You may have noticed that the Layar blog has gone a bit quiet lately. Don’t worry, we’re still alive, but we’ve been hard at work these days on some new ideas that we think you’re really going to like. In the mean time, we thought we’d take a moment to pass on a few items that have come across our radar in the past week or so.

Personally, I’m a history buff so I would encourage you to check out the WW2Museums.com layer. It takes advantage of a huge database of locations related to World War 2, including museums, monuments, cemeteries and general points of interest from all over Europe and the United States. You can browse the database on their website as well - it may surprise you what you might find right around the corner!

We have a bit of company news to share as well, as we bid farewell to one of our earliest employees, Nanda! You maybe remember our “Meet Layar” profile of Nanda back in February, but in case you need a refresher, she has been Layar’s Office/HR/Management Assistant since nearly the very start. Nanda made sure everything around the office ran smoothly, and we will miss her dearly.

And finally, to leave you with a bit of entertainment and wonderment as we head into another summer weekend, have a look at this impressive AR demo. It’s another in a long line of intriguing hacks of the Xbox Kinect system, and it’s pretty amazing how well the 3D model sticks to the tracker used. And to top it all off, the model features live animation mimicking the motion of the person standing infront of the Kinect.

Enjoy that for now, and don’t worry, we’ll have plenty to share with you in the coming weeks. Just you wait.

Last week we informed you about SVK, or Secret Visual Knowledge, a very special new graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Matt “D’Israeli” Brooker. The limited-run comic, set in the not-too-distant future, tells the story of a secret device that allows its user to see the thoughts of the people he or she looks at.

The story has obvious influences from augmented reality, as these thoughts pop up around people’s heads when viewed through the device. To bring an interactive and immersive element to the story, the comic comes with a small UV light readers can use to see hidden messages written in the artwork with invisible ink.

Today, we want to give you a glance at what this all looks like, since the comic has, in fact, sold out its first printing. To do that, we put together a quick demo video, which shows off the hidden ink features and gives you an idea for how the story works. You also get to see a special full-page Layar advertisement which makes use of the invisible ink in a context Layar users will find familiar.

So check out the video below and visit http://getsvk.com/ to order your copy of the comic when it enters a second printing!

Every day we see lots of great new layers published on the Layar platform, so we thought we’d give you a quick heads-up on some that caught our attention lately. Layar is used in many ways all over the world, and here’s three layers that demonstrate this well.

Night of the Nerds - The Netherlands

NEMO, the science center located here in Amsterdam, is hosting a sequel event to last year’s first Night of the Nerds. The event features clinics, speakers and, of course, people doing science! To promote this year’s installment, NEMO has created a promotional layer that features a 3D spaceship trailing a banner for the event behind it. The theme from “The Twilight Zone” plays as you focus on the spaceship, which hovers over the location of NEMO.

Celebrity Homes - United States

Forget buying one of those over-priced star maps the next time you’re touring Hollywood, this layer has all you need. Want to join the paparazzi and stalk celebrities, but need helping tracking them down? Then look no further than the Celebrity Homes layer, available in the U.S. for all your star gazing desires. Each of the over 300 locations are in either Hollywood or Beverly Hills, and feature a link to further information about the occupant of the home. If you’re in the area, go hunting for actors, athletes and rock stars and send us your screenshots!

Autobuses Málaga - Spain

In Spain, the EMT (Spanish transit authority) and Orange have teamed up to provide bus riders with a layer featuring the location of bus stops in the city of Málaga. Now residents and visitors to the Spanish city can easily find the nearest bus stop, and as an added bonus, can view the estimated wait time for the next bus. The layer is part of a commitment to sustainability and innovation on the part of the EMT, and they hope the layer will attract more users to the bus system.

We’re all a aflutter today over “Peeling Layers of Space Out of Thin Air,” an awesome new multi-layer project on the Layar platform from a group of talented architects at Architecture OMI in Ghent, NY. 

The project uses beautiful interactive 3D models and animation, as well as other Layar 5.0 features to create a truly immersive AR experience! If you can make it to Ghent, NY for the opening this Saturday, July 9, we’d love to see your screenshots and videos!

In the meantime, check out this impressive video of Kol/Mac‘s “What is Space?” layer.

OPENING SATURDAY JULY 9 2011 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM Architecture Omi presents Augmented Reality: Peeling Layers of Space Out of Thin Air AUGMENTED REALITY BY ARCHITECTS @ OMI http://www.cleater.com/peeling/ 

Architects: Acconci Studio, Asymptote, Cleater Studio, Kol/Mac, Metaxy, Leeser Architecture, Studio Daniel Libeskind, SHoP, and SITE 

Curator: John Cleater / Program Director: Peter Franck Adviser and Documentation: Mark Skwarek and Will Pappenheimer THE FIELDS SCULPTURE PARK at OMI 1405 County Route 22 Ghent, New York 12075 Bring your smart phone for an evening of architecture in the landscape. 

By pointing your iPhone or Android at the sky, you will see virtual pieces of architecture installed in the physical landscape at Omi. For more information email architecture@artomi.org, visit www.artomi.org or call 518-392-4740.

Update: This project was also featured in the Wall Street Journal on August 31. Check it out!

Our friends at BERG London have just launched SVK, a special limited-run graphic novella (yes, a comic book) penned by the redoubtable Warren Ellis and illustrated by the equally formidable artist Matt “D’Israeli” Brooker.

“First and foremost SVK is a modern detective story, one that Ellis describes as ‘Franz Kafka’s Bourne Identity’. It’s a story about cities, technology and surveillance, mixed with human themes of the power, corruption and lies that lurk in the data-smog of our near-future.”

Through its protagonist Thomas Woodwind, SVK weaves a tale of two realities — the black-and-white, here-and-now surface of the world, and the unspoken thoughts that exist in the ur-space between the story’s characters. The interplay of direct perception and intraception are cleverly exposed through the book’s use of a special UV printing ink that only becomes visible under ultraviolet light, for which BERG have supplied a small UV torch. In SVK, there’s the world apparent to the naked eye, and then there’s the unseen layer of meaning all around, waiting to be discovered by the well-prepared reader.

Which is where we come in: Layar has sponsored it’s first ever print ad in the pages of SVK! Given the themes of cities, technology and hidden layers of reality, and the chance to work closely on creative with the amazing BERG team, it was a natural fit. And of course, the ad itself consists of multiple layers of reality…so order your copy of SVK, fire up your UV-spectrum Special Viewing Kit, and trawl through the corruption and lies to discover the Secret Visual Knowledge within.