ReadWriteWeb

In December of last year, augmented reality (AR) browser makers Layar chose to pull its iPhone app from the App Store due to frequent crashes reported by users. They thought it was better for their brand to remove the application than to promote a faulty product. As we've mentioned in the past, Layar had hinted that a revamped iPhone app would be out near the end of February, and earlier this week they released just that.

Over the past few months, we here at ReadWriteWeb have been hard at work putting together our upcoming premium report on marketing in the augmented reality (AR) space. From our research we've discovered that for several years, desktop "webcam AR" developers have made created multi-million dollar businesses while the younger "mobile AR" companies have yet to really break the bank. Today, however, Dutch mobile AR company Layar may change the mobile AR landscape, as it has announced it will allow developers of AR layers to monetize their creations on the Layar platform.

Been living under a rock these days? There's this hip new tablet device from Apple called the iPad. Most are in agreement that the new toy is pretty slick, but they also agree on where the iPad fails - there's no camera. iPod Touch fans were disappointed last year when Apple announced that the iPod Nano would be getting the much coveted camera, and now fans of a different sort are feeling the same dejected feelings.

Augmented reality is a technology that allows 2D and 3D objects to be placed onto a live video feed, creating unique user experiences. AR applications entered the mainstream with a few advertisements and installations for automobiles in 2008. Since then the technology has found its way onto our home computers with things like the GE Smart Grid campaign, and onto our cell phones with mobile AR browsers like Layar and Wikitude.

Popular travel book publisher Lonely Planet has begun selling Augmented Reality apps for 10 US cities for $5 each in the Android Marketplace. The apps were built in conjunction with Mobilizy, the company behind user generated content AR app Wikitude.

In addition to offering Lonely Planet content overlayed on top of locations you view through your phone's camera view, you can also plan itineraries and get step by step directions from the app. Augmented Reality is a technology in a formative stage but support from the Lonely Planet brand is a big, if unsurprising, step.

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.

Metaio Augmented Reality Solutions is about to announce the release of the company's Junaio iPhone application and ReadWriteWeb has an exclusive pre-release review. While other products like Wikitude, Robotvision and Layar allow users to view notes and text above a location-based layer, no other service offers us a chance to add 3D objects and animation. While the demo may seem frivolous for now, the possibilities for branded scavenger hunts, real-world easter eggs and Foursquare-like location-based games are limitless.

3D virtual pets to hold in your hand and interact with, software that turns drawn objects into movable 3D objects subject to the laws of physics and a Microsoft hiring-coup. Those are the stories behind the hottest videos from the eye and brain-candy world of Augmented Reality, as seen at last week's International Symposium on Augmented and Extended Reality in Orlando, Florida.

Who says the web is all about pages that you view in a browser? Check out these three visions of a fast-approaching future where data is drawn from and overlaid on top of the real world around us.

The cranky elves that run the iPhone App Store may be warming up after all to the emerging field of Augmented Reality (AR). AR app makers, who are building sci-fi-like interfaces for viewing data about the physical world on top of the mobile phone's camera, were beginning to feel spurned.

Today Apple both approved the most eagerly anticipated Augmented Reality app yet, Amsterdam's AR browser Layar (iTunes link), and made its primary challenger, Wikitude (iTunes link), a featured app in the iTunes App Store.

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.

What is that mountain you're driving past? Just point your iPhone at it and you can read its Wikipedia entry. Science fiction? Not anymore. Two new apps for viewing Wikipedia entries about physical locations you look at through your iPhone camera are now available in the iTunes store.

Wikitude and Cyclopedia are the names of the apps and both require the new iPhone 3GS. That's because the 3GS is the first iPhone with an internal compass - Augmented Reality (AR) apps use your phone's GPS to know where you are and the compass to know which direction you're looking at. Then these two apps can tell you what you're looking at that's written up in Wikipedia. Here's how the two different apps compare.

Walking down the street, looking for a place to open your laptop and work? Before you commit to buying a cup of coffee at the first spot you come across, maybe you'd like a little Augmented Reality tour of the closest options and reviews of their power outlet, noise level and coffee quality! Augmented Reality (AR) applications place layers of data on top of our view of the physical world and WorkSnug has built an AR app just for coffee shop web workers.

The app isn't available yet but is coming to the iPhone, presumably when Apple offers the full support for AR that countless developers are waiting for. WorkSnug seems very handy and it's a good example of a one-off AR app that could serve people well outside the full AR platforms like Layar and Wikitude - but the simple fact of the matter is that it's just plain cool.

Augmented Reality (AR), the class of technologies that places sets of data on top of other views of the world around a user, is fast becoming a very crowded market. Austrian AR browser maker Wikitude has taken a very competitive step this afternoon with the release of its Application Programming Interface (API) to power AR browsers on any other application.

The company says its API "represents the emergence of an open AR development platform which could further drive the adoption of Wikitude as a potential standard for developers who want to create their own mobile AR experience." Get ready to see Augmented Reality come to far more mobile applications and for Wikitude's competitors to respond.

Google's Android mobile operating system isn't as popular as the iPhone, but its application marketplace is wide open and one service tracking Android apps reports that there are now more than ten thousand available. Below are my five favorite Android apps so far, along with QR codes you can scan (I'm using the BarCode Scanner app) to find them immediately in the marketplace.

Androlib is the service that's identified the 10k apps and is also where I got the QR codes to jump to my favorites. Robin Wauters caught and reported on the 10k news first.

Bing Local Search has some interesting features you won't find in Google, so the prospect of seeing Bing listings appear on top of your iPhone's camera viewer when you point at a restaurant or business is intriguing. That's what forthcoming iPhone app RobotVision offers - and it displays a view of Tweets and Flickr photos published nearby wherever you are.

RobotVision is a new Augmented Reality (AR) app for the iPhone 3Gs. It's not available yet, but it will be as soon as AR apps are formally welcomed into the App Store by Apple, probably sometime next month. AR browsers "turn the world inside out" by exposing latent online information about your surroundings; there will soon be enough of them that they will compete based on user experience. RobotVision looks like it could be a good one.

Austrian augmented reality startup Wikitude announced today that it has released the 3.0 version of its software for Android handsets, fully integrating its OpenID-enabled wiki markup of physical locations around the world with a more sophisticated mobile user experience and preparing for the launch of its iPhone version. Unfortunately, the company's content-adding site, Wikitude.me, appears to have crashed already.

Wikitude is one of the most high-profile augmented reality services on the market. It's a market that's getting crowded fast, and everyone wants to know if interoperability will be a priority or if we're looking at the next browser war.