Fascinating, a new form of post codes, just seen it on QI.
"word1.word2.word3" = my exact location down to a 3m square anywhere in the world !! And only with a total of 40,000 different words.
losses.papers.washed = Buckingham Palace, front doorstep !
Cheers, David
peterb (04-03-2019)
And in case anyone else had a “what’s he on about?” moment, there is an explanation here:
https://what3words.com/about/
I’ve just downloaded the app - it’s actually an incredible idea.
Well worth playing with, and I can see the use, although whether it will replace applications like “share my location” remains to be seen, although it enable locations to be share verbally (although you need the app to decode the three letters).
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raygdunn (05-03-2019)
Been playing with it for a while, not so useful in the city but very handy when you are out in the countryside. It is seemingly heavily used in Africa where people may not actually have a postcode.
To be fair I do tend to use Glympse mainly if trying to meet up with someone: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ympse&hl=en_GB
What a neat idea! Of course, it would be a little more logical to use numbers, and the entire world could be divided into a grid with a logical numbering system, rather than arbitrary words. That way you'd be able to work out which numbers correspond to exactly a mile East of you, etc... Sorry if this is long but just a little lateral thinking. I don't have a 'tude about it...
Ttaskmaster (07-03-2019)
I suppose it’s easier to remember words rather than a string of numbers. Get one number wrong and it corrupts the location, but mid-spell a word and it is less likely. I guess that words that sound similar (there and their for example) aren’t used.
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I've used it to give directions to the house before. Postcode is for our whole street, this told people which one is our front door straight on the map without the usual "I've got to the postcode, now let's play hunt the house number signs".
Not sure how non English speakers get on with it.
I think this is the largest issue with its adoption. You can't tell how close two places are from their codes. Nor can you easily add a bit of distance on and generate a new code.Originally Posted by TeePee
Like latitude and longitude?
But thats not really the point of it - word1.word2.word3 is easier to remember than 59.0041N 23.0456E
You can convert 3 words to Lat and long using the three words website.
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The whole reason against that is to ensure that small errors don't mean you end up somewhere close but not exactly where you should be.
For example, ///table.chair.lamp is in the US while ///table.chair.lamps is in Australia. You'd know immediately that was wrong. Very wrong.
A clever system. I can certainly see a new drone delivery system using it, as a handy ready made system. Trust in the longevity of a small new startup is the usual problem.
The likes of Royal Mail would probably be the last one in, if it caught on.
My UK postcode has I think 18 houses. If people use it, they end up on a village side road, with no mobile signal to receive final directions!
Certainly not adopters - they don't officially accept YOTI as an ID method, although it's a better form of ID than say a credit card, which they do accept!
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Like Peterb says, they're always slow to adopt certain things, but there's another reason why they'd likely not adopt this. Imagine trying to organise letters to deliver them, one pile by one pile, through doors, in sequence, with absolutely no order to the naming system whatsoever.
I don't think this particular idea suits the typical use-case of Royal Mail where sequences make things easier.
Except I wouldn't. There is nothing in table.chair.lamp that indicates it's position without a method to decode it. On the other hand, if asked if 33.8688° S, 151.2093° E was in Australia or the US, everyone should know the answer. You have a means to indicate gross error independently.
I would not have a clue. ///table.chair.lamp makes as much sense to me. I could learn how coordinates work and roughly where is where, I guess. But, with us already having that system, what would be the point of copying it?
The 'S' is 'South', which indicates it's in the Southern hemisphere.
Hmm no structure to the names. Adjacent squares have totally unrelated words. So one would have to translate one of these codes to Longitude and Latitude then translate that to a Postcode/Zipcode.
Very much a separate piece of location info.
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