Don\u2019t feel bad if you haven\u2019t heard of HERE, it\u2019s an OEM supplier, so unless you\u2019re in the industry you\u2019re unlikely to have heard of it. That said, HERE provides the navigation technology for some 150 million cars currently on the roads, and four in five new cars sold with embedded maps use its tech<\/a>. So there\u2019s a good chance your next car could use What3words, if it doesn\u2019t already.<\/p>\n What3words<\/a> is positioned as a more human friendly way of sharing locations. The company has mapped out the whole world, splitting it up into three meter by three meter squares, all of which have a unique three word name. Navigating to a very specific location is as easy as saying three words.<\/p>\n [Read: 4 ridiculously easy ways you can be more eco-friendly<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s more, it makes sharing very specific locations tremendously simple too.<\/p>\n J\u00f8rgen Behrens, of HERE Technologies, said: \u201c[Car makers] can now provide the What3words service to their customers through the Here Search API instead of having to integrate it themselves. This will allow drivers to navigate easily in dense, urban environments with non-standard addressing schemes or seamlessly get to any location, be it a local pub or a trailhead.\u201d<\/p>\n To get this level of accuracy when using car satnavs, usually required drivers to program in specific longitude and latitude coordinates or entire addresses, which is slow, cumbersome, and robotic.<\/p>\n What3words and HERE says that integrating their two systems will allow drivers to speak (in one of 35 languages) or type three words into their car satnav to set a location. In reality, most people rely on zip or postal codes when programming their satnav, in some cases this works fine, but in many others it provides too big an area for accurate navigation.<\/p>\n Despite being a very useful and effective system, one that\u2019s used by<\/a> emergency services<\/a>, What3words hasn\u2019t managed to find much use in the mainstream. Most likely because platforms like WhatsApp have useful location sharing features that make it easy to find your mates when you\u2019re on the move.<\/p>\n However, not everyone uses WhatsApp, and it requires active two-way communication for it to work. While What3words is known for its app, through its API it provides a layer of map detail that can be applied almost anywhere, in this case car satnavs.<\/p>\n This means that businesses in the middle of nowhere can share a simple three words to help clients navigate there easily. It would also prove useful for temporary events, like music festivals, which often have multiple entrances and are spread across broad geographic areas that don\u2019t have the best infrastructure or signage to begin with.<\/p>\n In these cases, you could accurately and easily direct attendees to a specific entrance to manage traffic flow in the local area.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s not clear what car manufacturers are going to offer the integration, and what cars might get an update to add it, What3words says \u201cincorporating this new feature is easily done for both new and existing clients,\u201d and is \u201cavailable as an add-on to HERE\u2019s core navigation products.\u201d<\/p>\n SHIFT has contacted HERE for more information on this point. However, if enough carmakers do get on board, and there\u2019s not many reasons they shouldn\u2019t (except cost), we could be about to witness a shift in how we navigate in our cars. Better yet, it could get a whole lot quicker and easier.<\/p>\n Sources: TechCrunch<\/a> <\/p>\n <\/a>SHIFT<\/a> is brought to you by Polestar. It\u2019s time to accelerate the shift to sustainable mobility. That is why Polestar combines electric driving with cutting-edge design and thrilling performance.<\/span><\/i> Find out how<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Published November 5, 2020 \u2014 13:30 UTC <\/p>\n
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