Layar is back on iPhone

March 3rd, 2010

We are happy to announce that Layar is back in the App Store and available for the iPhone 3GS. The new Layar Reality Browser has a re-engineered engine under the hood. This new engine makes the application light, stable and very quick. It is ready to handle all the current layers and it is a good base to realize all of our exciting future plans.

The new Layar Reality Browser now also comes with language support for French, German, Dutch and Italian. Other languages will follow in future releases.

So what are you waiting for? Download the new Layar Reality Browser now and experience one of the almost 400 layers.

Let us know what you think. Happy layering!

P.S. Like the new logo? ;-)

25 new layers launched; Layar expanding with country specific content layers in Russia & Thailand

February 27th, 2010

The past weeks 3 new international layers and 22 country layers have been launched. With 69 international layers, Layar is serving content in every country worldwide. On top of that more and more countries are plugged in with local, country specific content. This week Thailand’s and Russia’s first country layers have been launched.

We talked to Howard Ogden from AugmentReality.co.uk and Irina Harseeva from ARdoor, who have been developing the MTS layer and the Estate Russia Dom.ru layer.

Why build layers for Russia?
Howard: “MTS is a long standing client of JWT International, JWT International was one of the first agencies to get involved with Layar from Launch introducing brands such as Mazda early on to the possibilities of Layar. I started working with JWT International and MTS building the Russian layar back in late 2009. We had to geo-code their entire shop and distribution outlets across Russia, including all of the MTS wifi hot spots – no small task! We have created a great looking layar in Russian, that as Android and iPhone expand across the country will pick up momentum and we hope will help MTS offer more to their customers.”
Irena: “AR Door is an official Russian partner of  Total Immersion (France), the biggest software solutions provider with a proprietary technology that has been developed since 1999 – Augmented Reality. Unfortunately augmented reality based solutions are not yet popular in Russia. AR Door are the first to provide such technology in this country. What are my expectations? Well, I’m absolutely sure that Layar will be as successful and popular as it proved to be worldwide. …  I have no doubt about Layar’s great hit on the Russian market in the nearest future.

What do you expect from Layar and your content layer in Russia?
Howard: As far as we know this is a first in Russia, certainly a first of this scale and a service not offered  by any other network provider in Russia. JWT International’s Moscow office is rapidly growing and I hope that this partnership between our companies will continue to grow. We are currently working on a large scale project with JWT International Amsterdam to launch a new 3D layar early next month and I see a great future in cooperations of this nature between agencies and their existing clients and developers.”
Irena: “Layar proved to be an extremely successful project, launched only in 2009 but managed to get over 1 million users by now. I think this statement shows clearly its great potential. Why exactly for Estate Russia Dom.ru? Well, no doubt, using Estate Russia Dom.ru Layer significantly eases the process of searching for property. Wherever you are, you are able to define the search for relevant information about real estate in particular area just using your mobile phone.”

About the layers
MTS is one of the worlds largest telecoms companies, ranked 71 last year in the worlds most powerful brands by Millward Brown and the Financial Times. Based in Russia with operations across CIS and 87 million customers.
Dom.ru provides an extensive data base of approximately 75000 real estate units. Besides it proved to be a very reliable real estate agency.

All newest launched layers:

Estate Russia Dom.ru - Russia
MTC [in Russian] / Omlet (MTS) [in English] – Russia
Product AR search by TARAD.com – Thailand
IntelliFinder ID - international
写真コンテスト – photocontest – Iizuka, Japan
Resto à Paris – Paris, France
Barcos LocalizaTodo – international
Art Detector – Venice, Italy
Oficinas CAM - Spain
De Hollandse waterlinie – Biesbos, Netherlands
Dordrecht - Dordrecht, Netherlands
Globus Maerkte in Deutschland – Germany
Discount Hotel Finder - Spain
UK Post Box Finder - UK
RealNext - Netherlands
We Feel Fine - international
InfoTBC – Bordeaux, France
UK Airsoft Layar - UK
Dignowitty Hill Cultural History – Dignowitty Hill, US
San Antonio Historical Homes In Highland Park – San Antonio, US
Xacoveo – (northern) Spain
Systembolaget - Sweden
Eurostar – Madrid / Barcelona, Spain
Baltic Sea Project - Sweden

Read the rest of this entry »

