It’s that time of year again. The most wonderful time of the year, as the song goes. A time to reconnect with friends and family and reflect on the past year over delicious food, thoughtful gifts and fun in the snow.

For Layar, this has been an amazing year of growth in which we have grown out of our infancy, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t have a little fun once in a while! That’s why we’ve created a special interactive layer for the Christmas holiday.

Fire up Layar on your iPhone or Android device and search the catalog for “Xmas Layar” and you’ll find a layer made for us by our friends over at C2K. No matter where you are, you are immediately encircled by photos of the entire Layar team. Clicking on one our photos will let you see Christmas wishes from each of us. If you’re feeling mischievous, feel free to toss a snowball at us. It’s okay, we won’t be mad, it’s all part of the holiday fun!

If you like you can send us your own wishes or responses via email from the layer, and keeping with the spirit of the holidays, you could win a gift from Layar. The three most original Christmas wishes we receive will be awarded with a Layar hoodie sweatshirt, so go ahead and share your wishes with us!

As for us here at Layar, we are very excited for what 2011 will bring for the community, and we can’t wait to help usher in the next wave impactful Augmented Reality experiences. Happy holidays and happy new year to all!

If you’re reading this on your mobile device, click here to immediately launch this layer!

Layer: Xmas Layar
Location: Worldwide
Developer: C2K

One of the things that makes Augmented Reality unique from other mobile and digital technologies is that it is by its very nature inherently interactive. The blending of digital information with the real world makes for truly immersive experiences, and a new promotion in Dublin, Ireland is taking advantage of this in a big way.

For the grand opening of COPĀN, a new café bar modeled in the style of the ancient Mayan civilization of the same name, a week-long mobile scavenger hunt called “Find COPĀN” is being held. Players must use clues to track down the game’s treasures, which can be unlocked using Layar. The first person to find the treasure each day is awarded one of many of the contest’s prizes, which include iPads, laptops, TVs, cameras, and even a vacation in South America.

You can join the fun by visiting the Find COPĀN website on your Android or iPhone where you can sign up or login with your Facebook account. The website tracks your status and lets you access the “Navigator” which launches Layar and opens the “Find COPĀN” layer. Each day, clues regarding the whereabouts of the day’s prize are provided in the app, in a local newspaper and over the air on a local radio station.

Navigate around Dublin using Layar to find tombs, earn points and possibly unlock the treasure chest to win a prize. The game is going on now and lasts only through this weekend, so if you’re in the Dublin area, search for “Find COPĀN” in Layar and join the Augmented Reality scavenger hunt!

Layer: Find COPĀN
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Required: iPhone or Android device
More info: Find COPĀN Homepage
Developer: Syn

If you are in Manchester the next couple of weeks, you certainly have to take a closer look at The Augmented Reality Monster Hunt. The Monster Hunt combines horrorfying virtual graphics, storytelling, cool prices and AR

“There are a multitude of Monsters hiding around Manchester, invisible for the naked eye, visible in Layar. Every monster offers brave souls the chance to win a monster prize. Monsters will change every week leading up to an annual event at The Printworks on Halloween weekend. Have fun finding and slaying the Monsters. Wrrrroagh!

One of the creatives behind Monsterhunt, Glyn Jackson, wrote an excellent blogpost about using Augmented Reality (and especially Layar) as a campaign tool. Read it on cfcoffee.co.uk.

AR Game: Monsterhunt
End date: 4th November 2010
Location: Manchester, UK
Required: iPhone or Android device
Website: Monsterhunt.co.uk
Developer: Gencia

Vodafone Hungary worked together with their agency Soda Team to create a layer for one of the biggest music festivals in the world: Sziget. A fine exmple of a good sponsored layer. A short Q&A with Horvath Tibor, Sales and Marketing Director of Soda Team.

What is the Sziget layer about and what does it offer?
The Sziget layer provides all necessary information for visitors of Sziget 2010, one of the 10 largest festivals of the world. It is a useful tool for the visitors to get the most out of the festival.

