Seasonal layers: Have a happy easter!
| Already in 2009 great “seasonal layers” have been developed. For instance, Zehnder communications have developed a great layer especially for the 3-days New Orleans Voodoo (music) Festival. Festival-goers, with Layar-enabled phones, could get information on performances, attractions and services. For easter Marc René Gardeya, from Hoppala, has developed the “Hoppala goes Easter layer”. The layer lets you place 3D easter eggs around the world and leave messages for your friends. You can search for eggs wherever you are. Ochio.nl has developed a special “easter egg search game” layer for The Netherlands. (Here at Layar Headquarters Amsterdam we can’t wait to see all the creative ideas for a “Queensday layer” the 30th of April - which is THE national celebration in the Netherlands). |  |
We talked to Marc René Gardeya and Jeroen Meijer from Muzar.org (Christmas greetings layer dec 09) about developing “seasonal layers”.
Why a seasonal layer?
 | Marc: We’re right at the dawn of that new medium called augmented reality. It is an experience medium. Jeroen: “The seasonal Xmass layar for us actually started as a joke. “wow” it would be kind of cool to have Santa hovering over your house, seemingly useless but fun. Remember this was the first seasonal layar around. After that we had to think of a way to make it possible, even for a layman to geocode the location and to send somebody else a mail “warning” them of a giant Santa over their house. Developing this Layar was very usefull for us to get to know the 3D capabilities better and getting hands on experience in the integration of fixed- and mobile internet. Moreover, it generated quite some demand from a comercial perspective! |
| What is (was) the functionality and usage of the layer? Marc: Augmented reality on this medium is so great beause of three things: It combines the real and the virtual, it’s interactive and realtime, and it’s 3D. This is what “Hoppala goes Easter” is about. It combines the real and the virtual - place eggs at your friends place, it’s just that they’re augments. It’s interactive and realtime - place eggs right from your phone, right where you are, and they’re instantly there. And it’s 3D - walk around our exclusively designed eggs. It’s lots of fun! |  |
Anything else you’d like to share?
Jeroen: “Go out there and be creative…. why only seasonal greetings? Why not birthday cakes, congrats, etc. Lets augement the world!”