Layar opens for mainstream business

February 15th, 2010

Barcelona, February 15th 2010. Augmented Reality (AR) platform provider Layar announces today the possibility for producers and publishers of AR content to offer their experiences for sale. In addition, Layar reached agreement with one of the top 3 mobile handset manufacturers for a global distribution partnership, which will bring Layar capable phones to the mass market. This will enable tens of millions of people to experience Layar AR content on their mobile phones in 2010. Read the rest of this entry »

Layar Double Award Winner at Mobile Premier Awards

February 15th, 2010

Layar has been judged the winner of two prizes at the Mobile Premier Awards, at Mobile World Congress. Layar was voted the Best Start Up in Marketing and Best Start Up in Entertainment. The Mobile Peer Awards is a key event organized around the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  A jury of industry experts chose Layar from over 90 leading Mobile Startups, and we are honored to be the only company to win two awards.

The prize for best startup in Mobile Marketing is granted in partnership with the Mobile Marketing Association.  The prize for Mobile Premier Award in Entertainment is handed out in partnership with the Mobile Entertainment Forum

“We have been enormously impressed by the innovation behind Layar and can see great potential in the application for brand mobile marketing initiatives globally,” said MMA MD for EMEA Paul Berney.”

“Layar stood out in particular for providing easy accessibility for third parties to enable greater usage and uptake of augmented reality, an area identified as one of MEF’s top ten mobile media trends for 2010. said Rimma Perelmuter MEF Executive Director.”

“This year’s competition was the largest ever with over 600 start up submissions from all continents” added Rudy De Waele, CNO at dotopen and organizer of the Mobile Premier Awards. “Layar is a great representative of the new generation of innovative startups.”

We at Layar are very thrilled and honored to receive these awards.

First Layar game demo’d at MWC

February 14th, 2010

John Sietsma is a game developer who is creating a game on the Layar platform called Jewel Collector. This game, which is still in development, is the first of it’s kind and will be demo’d at  Mobile World Congress by Layar.

The purpose of the game is to collect as many points as possible. Points can be earned by collecting jewels which are scattered around the MWC exhibition area. You can collect a jewel  by walking up to it. Every hour a new round is started and winners of the hourly rounds can be seen on a score board. Read the rest of this entry »

Where to meet Layar at Mobile World Congress

February 13th, 2010

Want to see what Layar looks like, hear how to get started developing or just talk to us and get a cool demo. You can see us walking around with the blue layar bags or catch up with us at:

Sunday
0700PM – Mobile Sunday

Monday
1200PM – Layar Picnic meetup at the fountain – Are you coming?
0200PM – Mobile Premier Awards. We are Pitching
0900PM - Mobile Premier Award Diner

Tuesday
1200PM – Layar Picnic meetup at the fountain – Are you coming?
0400PM – Conference Panel: Completing the 2.0 Reality with Mobile – Part Two

Wednesday
1200PM – Layar Picnic meetup at the fountain – Are you coming?
0100PM – Mobile Augmented Reality Summit
0500PM – Mobile AR showcase in the court yard [updated link]

Looking forward to meet great new people!

This is what we look like


Raimo van der Klein (Co-founder)

Maarten Lens-FitzGerald (Co-founder)

Claire Boonstra
(Co-founder)

Matt Miesnieks (Head of Customer Development)

Newest launched layers: Send valentine messages, take fun screenshots and much more …

February 12th, 2010

SCREENSHOT LAYER (3D) – international
Valentijn –
Netherlands
Zenbu NZ –
New Zealand
InMob – Venta –
Spain
VCUB –
Bordeaux, France
Kunst op straat –
Nijmegen, Netherlands
Discount Hotel Finder
UK
LAYAR DEVELOPERS
international
Mapa Zdravlja – The Health Layer – Serbia and Montenegro and Serbia
doomos
international
The Match international
Previsite - France and US
POVEZI.com –
Balkan
pkt.pl – Polish Yellow Pages – Poland
Oxylane Campus
– Villeneuve d’Ascq (Lille) France
Urban Farm – international

Read the rest of this entry »

Major updates: Support of local language

February 11th, 2010

Last weeks we worked hard to improve our client and we have some updates in place.

We improved the start-up time of our application and the lighting of 3D objects within Layar.

The biggest update from our side is the support of local languages. We now support the following languages: English, German, Greek, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Russian and Turkish Read the rest of this entry »

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