Today, Layar has launched the Layar Player - an easy and free tool allowing you to offer impactful AR experiences directly from your own iPhone App.

“One of the main great features of the Layar Player is that you can launch the power of AR from within the context of your app,” says Gerben Klop, product manager of the Layar Player. Here is our press release regarding the Layar Player.

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS – January 26, 2011– Layar, the largest open platform in mobile augmented reality (AR), announced today that the Layar Player is out of beta. It is now available to all agencies, brands and developers to include in their own iPhone applications (app).

The beta period concludes with the launch of three Layar Player enabled iPhone apps - Bing sponsored Snowboard Hero, an augmented reality extension in the popular game that allows players to earn more points; the Layar Trade, an application helping people view recent projects and work from local builders; and an application to improve your neighborhood letting neighbors post their issues and ideas for the public space on the map.

“This year is about the democratization of augmented reality as we work to find ways to make it easier to create and publish AR content for all,” said Claire Boonstra, co-founder and VP of platform and community. “The Player availability is the first of many activities Layar will be releasing this year to make this democratization happen.”

“At Bing, we aim to bring information into people’s lives that is visually organized, simple and easy to digest. Augmented reality on mobile devices provides more opportunities to overlap reality with digital information that informs, educates and creates new ways to play within your environment,” said Wibe Wigenmans, Bing for Mobile. “The mobile experience for Bing users continues to evolve as we constantly look for ways to create visually engaging experiences.”

Download the Layar Player and create your very own Augmented Reality app!
For more information, please visit http://www.layar.com/tools/player.

Being selected one of the Technology Pioneers, Layar, represented by co-founder Claire Boonstra, will exchange thoughts with the world’s leaders this week during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.

From January 25th - 29th, Claire will be speaking on stage at three different occasions, attending some interesting sessions and will have many meetings and conversations with other attendees.

Some of the highlights of her program include:

• Wednesday Jan 26th at 3:15 pm - Presentation and panel discussion on Digital Convergence with Loic le Meur and Prof. Masa Inakage, moderated by Rob Tarkoff and David Kirkpatrick.


• Thursday Jan 27th at 3:45 pm - Table Guest during session on ‘Tapping into the New Consumer’. Discussion on changing consumer trends in the travel industry. Together with Padmasree Warrior from Cisco, Nikesh Arora from Google and others.


• Thursday Jan 27th evening - Reception and Dinner (private session) with around 50 CEO’s of the Media, Entertainment and Information industry (incl Google, Nike, WPP, Time Warner, Bloomberg, Publicis etc). The theme will be “Is Reality Perceived or Is Perception Reality?” and Claire will be one of the three speakers.

This Sunday and Monday (January 23rd and 24th) co-founder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald will be at the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany. The DLD Conference is a “Euro” TED with an amazing line up of speakers. The theme is this year is “Update Your Reality Now”.

Monday Morning at 10.15 there will be an Augmented Reality panel with Maarten representing Layar as well as Laurent Gil (Viewdle), Peter Meier (Metaio) and Stanley Yang (NeuroSky). Moderation will be done by David Rowan from WIRED Magazine. AR browsers and platforms, brainwave interpretation and facial recognition - that’s a great recipe for a good content cocktail.

Follow the live stream here. Maarten will be tweeting here.

Here on the Layar blog we have featured many layers that help us peer into the past with photographs and historical information. Augmented Reality has enormous educational potential both in and out the classroom, and one layer is helping visitors of old battlefields to envision history.

The layer “Battle of Franklin Sites” shows Layar users POIs associated with the historic American Civil War battle in Franklin, Tennessee. These include historic buildings, military cemeteries, medical facilities, locations of notable deaths, and even models of the front battle lines. Some practical tourist information, such as the location of nearby public restrooms, is also included.

Tourism officials in Franklin are hoping that using emerging mobile technology like Augmented Reality will help attract and engage visitors as the 150th anniversary of the war approaches in 2014. Why visit an old battlefield only to stand around and imagine what happened where? With this layer, visitors can use their mobile phones to see exactly where the battle lines were drawn.

Interestingly enough, this isn’t the only project using Augmented Reality in conjunction with the history of the American Civil War. The Civil War Augmented Reality Project is an effort by teachers in Pennsylvania to use the technology to enhance student experiences at historic Civil War sites. Along with mobile applications, the group hopes to install stationary “pay binoculars” which they hope will attract less technical visitors to engage with Augmented Reality.

These historical sites are prime targets just waiting to be enhanced by great Augmented Reality experiences. Soon, gone will be the days of tour guides saying, “A long time ago, important evens transpired right here on this ground.” Instead they will allow the visitors to see for themselves with Augmented Reality.

Layer: Battle of Franklin Sites
Location: Franklin, TN, U.S.A.
Required: iPhone or Android device
Developer: GDM

Layar’s U.S.-based AR Strategist Gene Becker will be in New York City next week. Here’s a message from Gene about what he’s looking ahead to.

New York City is one of the global hotspots for AR activity, and it’s definitely time for a Layar roadtrip!

I’ll be there all next week doing my AR Strategy thing: meetings with brands, agencies and partners, making and play-testing layers, and generally stirring up excitement for mobile AR in 2011. I’ll also be attending the excellent ARNY meetup on Tuesday Jan 18th, where I will show some demos and talk about the latest Layar news.

If you’re in town, I hope you’ll come to ARNY and say hello. It’s going to be an action packed week, and I’m looking forward to connecting with a lot of old and new friends. If you’d like to arrange a meeting, drop me a line at gene@layar.com.

Photo by Jerry Ferguson Photography on Flickr.