Last week the first big Augmented Reality event took place at the Santa Clara Convention Center in the US. We were invited to speak in several slots. It was a great event organized by @comogard, @tishshute and @whurley. It was good to talk to all the others working hard to make the AR Mass medium emerge. Amazing to see what some are doing in the mapping and track field. The keynotes where inspiring. The one by Bruce Sterling is online as well as the one from Will Wright. Will Wright even mentions Layar in his Keynote (at minute 31). Hopefully the keynote by Jesse Schell will be online soon as that one was good and entertaining!
Here are the slides from the Layar ARE2010 main presentation, for the Business Model track, where we shared our vision on AR as a mass medium, our latest statistics, the 5 AR content categories we see emerging form the developer community, what types of product market fit we see developing and of course the latest release of the Layar Browser with Stream for real time location based search.
Our intern Anthony(@portemantho) made a nice visualization of one week of Layar usage in the United States. What you see is the parts of the US that have been augmented in the period of 27th of May until 1st of June. Really inspiring stuff Anthony!
Amsterdam, June 2nd 2010. Today Layar introduces a new way to browse with the latest Layar Reality Browser (version 3.5). The rapid growth of content within Layar increases the need for real time location based search. With the new version of the browser users can now easily discover and experience Augmented Reality without the need to enter a search query or open a specific layer. Users will immediately see the most interesting content nearby whenever they open the Layar Reality Browser, taking Augmented Reality from novelty to utility.
Layar’s Reality Browser revolutionizes mobile content discovery, by simply presenting the most interesting mobile content based on a user’s location & preferences. When launching the Layar Reality Browser users will be presented with a dynamic list of the most interesting content at their location. The list is sorted by time, location, proximity, popularity and preferences. The benefit of a list is that discovery is now possible without the need to hold the device up. It lowers the threshold to find interesting content, encouraging daily use.
Raimo van der Klein, CEO of Layar: “Augmented Reality is starting to behave like a true mass medium. It is becoming scalable with the introduction of its own discovery mechanism. We know that real-time location-based content discovery drives frequent re-use of the Layar browser.”
Last week the published layer count passed 700 with several thousand more in development. These layers currently serve 2.4 million objects a day and are now indexed and ranked using the patent pending Stream Technology. Stream supports any location based object published into Layar such as check-ins, coupons, status updates, gaming, information, 3D models and more. Publishers will also benefit by seeing their content, for the first time, served up at time and location most relevant to their users.
Layar Reality Browser version 3.5 with Stream Technology is available now for download in the Android Market. The iPhone release will be available soon.
About Layar
Layar is the world’s leading Augmented Reality Platform and browser on mobile. The Layar Reality Browser has more than 2 million users and serves 2.4 million augmented objects every day. The browser comes pre-installed on tens of millions of phones from leading handset manufacturers and carriers by the end of the year.
Over 700 layers are published on the Layar Platform with over 2500 in development. These layers are developed by the global community of 3500 Layar publishers and producers, and by leading brands and agencies. Layar is located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The company is VC funded and has 32 employees.
The free Layar Reality Browser is available on Android devices and iPhone 3GS. The Layar Platform is available for anyone to create their own Augmented Reality experiences on.
