Earlier this year we told you about Popcards, a personalized Augmented Reality (AR) greeting card application custom built with Layar technology.

The app, available in U.S., allows anyone to create printed greeting cards that come to life with an AR video experience. The user can simultaneously take a photo and record a personal video. The photo is printed on the greeting card with a personal message. The greeting card can then be scanned using the same Popcards app, bringing the card magically to life.

For the holiday season, Popcards has partnered with the Children’s Cancer Research Fund (CCRF) to donate $1 from each purchase to the charity. Based in the United States, the CCRF is dedicated to eliminating childhood cancer by funding leading-edge research in the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure of childhood cancers and blood-related disorders.

“Children’s Cancer Research Fund is near and dear to my heart. As a stage 3 cancer survivor and a CCRF board member, I’m dedicated to helping children and families in their battle with cancer. Popcards is a fantastic new invention that helps people uniquely stay connected, and if it can help in the fight in any way, we are over the moon,” says Stephanie Hansen, Popcards Owner.

Popcards is an amazing example of the power of AR and how the Layar platform can be leveraged to create new, innovative mobile apps and experiences.

This weekend, a group of adventurers in London will take part in AdventureRace.London, a multi-team scavenger hunt contest to benefit charity. But this hunt will be much more unique than any other, as contestants will need to unlock some clues with the help of the Layar App and augmented reality.

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When you hear the old advertising adage “sex sells,” you usually associate it with scantily clad women put on display to help sell beer, cars and other items to men. But what “the other half?”

The Charleston Animal Society (CAS) from Charleston, South Carolina, is using this tactic for good by enlisting the help of hunky local firemen (and a few firewomen as well) to spice up their 2015 calendar benefiting Toby’s Fund, the society’s medical fund for abused animals. And best of all, it’s been made interactive with Layar!

Putting a new spin on the infamous “firefighter calendar,” the CAS had the firefighters pose with cute and cuddly rescue dogs and cats. When scanned with the Layar App, each month’s photo comes alive with a video of the firefighter and their furry friend.

The CAS was forced to nearly double its initial print run of 6,000 calendars to 11,000 due to the high demand for the calendar. The society was lucky enough to have their project picked up by popular media outlets, such as the Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, The Daily Mail, the Today Show and more. According to Caroline Eller of the CAS, the society has received orders from around the world, including China, Australia, Norway, Peru, Brazil and Germany.

“Being in the printing industry I am always looking for new ideas and ways to help my clients,” said Don Oswalt of Nelson Printing, who produced the calendar for the CAS. “There was a lot nervousness in the beginning since it was so new to us and not having produced anything with Layar platform before. We are very proud how Layar and its amazing technology has set this calendar apart as a one of a kind.”

To give it a try yourself, head on over to our Client Examples page!

Each year since 2004 during the week before Christmas, Dutch radio station 3FM hosts the Serious Request donation drive to benefit a specific charity chosen for that year. The station’s DJs live for 6 days in a glass house erected in a public square as they broadcast on radio and TV around the clock, drawing big crowds and even bigger donations.

For this year’s fundraiser in the Dutch city of Haarlem, Serious Request has teamed up with AR developers Dutch Rose Media to create interactive AR postcards with their Layar-powered app Smilez. The postcards are being sold for €2, and €1 from each card will be donated to Serious Request.

When scanning one of three different postcards with the Smilez app (it also works with the Layar App), users will see a video play right on the card as it comes to life. One card features a holiday themed greeting, another shows a brief video tour of the city of Haarlem, and the third features imagery from this year’s charity theme, “Hands Off Our Girls.”

The theme of the fundraiser aims to raise money and awareness for female victims of sexual assault during war and conflict. Last year’s event to benefit charities fighting child death from diarrhea (humorously titled “Let’s Clean This Shit Up”) raised over €12 million ($15 million), with roughly half being donated on the final day of the drive, Christmas Eve.

To try it yourself, have a look at the Smilez-enhanced Serious Request postcards. If you’d like to purchase one, you can do so at the Smilez website.

Introducing our first Sponsored Project: Inside Confucius

If you’ve followed Layar over the years then you know that we have a long record of promoting artistic and educational content on our platform. Dozens of layers have been published over the years for various purposes, including museum exhibitions and the products of augmented reality design classes.

We’re big supporters of using technology - especially augmented reality - to forge new frontiers for improving education, culture and society, but not everyone has the resources to bring great ideas to life. We want to make sure that ideas conceived around augmented reality and interactive print have a chance to become a reality, so today we’re introducing Layar Sponsored Pages.

Layar Sponsored Pages makes it easy for artists, students, teachers, charities and other groups and individuals to apply for free Layar Creator pages. To get things started, we’re also introducing our first sponsored project: Inside Confucius from Western iMedia at Western Kentucky University’s School of Journalism and Broadcasting.

Western iMedia has launched a Kickstarter project to help fund the group’s goal of creating an innovative editorial study of the Confucius Institute, a worldwide cultural program run by the Chinese government. Layar has sponsored the project with not only free Layar Creator pages, but also with $2,000 in rewards for Kickstarter donors.

Kerry Northrup, Director of Western iMedia, has been interested in using augmented reality as a journalistic tool, and had students test and research the best platform.

“They researched and tested out a few augmented reality service providers and none seemed to work as they had hoped. Kerry came across some of Layar’s work this past summer and it seemed bullet proof to him,” says Western iMedia’s Mckenzi Loid. “It was easy to use and it seemed to be a perfect fit for our project.”

The group then produced a trial project to see how the use of augmented reality might change their content and workflow. “Through that trial project, we were certain that Layar was a great provider to work with as journalists and we could be confident using it for our Confucius Institute project,” says Loid.

The Western iMedia project is indeed a unique one, touching on both the educational and cultural aspects of what we look for in Layar Sponsored Pages applicants. If you want to apply for free Layar Creator pages, visit the Layar Sponsored Pages information page and fill out the application form!