

try kicked.converged.soccer and kick.converged.soccer

 

[pcaouolte]

I think that it is even worse when similar sounding combinations are fairly close together like https://w3w.co/circle.goals.leader and https://w3w.co/circle.goal.leader. Both on the Thames about a mile apart. The call handler won't realise that there are two similar sounding locations but might ask the caller to confirm that they are on the Thames. The caller confirms that they are but rescue is sent to the wrong location which is out of sight and earshot of the correct location.

 

[IT Minion]

The three word thing is really difficult to identify locations that are near each other.

Post codes (mostly), Grid References, Latitude and Longitude all give you the ability to work out if something is nearby or not. The three words random approach means you can never tell where something is without refering to their database.

 

[IT Minion]

The OS locate app on my phone allows me to give a grid reference which consists of two letters and six numbers and can identify my position within a 10m x 10m square. Much less chance of the grid reference being misinterpreted than the W3W location.

You can get lat and longitude from your phone as well using built in apps.

 

[bernardgreen]

https://what3words.com///imprints.teach.playoffs


imprints or imprint

teach or teacher or teachers

playoffs or playoff

which creates 12 possible locations only some of which are in the UK, some are in China and Alaska

I am told that there is a program that helps call takers to deal with mis-heard / mis-typed 3 words.

It shows the location as received

If the incident is known to be in the UK but the displayed location is in China then the call taker can ask the system for other possible locations to be shown based on the possible mutations of the 3 words used.

And it still depends on GPS to be available at the incident location.

EDIT just found that teaches also works

https://what3words.com///imprints.teaches.playoffs is in the Yukon

Also find the company has £ 20 Million in "assets" ( investments ? ) but has massive operating loses.