New Version of Layar Makes Augmented Reality Social
Red hot Augmented Reality browser Layar announced an upgrade to its service today that adds social features to the act of looking at data on top of the world around you. If you're using Layar to look through your mobile phone's camera and see real estate listings for the buildings nearby, social network messages left by your friends in a particular place or Flickr photos from the area - you can now share that data set's layer with anyone else by sending them its URL.
Layar hopes that it will eventually offer thousands of layers to view the world through and this feature will allow users to tell their friends by email, Facebook, Twitter etc. how to "see the world as I see it."
Layar is only available for Google Android phones today but the company is testing an iPhone version that is expected to be available next month. Layar was just made globally available on Android two weeks ago.
In addition to sharing links to particular layers, the new version also offers support for sending screenshots to Flickr, Twitpic or elsewhere.
One of the challenges faced by the Augmented Reality industry is how to make the AR experience social and real time. This upgrade by Layar is a good move in that direction. It will also be a very good way to grow the service once it is available on more phones.
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IMPORTANT MESSAGE: We also removed the “forward lock” making it possible for people with a developer phone to download Layar as well.
As a consequence it is impossible to update your current Layar application. So please remove it before you upgrade. We are sorry for this but the “forward lock” was making our life very complicated. Better to do this move now than later. Please share the message by retweeting. Thanks!
@Raimo: Oh, I see now. I rushed to Android Market to get the update and there was none. Re-installing now. Thanks!
Thanks for the note Raimo and good luck with the iPhone version!
Thanks.. It's a challenge keeping the functionalities per platform alligned.. ;-)
Centrl, another LBS on the iPhone and Android, also allows you to save and share POIs and other data around you. This seems to be a growing field...
i just used this on my g1 for about 5 minutes, and it rocks. i have been waiting for this thing to come to america and i am so excited it did. i see myself using the ‘eat’ layer a lot on road trips. this tech has some crazy possibilities. really cant believe this is free. augmented reality rules. next thing ya know, this will be in glasses, then contacts, then implants. then we get cyber brains a la ghost in the shell and shit starts to really get crazy.