Raimo van der Klein, founder and CEO of Layar – one of the bigger mobile augmented reality startups – is stepping down and appointing Quintin Schevernels in his place. van der Klein plans to stay on as Creative Director. Schevernels was formerly the COO of VNU Media, a large Dutch publisher. As such the move makes sense since Creator is aimed squarely at print publishers.
The company recently… → Read More
Recently a few startups have started to appear with mobile apps allowing you to point a smartphone at an object and view some kind of augmented reality object or information associated with it. Usually they’ve done this by being activated by some kind of QR code or similar. Others have started to appear with apps where no code is needed. Blippar is one such startup that is poised to release an… → Read More
The fight for European predominance in Augmented Reality (AR) is a competitive one. Both Layar from the Netherlands and Wikitude, Austria, are working hard on establishing strategic distribution partnerships and strengthening their position with a raft of handset producers, mobile phone operators and producers of navigation systems. AR itself, of course, has been around for years, but the ubiquity… → Read More
Augmented reality startup Layar has raised roughly $14 million (€10 million) in its second round of funding, which was led by Intel Capital and joined by previous backers Sunstone Capital and Prime Ventures. This brings the total of capital raised by the Dutch company to a healthy $17.4 million. → Read More
Mobilizy, the Austrian based company behind Wikitude, one of the leading Augmented Reality browsers in Europe and a direct competitor to well-known Layar from the Netherlands, has just raised an undisclosed round of funding from Austrian VC Gamma Capital Partners and tecnet Capital as a co-Investor.
It’s Mobilizy’s first round and will be used for developing their two core products, the World… → Read More
The World Economic Forum has announced its list of 31 Technology Pioneers for 2011. The Technology Pioneers are its list of up-and-coming startups. Last year’s list included Twitter, Playfish, and Boston Power. The year before, Mint, Etsy, and Brightcove were named.
Joining the pantheon this year are foursquare, Knewton, Layar, Scribd, and Spotify. However, greentech is equally strong on the… → Read More
“Augmented reality”? That’s Samsung’s gimmick, BattleTac. Be that as it may, this is Layar, what the Hungarian company calls an “augmented reality app that shows you the things you can’t see.” On the battlefield, that is. Mmm. → Read More
Layar is today unveiling the latest iteration of its Reality Browser product (3.5), starting with an Android version, with an iPhone 3GS app update scheduled for later. With the new version of the browser, users can now easily discover and experience Augmented Reality without the need to enter a search query or open a specific layer.
This means users can instantly see the most interesting content… → Read More
Augmented reality startup Layar is launching Layar Stream, which reveals immediately what Augmented Reality content is available around a user.
The problem with AR content is that discovery is an issue with all the new content available. There are now 1.2 million augmented objects served daily by Layar.
So Layar Stream tries to solve this by generating a stream which users can pre-filter.
They… → Read More
Augmented reality startup Layar is launching Layar Stream, which reveals immediately what Augmented Reality content is available around a user.
The problem with AR content is that discovery is an issue with all the new content available. There are now 1.2 million augmented objects served daily by Layar.
So Layar Stream tries to solve this by generating a stream which users can pre-filter.
They… → Read More
Mobile augmented reality networks still have to prove they can live up to the hype, but that isn’t stopping companies from jumping on the bandwagon at increasing rates. Today, Tagwhat is doing just that by launching in private beta (we have invitation codes for readers) for iPhone and Android users.
Powered by Iryss, which also offers customized mobile and AR software integration solutions for… → Read More
Augmented reality app Layar hit the App Store in October 2009, only to be withdrawn by the eponymous Dutch developer of the program a month later due to repeated crashes reported by users.
It’s been quiet since, but an update for the app just popped up on my iPhone (iTunes link), with the concise and crystal clear description:
“We’re back!” → Read More
Big day for augmented reality startup Layar today. I’m here at the Mobile Premier Awards ceremony in Barcelona, where the company just announced on stage that they have struck a global distribution deal with a major handset manufacturer.
Layar has opened up a sort of app store or augmented reality experience delivered on top of its platform.
Also, the startup is announcing that it has crossed… → Read More
Now that the aughts are behind us, we can start the new decade with a bang. So many new technologies are ready to make a big impact this year. Some of them will be brand new, but many have been gestating and are now ready to hatch. If there is any theme here it is the mobile Web. As I think through the top ten technologies that will rock 2010, more than half of them are mobile. But those… → Read More
The whole idea of using your mobile phone’s camera view as a screen on top of which to add geo-specific information (also known as augmented reality) is one of the more exciting areas in the world of mobile apps. Amsterdam-based Layar, one of the companies at pushing the boundaries of this growing movement, just released Layar 3.0, which offers a whole slew of new ways to layer data onto the real… → Read More
Half an hour ago, I just had an iPhone 3GS. Now, I have an iPhone 3GS with Layar installed.
It was one of the main questions I had for the Dutch company, which markets an augmented reality browser, when they launched at the Mobile 2.0 Europe event in Barcelona last year. When would they be complementing their Android program with an application for the iPhone?
They said it’d come in the fall of… → Read More
Half an hour ago, I just had an iPhone 3GS. Now, I have an iPhone 3GS with Layar installed.
It was one of the main questions I had for the Dutch company, which markets an augmented reality browser, when they launched at the Mobile 2.0 Europe event in Barcelona last year. When would they be complementing their Android program with an application for the iPhone?
They said it’d come in the fall of… → Read More
Bing is beginning to find its way onto the iPhone through apps that build on top of its APIs. One that just hit the iTunes Store is an augmented reality app called Robotvision (iTunes link). Like other AR apps, it uses the video camera on the iPhone 3GS, as well as the GPS and the compass to bring up data about nearby restaurants and shops, including reviews. It gets this local business data… → Read More
Layar, one of the first companies to start popularizing the concept of augmented reality browsing using modern day’s mobile phone cameras, is today announcing the addition of 3D capabilities to its AR browser platform for Android and will be demoing the experience starting tomorrow at the Picnic Conference in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
With 3D, third-party developers can now tag real-life… → Read More
One of the most exciting, gee-whiz features being developed for mobile phones right now are augmented reality browsers. Rather than fire up a mobile Web browser like Safari or Opera, these generally add an information layer over the world as seen through your phone’s camera lens. Last year at TechCrunch50, Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera wowed the crowd with its AR browser demo, Layar is creating a lot… → Read More
SPRXmobile, the startup behind Layar, the mobile augmented reality browser for Android, is moving fast. Barely three weeks after launching its application too much fanfare (see my video interview with the company’s co-founder Raimo van der Klein for more context), it is opening up its platform by handing out keys for its just launched API to a select number of developers. Interested parties will… → Read More
SPRXmobile, the startup behind Layar, the mobile augmented reality browser for Android, is moving fast. Barely three weeks after launching its application to much fanfare, it is opening up its platform by handing out keys for its just launched API to a select number of developers. (See my video interview with the company’s co-founder Raimo van der Klein for more context). Interested parties will… → Read More
Layar is one mobile application that has definitely managed to get quite some tongues rolling and keyboards rattling this past week, including at the Mobile 2.0 Europe conference in Spain where I just got back from (video demo below).
Layar is a so-called ‘augmented reality browser’, an application that turns you mobile phone’s camera viewer – only on Android-powered phones for the time being … → Read More
Layar is one mobile application that has definitely managed to get quite some tongues rolling and keyboards rattling this past week, including at the Mobile 2.0 Europe conference in Spain where I just got back from (video demo below).
Layar is a so-called ‘augmented reality browser’, an application that turns you mobile phone’s camera viewer – only on Android-powered phones for the time being … → Read More
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