Universal Alphanumeric Postal Code Proposed

Meshach writes "An article in the Globe and Mail is discussing a possible change to the way postal codes are assigned over the world. NAC Geographic Products will be using Microsoft's MapPoint to power their Mobile Location-Based Services Network, which could change all postal codes in the world to a simpler, more universal format."

Comments

Re:GPS

[ssdairy]

...why not just start using longitude and latitude?
Good idea. My GPS receiver has a display mode called MGRS (Military Grid Reference System), which maps (with some calculation) to latitude and longitude.
Example MGRS coordinates:

16 T CP 12345 67890
where:

• 16 = a 6-degree slice of longitude
• T = a 8-degree slice of latitude
• CP = letters indicating a 100 km x 100 km square inside the slices listed above
• 12345 = "easting" in meters from the west edge of the square
• 67890 = "northing" in meters from the south edge of the square

Actually kind of nice -- the military uses maps with the squares and easting/northing values pre-printed. Also really nice for quick rough calculations of distance and bearing. If someone wants to use an alphanumeric code representing geographic location, might as well use one that's (1) already standardized and (2) usable by a human.