Press
Commerce Winning Category in Layar Creation Challenge
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS – October 20th, 2011 – Layar, the largest open platform for mobile augmented reality (AR), announced today the winners for the Layar Creation Challenge. ‘AR Posters’ emerged as the winner of the $15,000 grand prize, while ‘Buy it!’ and ‘Food2You’ were awarded second ($10,000) and third ($7,500) place prizes. Read Full Story.
Layar Enters in Partnership With Telefonica I+D For Visual Search Technology
AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS – September 20th, 2011 - Layar, the largest open platform for mobile augmented reality (AR), today announced they entered into a strategic partnership with Telefonica I+D for providing them with their market leading Visual Search Technology: IRIS. Visual Search enables Layar to search through millions of images to identify these images and correctly augment them on the mobile phone resulting in a more intuitive user experience. Read full story
Layar Kicks off the Layar Creation Challenge, Aims to Create the Next Generation of Augmented Reality Publications
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 15, 2011. Layar, the largest open platform for mobile augmented reality (AR), today announced the official launch of the Layar Creation Challenge. Starting today, developers around the world can compete for $55,000 in total cash prizes, to be rewarded to ten developers with the best concepts for useful and unique layers using the recently launched Layar Vision platform extension. Read full story
Layar Vision opens the door to the next generation of augmented reality experiences
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, August 2nd, 2011. Layar, the largest open platform for mobile augmented reality (AR), today announced Layar Vision. Layar Vision enables the mobile phone to recognise real world objects and show digital content on top of them. When holding their phone over posters, magazines and newspapers users are able to view and interact with these digital experiences. Read full story
Introducing: Layar Connect
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 17, 2011. Today, we are very pleased to announce the launch of our publishing API, Layar Connect. This new tool allows third parties to build an end-to-end, one-stop-shop content management system for layers, enabling those without technical programming skills to launch their very own layers on our platform without writing a single line of code. Read full story
Augmented Reality Gets Social with Layar Version 5.0
Amsterdam, April 11, 2011. Layar, the largest open platform in mobile augmented reality, announced its new version 5.0 with an improved user-interface and sharing capabilities to Facebook and Twitter. Layar 5.0 also allows for increased interactivity within layers through its new animation capabilities. Layers are no longer limited to static content; now icons and (3D) objects can come alive with animation, adding a new level of engagement to augmented reality. Read full story
Layar for Symbian is Here!
Amsterdam, March 3, 2011. Layar, the largest platform in mobile augmented reality, today announced the availability of its Layar Reality Browser on Nokia devices built on the Symbian operating system (OS). Owners of S60 as well as Symbian^3 devices with GPS, front-facing camera, compass and accelerometer can now rediscover the world around them using Layar’s augmented reality browser. Read full story
Layar’s Augmented Reality Now Made Possible for All iPhone Apps
Amsterdam, January 27th, 2011. Layar, the largest open platform in mobile augmented reality (AR), announced today that the Layar Player is out of beta. The Player is now available to all agencies, brands and developers to include AR for free in their own iPhone applications (apps) and reach over a million active users on the Layar platform. Read full story
Letter From the CEO: Exciting News for Layar
Amsterdam, November 16th, 2010. Today is a big day for Layar. In fact, it may be our biggest yet. It is with great excitement that we announce that Layar has closed a series B funding round of €10 million. Additionally, we are very proud to welcome Intel Capital as our newest investor. Read full story
Layar presented at Google’s Zeitgeist
Amsterdam, May 19th, 2010. Zeitgeist is an event organized by Google for executives and CEO’s of major companies. It inspires, provides insights and shows what’s coming. Read full story
Verizon uses Layar’s Augmented Reality to promote Droid phones
Amsterdam, May 7th, 2010. Today Layar announces Layar Stream, revealing 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. Read full story
Layar announces Layar Stream: search and discovery for Augmented Reality
Amsterdam, May 7th, 2010. Today Layar announces Layar Stream, revealing 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. Read full story
Layar launches world’s first Augmented Reality content store
Amsterdam, April 28th, 2010. Today Layar introduces a new revenue stream in Augmented Reality. Publishers on the Layar platform now have the possibility to offer priced Augmented Reality experiences on multiple mobile platforms such as iPhone and Android. The content store is seamlessly integrated into the Layar Reality Browser, which is already used on more than 1.6 million mobile devices globally. Read full story
Layar back in the appstore!
