[HN Gopher] FixPhrase - open-source, patent-free what3words alte...
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FixPhrase - open-source, patent-free what3words alternative
Author : nodoodles
Score : 22 points
Date : 2022-06-21 21:22 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fixphrase.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fixphrase.com)
| sixhobbits wrote:
| What stops W3W legal team shutting down this ohe like they did to
| the other open source implementation?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| I would also like to know why this isn't considered patent
| infringement.
|
| https://patents.justia.com/assignee/what3words-limited
|
| ---
|
| I've poked around the website. They claim an "open-source,
| patent-free algorithm" is used, and therefore the entire
| concept doesn't infringe on W3W's patents. Yikes. They can
| expect letters and lawyers.
|
| https://source.netsyms.com/Netsyms/fixphrase.com/wiki/How-It...
| teraflop wrote:
| The fact that W3W managed to get their patent issued is
| pretty hilarious in light of this:
| https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/13629/i-had-
| inve...
| [deleted]
| samwillis wrote:
| It looks like the key difference between this and what3words is
| that squares near each other have mostly the same words. With
| only the last word changing for adjacent squares, and even then
| they are similar. I can see the motivation for this (you can
| abbreviate to fewer words for a general area), but alto suspect
| it is partially about the W3w patent. However it also increases
| the risk of being slightly wrong with a location, w3w is good for
| things like emergency rescue as you can't be slightly wrong.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| Why would it increase the risk of being slightly wrong? If
| anything, it helps to have consistent prefixes because you make
| it more likely that someone will be able to recognise areas, or
| know when places are near to other places.
|
| If the system allows it, you can also use fewer words to target
| a bigger area. For example
| https://wherewords.id/juniper/detailed/ is an area of Paris,
| while https://wherewords.id/juniper/detailed/rate/thunder is a
| specific point in the Gare du Nord.
|
| The only real reason I think it can be good to avoid a
| hierarchy is because having one makes the sensitivity of the
| word list much more significant. For example, if an entire
| country has a negative association word like 'stingy' or
| 'lying' in its first word, that could be a significant problem.
|
| If you really need a checksum, https://wherewords.id/ supports
| an optional emoji checksum.
| croes wrote:
| "However, security researcher Andrew Tierney demonstrated in
| 2021 that the What3words algorithm does not sufficiently
| protect against confusion between nearby locations because it
| may assign words that are similarly spelled or pronounced,
| which can limit the value of the system when a precise and
| unambiguous location is required, like safety-critical
| applications. Analysis by Tierney showed that close repetitions
| and the use of plurals occur in physically close locations. The
| company says that this has a one in 2.5 million chance of
| occurrence, but Tierney's analysis has highlighted areas where
| the odds are around 1 in 500."
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What3words#Criticism
| kybernetikos wrote:
| This is a bit like my http://wherewords.id that I made as a fun
| holiday project. I used the S3 mapping (same as the one used by
| pokemon go), and my own wordlist.
|
| The wordlist is surprisingly hard work. The first location I
| clicked on fixphrase had as one of its words 'french'. That's
| potentially pretty confusing.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I picked a random location and got "daringly kleenex sloppily
| very". Are there any issues with the fact that "kleenex" is a
| registered trademark?
| beeneuf wrote:
| Kleenex is widely viewed as a genericized trademark and appears
| as an English word in the Merriam-Webster and Oxford
| dictionaries, which this may use as a source.
| baal80spam wrote:
| I'm trying to think of a use case for such a service. Any ideas?
| stop50 wrote:
| For places that don't have an adress or the adress is ambigious
| Ayesh wrote:
| Telling a location over the phone when you are in an emergency
| comes to mind. Easier to remember than a series of numbers as
| is the case latitude/longitude.
| toolz wrote:
| neither this nor w3w are as useful as googles already open source
| https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/ in my opinion.
|
| With plus codes you can both have a short, memorable address and
| gauge relative distance with other nearby addresses. I'm not sure
| I can think of a reason to ever use fixphrase or w3w as an
| alternative to this already existing open standard.
| pkulak wrote:
| w3w considers the disambiguity an asset. Almost like a check
| sum. If you enter an address, and it's in the middle of the
| Pacific, you know you wrote it down wrong.
| toolz wrote:
| that's an interesting point, but in practice I don't see how
| it's meaningful. If you write down a plus code and end up in
| a similar area, you contact the person with the address and
| figure it out without much issue. If you can't contact that
| person again, well you're at least most likely to be in the
| area and can ask around for directions.
|
| with w3w if you can't contact the person with the address
| again, you've no idea where on the planet this place might
| be.
| kybernetikos wrote:
| The point of using words is that it should be more reliable
| when roundtripping via voice or memory. I think it's much
| easier for people to remember 'reader giraffe suppose advance'
| than WF24+VMR
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