For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 8
By PaulB
#1715110
Genghis the Engineer wrote:Absolutely nothing. It just doesn't seem to recognise the phrase as having any meaning.



So the person who is lost needs to make sure that their version is set up the same way as the local emergency service.
User avatar
By Genghis the Engineer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1715130
OCB wrote:
mick w wrote:Just wondering why , although in the same room , verified by the Map , I get 3 different words , on different days , is it 'active' ?. :?


No idea, but if you are in a room, there is a good chance your grid will bounce about, since you don’t have a good signal from our little friends up above.

I thought the database was meant to be static, to allow it to work without a data connection. Not looked that deeply into it though- but I will definitely play with it.

already answered, yes it’s in different languages. No, there doesn’t appear to be a Flemish version - they’ll go Dutch or English, or Swahili or whatever, they’re pretty flexible that way!


Zoom into the grid, you'll see a circle of uncertainty encompassing multiple grid squares and a blue dot of best guess location. Leave it on the table and watch for a while, and you'll see the blue dot move, and the circle of uncertainty expand and contract.

The grid square it's giving three names for will be the one the blue dot falls most into.

Now open a standard GPS app on your phone and watch the numbers for location and "Error" value (the radius of the circle of uncertainty) and you'll see much the same behaviour, just in numbers.

G
User avatar
By OCB
#1715138
PaulB wrote:
Genghis the Engineer wrote:Absolutely nothing. It just doesn't seem to recognise the phrase as having any meaning.



So the person who is lost needs to make sure that their version is set up the same way as the local emergency service.


You can download the language packs on your phone in advance, and switch. I imagine the emergency services in “somewhere foreign” could do likewise.

the app footprint is small enough- I wonder why they don’t include “nearest neighbour” language packs...but that’s maybe just me and my multilingual IT heritage...
PaulB liked this
By PaulB
#1715142
Why didn't they treat ///cow.house.car as numbers so when someone types ///vache.maison.voiture it maps to the same numbers (and therefore same location)?
By cockney steve
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1715235
Because you'd need at least 5 digits (40,000 word possibilities?) for each "word"- hence a 15-digit string. We already have that, in a map-grid reference which is well understood universally,is it not?
By PaulB
#1715274
If there’s a universal reference for 10m x 10m squares, then fine - use that - it saves replicating the database in multiple languages that are not cross-referenced. This seems to me to be a major weakness in the system.
By JoeC
#1715276
PaulB wrote:Why didn't they treat ///cow.house.car as numbers so when someone types ///vache.maison.voiture it maps to the same numbers (and therefore same location)?


Because, depending on the translation, it might come out as ///bully.home.automobile
By PaulB
#1715283
JoeC wrote:
PaulB wrote:Why didn't they treat ///cow.house.car as numbers so when someone types ///vache.maison.voiture it maps to the same numbers (and therefore same location)?


Because, depending on the translation, it might come out as ///bully.home.automobile


No translations would be needed if there was a single reference mapped to various languages.

If the code was (say) ///123.456.789 it could be mapped to ///car.home.banana in English, ///vache.ananas.avion in French and ///jambo.twigga.simba in Swahili.
JoeC liked this
By JoeC
#1715294
Buuuut, if you were explaining to your swahili mate who was organising the mountain rescue team where you were and you told him in english it was ///car.home.banana (this is what your app tells you) he may punch into his device ///automobile. house.plantain because its him translating your words not the application.
By PaulB
#1715320
Which is another failing of the prog.....
User avatar
By mick w
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1715370
JoeC wrote:Buuuut, if you were explaining to your swahili mate who was organising the mountain rescue team where you were and you told him in english it was ///car.home.banana (this is what your app tells you) he may punch into his device ///automobile. house.plantain because its him translating your words not the application.



But if your friend has the App , just click share ??. :?
By rjc101
#1715480
In the web interface, which I suspect anyone receiving a call for help would use, you can enter the W3W address in any language and it will still find it. If you have the language pack downloaded, the mobile apps will also still find it. Just type it in verbatim and there is no issue. Anyone who uses the app should be able to follow that rule.
By rjc101
#1715484
PaulB wrote:What happens if you put ///commentateur.raccommodeur.sesterce into an app configured for English or Swahili?

If you have the language pack installed (even if not selected as active), it will work fine. If you use the website, it will work fine.
By rjc101
#1715485
PaulB wrote:Which is another failing of the prog.....

Only if those using it know the rules of entering data verbatim without translation. If they use the web apps that isn't a problem, for an app on a mobile device providing the language pack is there (even if not active) it will work fine.
By PaulB
#1715486
Still doesn’t seem as easy or foolproof as the phone sending location data to the emergency services directly. (If only all the emergency services used the system!)
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 8