New Version of Layar Augmented Reality App Packs New Features

Posted 12/03/2009 at 6:31pm | by Ryan Whitwam

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At long last the augmented reality browser Layer has released version 3.0 complete with some spiffy new features. One big advance is support for 3D objects. These objects can be inserted into new 3.0 layers and appear in the Layar interface. One of the 3.0 layers used at show off the new feature is “Beatles Tour”. The layer contains 42 points of interest with various 3D models as a guided tour of the music group’s old haunts.

The folks at Layar are also encouraging artists to create art exclusively for the augmented reality app. Users could wander around their neighborhood looking at virtual artwork on a huge scale. If that sort of thing isn’t for you, have no fear. The new user login and cookie support makes it easier to customize layers. A user can keep information more relevant to them. For example, the “tweeps around” layer shows nearby tweets, but Layar 3.0 would allow you to filter out people you don’t follow and send out tweets from the layer itself
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Layar 3.0 is currently available in the Android Market for Android 1.5 and 1.6 devices. Testing on Android 2.0 is nearly complete, so a version for the Droid should be along any time now. The iPhone version will be in the App Store as soon as Apple gets around to approving it.