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When Microsoft acquired Nokia’s devices and services business, it left the Here maps platform behind. However, that doesn’t mean it’s been abandoned. In fact, the Finnish company announced today that the mapping service will receive an update that’ll allow for incremental updates to offline maps. This means that whenever there’s an update to only a portion of a map, users can download just that part instead of the whole map all over again. This should hopefully lead to less data consumed and a faster upgrade overall. Nokia is rolling out the update starting today for all Windows Phone 8 devices that have the latest firmware. No word yet on whether Here will be updated for Android and iOS, but seeing as the company just signed over a huge part of their business to Microsoft, we’re not surprised they’re giving first dibs to the OS from Redmond.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: Nokia Conversations

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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What do the Lumia 920, Surface Pro, Velodyne LIDAR, NovAtel GPS and Jetta TDI wagon all have in common? They’re all essential parts of the next generation Nokia Here collection vehicle. When Here was announced last fall, we checked out v1.0 of the car which featured an elaborate but clunky set of sensors and cameras. That’s also when Nokia announced it was acquiring Earthmine, a Berkeley-based 3D-mapping company. Nine months later, we’re seeing the results of this collaboration with v2.0 of the collection vehicle. It’s a simpler and more advanced setup which provides much improved image quality. Nokia recently invited us to take ride in a next generation Here car — check out the gallery below then hit the break for our video and breakdown of the technology. %Gallery-slideshow73223%

Filed under: GPS, Transportation, Mobile, Microsoft, Nokia

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Nokia’s position in the smartphone market may be precarious (if improving), but its Location and Commerce (read: mapping) division has developed quite the reputation. Toyota is the latest big car manufacturer to pay cash to get Nokia’s Here Local Search installed on Mr. Toyoda’s in-car infotainment units. The Japanese giant is planning to have the software baked into its vehicles in Europe, Russia and the Middle East by early 2014. At the same time, the duo have agreed to work together on how best they can develop Here’s navigation potential even further.

Filed under: Transportation, Software, Nokia

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After our interview with Peter Skillman last week we were given a brief tour of the Nokia Here collection vehicle, a bright blue Volkswagen Jetta Wagon specially outfitted with a smorgasbord of sensors. The main attraction is a retractable roof-mounted mast that collapses behind an aerodynamic fairing for stowage. From top to bottom, this mast features a military-grade GPS antenna, a 360-degree panorama camera in a white pod (which captures the spherical views you’ll see in Nokia Here), a Velodyne LIDAR unit in a spinning silver cylinder (for 3D mapping), high-resolution signage cameras in a black box (for forwards and backward automatic feature extraction) and finally a wheel encoder to measure distance / velocity. Sadly the car was locked so we were unable to check out what’s inside or go for a ride, but we’re hoping to remedy this at some point in the future. Until then check out the gallery below and hit the break for our hands-on video.

Continue reading Nokia Here collection vehicle hands-on (video)

Filed under: GPS, Transportation, Internet, Mobile, Nokia

Nokia Here collection vehicle hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Nov 2012 08:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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