People can find the different stages and its’ programs. Using the reality view beside the stage one can see the band currently on stage with the band’s picture, the upcoming bands and the exact time when the next band will start playing. Clicking on a band you will be guided to the bands profile page and you can get all information about the band. There are two more action buttons. “Get me there” which is very useful considering the size of the venue and the large number of programs. The other action button is the “program” which brings you to the full weekly program of the given stage. From the program item list you can again click further to the profile pages of the bands (over 300 bands are playing during the festival).

The different types of information groups are represented with different icons to make it easier for the users to navigate in the reality and the map views. There is also a filtering function that helps to screen out the most relevant pieces from the large database.

Why did you want to create such a layer?
Soda Team is a long term partner of Vodafone in Hungary. When Vodafone became the main sponsor of the Sziget festival this year, the company started to boost up the venue with innovative offers and solutions. We learned about AR technology 1,5 years ago, and followed Layar as our choice of solution provider ever since. We already made plans for other companies highlighting the possible advantages of using Layar and AR, but the possibilities of the technology where best fitting the needs of such a venue, and an innovative company as Vodafone.

What are the advantages for creating festival layers?
The advantages for users are obvious: Everybody carries his phone on the festival, but who likes the mass of paper that one needs for navigating from one stage to another. Having a complex layer, like the “Sziget Compass” makes all conventional tools of navigation look out of date.

What did you learn about creating festival layers?
One of the most important insights we learned, is that you have to make a POI (point of intrest) something complex, informative and sexy to become a real alternative for usual program guides and maps. Therefore we attached programs to the POIs and band profiles to the programs. The differentiation of the POIs by icons is unavoidable when having such a large amount of data.

The Layer Developer
The technical realization of the layer was done by mCRUMBS, run by Martin Adam. They are an “Augmented Reality Server Provider” with 15 Augmented Reality Channels Running on their servers.

We’re very honored that one of the worlds biggest rock bands did their augmented reality campaign on the Layar platform. The layer is the first of it’s kind in the world and was built by Augment Reality in conjunction with Polydor Records to celebrate the succe­­ss of the recently re-released Stones’ masterpiece Exile on Main St. Stones fans will able to fly-post their streets, homes or offices with virtual interactive posters of the rock icons. We talked to Howard Ogden from Augment Reality

The Rolling Stones layer is worlds first augmented reality campaign by a major rockband. How does it feels to create such a layer for these rock legends?
Being a music aficionado, and British, of course the Rolling Stones have been a big part of my life. To be asked to create a layer for them was a huge privilege. Everything had to be perfect – as by all accounts getting approval from Mick Jagger and his management is not a walk in the park. So, throughout a series of meetings at the Universal / Polydor HQ in London we developed this concept and had many discussions on the future of AR in the music industry. The app is a first on so many levels:

• 1st global Layar campaign for a music artist


• 1st to use Facebook to create AR content


• 1st to use AR for music sales (identify iPhone handsets and offer a direct link to Exile on Main St. on iTunes)


• 1st to use AWS as a hosting environment for massive scalability.


• and the one we’re most proud of: 1st project to be given approval by Mick almost instantly!! (”unheard of”)

The Rolling Stones layer will be filled with user generated content, therefore you decided to build a Facebook app which is connected to the layer. Can you tell us something more about this? The Rolling Stones have over 1.4 million Facebook fans so it was a great resource to tap into for UGC. We first realized we could use FB to do this in August last year; long before this project was conceived – it’s taken a while for us to find such a forward-thinking client with good reason to commission the project. I’m sure it wont be the last layar/FB crossover we see.

How do you scale these big projects when it comes to work and traffic towards these high value layers?
For sure we had to think big. So, the only option to consider was a cloud-based infrastructure, especially since there are a lot of audio and video assets within Exile on Your Street. We implemented a load-balanced Amazon Web Service ready to cope with the upsurge in demand expected when the announcement was made on the RS fan wall. We are happy to say that Exile has enjoyed 100% uptime.

What can we expected from Augment Reality in the near future?
The Exile on Your Street app generated quite a buzz, which, in turn, is keeping us very busy! As always we keep up to date with the very latest API changes within Layar in order to get the absolute maximum out of this platform. We plan to consolidate our position as one of the leading Layar development companies with branch office openings in US and Europe. Very exciting times.

>> Official campaign website
>> Official Facebook application