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.

As the summer continues, so does the Layar-sponsored augmented reality design class being taught in California to eager design students at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. To give you a closer look at the class, here’s another video into which you can sink your teeth.

Anyone who knows Layar and follows this blog knows our outspoken co-founder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald gives talks all over the globe on a somewhat regular basis. However, you may not have seen a talk quite like this from Maarten before.

To kick off the design class’ semester, Maarten provided an introduction of Layar, the company’s history and where it stands today, some examples of the platform’s capabilities as well as a look into the future and where Layar thinks augmented reality is headed.

So check out the video below of Maarten’s talk. It’s a quick snapshot that summarizes many key and interesting points surrounding Layar and augmented reality.

The Layar-sponsored augmented reality design class being taught this summer in California is still truckin’ along, so we thought we’d take this opportunity to share another video from the class.

This time we have a presentation by Layar artist Sander Veenhof, who is known for using Layar in his augmented reality art projects like the Pentagon/White House Infiltr.AR and the Museum of Modern Art AR “Uninvited” Exhibit. In this presentation to the students at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Sander explains his history as a digital artist using augmented reality, as well as his idea of “invisible augmented reality”.

He also talks about how he uses the term “Free-D” (instead of 3D) because technology has opened up a limitless world for expression. As for what exactly “invisible augmented reality” is, you’ll just have to watch his presentation to find out. So check out the video below to see Sander’s talk in front of the AR Design Class in Pasadena.