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Augmented reality browser Layar recently launched it's v3 publishing site chock full of developer tools. The launch signifies more than 1000 active developers being given the chance to showcase their 3rd party applications. By exposing this immersive platform to outsiders, the company is solidifying its title as a pioneer in the "future of augmented reality". In a recent blog post Layar outlined 5 cases to demonstrate the power of the platform. In addition to some of the company's earlier 3rd party releases, below are some of our favorite layars.

Some six months ago, we had a small conniption over an augmented reality application for Twitter on the iPhone.

With the release of Twitter's geotagging API, however, users were bound to see more and better AR apps for the popular microblogging service. Twitter 360 has just come up on our radar, and it looks like a dream from the outset. But will its features live up to user expectations?

Virginia-based company WhereMark has just released a preview of its upcoming app for the iPhone 3GS. By now we're all familiar with augmented reality applications that place data above a real-time mobile camera view. Companies like Wikitude, RobotVision and Layar have wowed us with their ability to color what is sometimes described as an "outernet." While it is not yet available to consumers, it will be interesting to see if WhereMark's application weaves a similar web of intrigue.

This year has seen an explosion in the development of mobile augmented reality applications, from games and parlor tricks to incredibly useful applications that provide more information about the world around us.

Today, Austrian smartphone development shop Mobilizy, creator of the Wikitude World Browser, has announced it will be presenting a standard AR markup language (ARML) to the the AR Consortium. Such a step would remove one of the five barriers to AR that we recently wrote about: interoperability. Cross-platform, open development standards would allow users more ways to see more AR content. Read on for a video and details.

At its annual iPod event today, Apple introduced version 3.1 of the iPhone OS for the iPhone and iPod touch. While there are a number of small tweaks and new features in this update, for the most part, the new firmware enables support for the new features that iTunes 9 introduced today, including Genius mixes and premade ringtones. One feature we were really looking for, support for augmented reality (AR) apps, will only be semi-supported in this new version, though at least some AR apps that were previously impossible to implement on the iPhone will now be feasible.

This past week's buzz phrase (so much so that it was a trending topic on Twitter) was "augmented reality" (or AR), which is what you get when you mix your perception of the world around you with computer-generated information. While still in its infancy, the technology holds the promise that you might one day be able to point your iPhone's camera at a Starbucks and see a little notice pop up that says, "There's a Starbucks here."

French app development shop PresseLite appears to have the first Augmented Reality (AR) supporting iPhone app live in the iTunes store, though we don't know how they did it. It's called Metro Paris Subway, and while the app isn't new, it released a new version last week that added an AR overlay that displays information about Paris businesses when you look at the city through your iPhone's camera.

Augmented Reality is the term for a long-developed set of technologies that place layers of information on top of a view of the real world. Developers and AR-watchers have believed that no AR apps would be able to go live in the iTunes App Store until the next version of the iPhone OS is released in Fall. No one we've talked to has seen any others, but this one is for sale for 99 cents. It's possible that it was allowed in by mistake, or that it's a partial implementation of AR, but we're waiting to hear back from the developers for more details.

Fifty years after its invention by the British Royal Navy for use by fighter pilots, the technology of layering information on top of our naked view of the world may cross over the line between science fiction and mass consumer experience as soon as next month. It's widely believed that the operating system for the iPhone 3Gs will be updated this Fall, possibly in September, to allow developers to use the phone's location awareness and internal compass to orient displays of information and imagery placed on top of the view through the camera.

"The internet smeared all over everything." An "enchanted window" that turns contextual information hidden all around us inside out. A platform that will be bigger than the Web. Those are the kinds of phrases being used to describe the future of what's called Augmented Reality (AR), by specialists developing the technology to enable it. Big questions remain unanswered, though, about the viability of what could be a radical next step in humanity's use of computers.