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Writer's picturejinagamvasubabu

Pinpoint anywhere on earth for better navigation



Have you ever faced an issue telling your address to a delivery agent?
Do you still depend on landmarks for navigation ?

These three words will save you from this and it's not Oh My God 🤣🤣



Problem:

Street addresses/GPS are not accurate enough to specify precise locations, such as building entrances, and parking exits because GPS with cellular tower data will have an RMSE(Root Mean square Error) of 10 meters and this number can vary depending upon satellite positioning, hardware of GPS coordinates receiver, and rural areas, etc



Why is GPS alone not enough?

GPS (Global Positioning System) mainly depends on strong signals received from satellites positioned across the globe, every smartphone has a receiver (inbuilt) to receive these signals and also uses cellular tower signals to pinpoint your correct accurate location if the object is in motion.


Many GPS devices ideally need to receive signals from at least 7 or 8 satellites to calculate location to within about 10 meters. With fewer satellites the amount of uncertainty and inaccuracy increases. With less than 4 satellites, many GPS receivers struggle to produce accurate location estimates and will report “GPS signal lost” at points during the route. Imagine pinpointing Rural areas because there is a high chance of fewer satellites.


What three words?

  1. Divided the entire earth into 3 meters square

  2. Gives a randomised 3-word unique string separated by a dot "moons.inflict.rental" which point to Shibuya, Tokyo

  3. Share these three words to correctly identify any location on Earth

Credits: https://what3words.com/about



How to use it?

1. Download the app "what3words"



2. Give location access permission to the app and tap on the GPS icon or satellite mode and find your grid and tap on to see your three words

Source: https://what3words.com


3. You can use these three words to navigate with any Map Apps like Google Maps, Apple Maps, etc

Source: https://what3words.com


Interesting applications:

I have taken some of the interesting use-cases which are built on top of what three words.


Postal Services:

Mongolia changed its traditional postal code system to what three words to identify a particular address

https://qz.com/705273/mongolia-is-changing-all-its-addresses-to-three-word-phrases/


Emergency Situations:

Victims can share their three words to helpers in emergency situations like being stuck in the amazon forest etc. This app saved many lives https://what3words.com/what3words-for-emergencies-real-life-stories/


Ride-Hailing:

Ride-Hailing Apps like Careem, Cabify, Addison Lee, Easy Taxi, etc started supporting "what three words" for better navigation


Logistics & Delivery:

"What three words" is a boon to logistics and Delivery because delivery agents can easily navigate to customer addresses without the need to call customers multiple times asking for landmarks


........

refer to this document for more use cases https://what3words.com/products/


Conclusion:

"What three words" is an interesting idea to solve the current navigation problems, so why late? download the app today 🥳


References:



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Vasu Jinagam

Hi 👋 , Myself Vasu Jinagam from Bengaluru India and I am currently working at slice as an Engineering Manager.

 

HangoutDude is a No-Nonsense Tech and story blog, I like to talk about Golang, Java, Distributed Microservices, Opensource and Cloud computing

You can reach out to me @ jinagamvasubabu@gmail.com

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