The Dutch doyen of augmented reality today – Layar – has unveiled a new search and discovery tool called Layar Stream that reveals immediately what augmented reality (AR) content is available around you.
In the new medium of augmented reality, there are many great experiences waiting to be discovered. With the continuously increasing amount of AR content, discovery becomes a challenge. Layar Stream solves this.
Layar Stream generates a stream out of the 1.2 million augmented objects served daily by Layar. Layar is located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The company is VC funded and has 32 employees.
The ranking is based on a proprietary algorithm using contextual elements like location, usage and popularity of content in all published layers.
Layar Stream holds information about the type of available content and whether it contains 3D objects, images, video or audio. Users can optimise their stream by filtering on keywords, categories and distance.
The Layar Stream is viewable without having to hold the phone up and moving it around. This enables easy discovery of what is around you in everyday situations.
When selecting a specific object, the layer opens and can be seen in the AR view.
“Layar Stream is the necessary building block to make augmented reality part of everyday life,” said Raimo van der Klein, CEO of Layar.
“There is a whole augmented world out there that is waiting to be discovered. You just need to tap into Layar Stream.”
Invitation to Layar publishers
The company said that all Layar publishers are invited to have their AR content indexed by Layar Stream.
Layar Stream will be available in the next release of the Layar Reality Browser, to be launched later this month on Android with iPhone following soon after.
Layar is the world’s leading Augmented Reality Platform on mobile. The Layar Reality Browser has more than 1.6 million users and serves 1.2 million augmented objects every day.
The browser will come pre-installed on tens of millions of phones from leading handset manufacturers and carriers by the end of the year.
More than 600 layers are published on the Layar Platform with more than 2,000 in development. These layers are developed by the global community of 3,000 Layar publishers and producers, and by leading brands and agencies.
The free Layar reality browser is available on Android devices and iPhone 3GS.
By John Kennedy
