Here in the UK we have a great addressing system, with street names, house numbers, post codes etc. which works very efficiently... most of the time (I'll explain that in a moment). Thus it comes as a bit of a surprise to learn that over two thirds of the world don't have a comprehensive system of addressing and in some cases, very few formal addresses at all.

The UK system is not perfect... take for example Onega's office at Trinity Buoy Wharf. The UK Post Office changed our postcodes a couple of years ago so that where we used to be E14 0JY, we are now more correctly E14 0FN. All good and well, but many delivery drivers find that their satnav takes them to the wrong place because the database on the unit does not correctly locate the new (not so new now) postcode. Hence we have to brief everyone to use E14 0FN for mail (else letters may be sent back as 'address not recognised') but for car / truck / bike deliveries to use E14 0JY to ensure they get to the right place. Understandably couriers have anti-fraud checks for changes in delivery addresses so you have to go through a number of hoops there.

So what's the solution? Well, one would be to use GPS grid co-ordinates for all addresses, but these are not easy to remember and one wrong digit can take you to a different country. A very interesting solution has been designed and implemented by What Three Words - what3words.com . They have split the whole planet into a grid of 3 by 3 metre squares and developed an algorithm that allows for just three words to describe any of these uniquely. Simple but pretty awesome and some examples help to explain how it works.

Right now I'm at EMFCamp2016 which is a UK hacker / maker camp taking place in fields in the grounds of Losely Park in Surrey (thanks for letting us use your beautiful venue). There are a couple of thousand of us here learning, sharing and having a great time. Due to the nature of the event much is dynamic so not everything is where it is on the printed maps etc. Empty fields don't traditionally have addresses but thanks to what3words, they now do. You can browse the map on the web via https://map.what3words.com/ There is an app for the iPhone and Android smartphones to allow you to find your what3words address on the map and find where others are. So here at the festival, my tent is at finger.intelligible.ridge which you'd find in the app or at https://map.what3words.com/finger.intelligible.ridge and Milliways (the restaurant at the end of the universe - or in this case at EMF2016) is at glory.hill.reds etc.

If you remember David Brabban's original 1980's computer game Elite, this included a universe of star systems created in 32k of computer memory, all generated by a computer algorithm to come up with names for all the planets etc. This allowed for much more scale and efficiency than if the planets were just named in a list (which also would not have been possible at the time due to memory limitations). The reason for mentioning this is that it's likely that this may have influenced the development of the what3words system. The 3 x 3 grid across the planet equates to 57 trillion squares. To store all these as a list with the three word address and co-ordinates that they relate to would take more capacity than the average hard drive has, even in a compressed form, so the solution is to have a word list and an algorithm to map words to co-ordinates. This is what what3words does and fits everything into 10 Mbytes of java code, which will fit happily on most mobile devices / smartphones etc.

The software is accessed over a web API (web integration) and has been designed so that the words are:

Safe dictionary words (you're not going to live at floppy.eagle.dildo but if you're at floppy.eagle.disco you are in Longbranch, Washington).
Not easily confused with each other - meanings / variations carefully assessed to make sure like sounding words avoided.
Similar word combinations are far apart so risk of confusion is minimal.

The system has been taken up globally and, for example, may well become the prime addressing system in Mongolia, giving many locations their first address ever. There are many, many uses for this and in the hobby of amateur radio could be used for location to be given accurately and quickly for competitions etc. I bet Alan Turing wished that he'd have had what3words when he buried his silver bars, never to be found again!

So now at Onega we can give delivery drivers or visitors a new address. Our office covers a fair few of the 3 metre by 3 metre squares so we can give them Empire.reduce.nation , Monday.grow.thin , interestingly our accounts department is under puppy.costs.snake , meeting room is under major.home.foam and kitchen is heavy.flops.coffee . The entrance though is at worker.point.organs so now you know how to find us!

You can see Onega's Solar install at clown.liner.lamps ..

The apps are not perfect yet - they rely on location reported by your phone and when I go back to my tent here at Electromagnetic Field 2016, it is showing up as risks.casual.scout which is 3 squares away (despite having a good GPS location and clear sky). Thus I'd not use it for an exact food delivery to my tent just yet, but it would get the delivery bot (or person) close enough for calling.

The new system looks like a winner and one of those things that make you wonder why no one has done it before? The timing is right for this and for connecting the world as we slowly but inevitably become one connected society.

What is your what3words address?

Many Thanks to Daisy.r for the photo at the head of the page.

Technology comes on leaps and bounds but some themes recur, albeit amplified, over time. For example, in the world of computer storage, modern SSD (Solid State Drives) seem to be all the rage as they are fast and reliable albeit limited in capacity and relatively expensive; yet still very good value.

Actually, chip based drives have been around for quite a long time. From my own memory I recall units being available for Early PC and even Acorn BBC series computers back in the day and they had their applications then as they do now (though improvements are leading to predictable pervasiveness).

Traditional magnetic skinny disk Hard drives may be out of favour but they are still selling strongly and have the benefit of higher capacity and lower price compared to an SSD.

Intel has recently forecast that it sees 10TB SSD drives being at a consumer level by 2017, which, with stacked layer silicon, is quite possible and predictable to achieve once the FABs have their capacity in place for the ramp up.

How will hard drive manufacturers respond to this oncoming threat? We have been pondering what we would do if we were in their boots and we think that it is time to herald the return of the Bigfoot drive or its modern successor. In the 1990s, Quantum had success by introducing a drive which bucked the trend of the 3.5" form factor that was and is prevalent for hard drives, and introduced one that was based on the 5.25" width. This is the same width as CD / DVD drive bays in modern computers and many chassis still have ample 5.25" bays. At the time, Quantum's drive offered 2.5Gbytes of capacity when competitor hard drives of the same price were giving approximately 1GB (both of these used to be regarded as big amounts of storage at the time). This high capacity came at the expense of access speed, but not to any extent that stopped them enjoying high sales volumes and it was a well regarded drive.

We think that the same could be done today, and this would find a ready market for bulk storage in the cloud and on the desktop. The reason this works is that the drive surface area is so much larger despite the seemingly small number of extra inches. This is in the same vein that the 12" album allows for about 22 minutes of play on each side vs a 7" single that only runs for 3-4 minutes. The vinyl record is back in fashion, we think the Bigfoot could return too.

Our prediction is that an entry level drive could offer 10 Tb of storage in 2016 and higher capacity editions could easily bump 40Tb. This would find a ready market for example alongside SSD storage for amateur and professional photographers, videographers etc. who might work on live edits on SSD storage and then archive off to the big magnetic disks to preserve their original footage and portfolio. As the world embraces HD and increasingly 4K, with 8K on the horizon, bulk storage has never been in as much demand.

Will any manufacturers make good on our call here? Time will tell, but we are sure that the first to launch such a drive will have a big steal on the market and show that magnetic is not dead yet.

Top image kindly from https://www.flickr.com/photos/bensonkua/3258958203

What3Words - A Unique Address for Everywhere on the Planet.

Time for a new Bigfoot?