We are happy to announce that Layar is back in the App Store and available for the iPhone 3GS. The new Layar Reality Browser has a re-engineered engine under the hood. This new engine makes the application light, stable and very quick. It is ready to handle all the current layers and it is a good base to realize all of our exciting future plans. Read full story
Layar opens for mainstream business
Barcelona, February 15th 2010. Augmented Reality (AR) platform provider Layar announces today the possibility for producers and publishers of AR content to offer their experiences for sale. In addition, Layar reached agreement with one of the top 3 mobile handset manufacturers for a global distribution partnership, which will bring Layar capable phones to the mass market. This will enable tens of millions of people to experience Layar AR content on their mobile phones in 2010. Read full press release
Layar Wins Vodafone Mobile Startup Challenge
September 25th, 2009, Layar won first place in the Vodafone Mobile Clicks start-up challenge and was awarded €75.000. Read full story
Layar Reality Browser adds 3D to its Platform
Amsterdam, September 22nd, 2009 – Today Layar announced the addition of 3D capabilities to its augmented reality browser platform. With 3D, developers can tag real-life objects with 3D text, place 3D objects in real-world space, and create multi-sensory experiences. The addition of 3D enables Layar developers to create more realistic and immersive augmented reality experiences for mobile devices. Read full press release
Layar Reality Browser 2.1 launched
We just uploaded an updated version of our browser. Next to some little bug fixes (thanks everyone for your feedback) we added some cool new sharing features. Read full story
Layar Reality Browser Announces Global Launch and New Features in the Latest Release
Amsterdam, August 17th, 2009. Layar, which was first launched in June 2009 in The Netherlands, announces that its second generation Reality Browser is now available globally on Android devices. Many new content layers are available in the Reality Browser which vary from Wikipedia, Twitter and Brightkite to local services like Yelp, Trulia, store locators, nearby bus stops, mobile coupons, Mazda dealers and tourist, nature and cultural guides. Read full press release
Layar pre-installed on Samsung Galaxy in The Netherlands
Samsung Netherlands announced that Layar will be pre-installed on Samsung’s first Android phone, the Galaxy (i7500). This Layar version will have, next to the regular content, exclusive layers of Dutch restaurant review site IENS, Buienradar (rain-forecast) and Samsung Search by ilocal. We are grateful that Samsung has chosen Layar as a partner to bring our exciting service to their customers. Read full press release
Layar Opens Up Its Mobile Augmented Reality Platform
Amsterdam, July 8th, 2009. Layar, the mobile augmented reality browser, which was launched the 17th of June, will open up its platform for developers. This month Layar will provide 50 developer keys to interested companies across the globe. With a key it will be possible to create and publish digital layers within the Layar mobile application. Any database with location coordinates can be transformed into an augmented reality layer. Read full story
The first mobile Augmented Reality browser premiers in the Netherlands
Amsterdam, June 16th, 2009. Mobile innovation company SPRXmobile launches Layar, worlds first mobile Augmented Reality browser, which displays real time digital information on top of reality (of) in the camera screen of the mobile phone. While looking through the phone’s camera lens, a user can see houses for sale, popular bars and shops, jobs, healthcare providers and ATMs. The first country to launch Layar is The Netherlands. Launching partners are local market leaders ING (bank), funda (realty website), Hyves (social network), Tempo-team (temp agency) and Zekur.nl (healthcare provider). Read full press release