Here at Layar, we like to stay busy creating new concepts, improving existing products, and sharing our hopes, dreams and coolest new endeavors with our community.

Some days we do all of these things at once—and last Thursday (Sept. 1) was one of those days.

First, we hosted a webinar for developers interested in the Creation Challenge, and had a great turnout! You can download the audio file for the September 1 Creation Challenge webinar as well as a PDF of the presentation here.

If you missed last week’s webinar, do not despair! We’re hosting another one, this time an Introduction to Layar Vision, this Friday, September 9. Register now!

After the webinar, we kicked off another Augmented Reality Thursday (ART), a monthly meetup we host to share news, exchange ideas and visions, and meet others interested in Augmented reality. 

Check out this video of last week’s ART presentations from Layar Co-founder and General Manager Maarten Lens FitzGerald, Layar Research and Development’s Michael Hofmann and renowned ARtist Sander Veenhof. These fellas show off some cool new Layar concepts!

As a special exhibition for Australia’s 2011 National Science Week, (August 13-21) some talented folks are bringing dinosaurs back from extinction; and it doesn’t require frog DNA or Jeff Goldblum.

The Jurassic Science Week layer features 3D models of old favorites like Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex, as well as some lesser-known species like Chungkingosaurus and Parasaurolophus, all of whom are happy to pose for a screenshot photo with you.

In fact, taking screenshots with the AR dinosaurs could pay off in more ways than just enviable new Twitter/Facebook photos (c’mon, we know you’re just as big of a dinosaur geek as we are), because iiNet is hosting a competition for the best human/dino screenshot. The winner of iiNet’s Photographasaurus Competition will receive a year’s worth of free internet with iiNet service! 

The Jurassic Science Week layer is a collaboration between the creatives at Scitech, the stellar development skills of Valance Phua at iiNet, and the Australian government’s Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research.

For those of you who can’t make it to Australia next week, here’s a sneak peek at a few of Jurassic Science Week’s 3D dinos:

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.

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!