The multitalented Celine Mornet (known professionally as LutinCapuche) may be a Flash developer by trade, but she also has a creative outlet that allows her to step away from the computer monitor: designing and sewing stuffed animals (or “plushes,” to be exact).

Celine started making these plushes purely or fun; she displayed her little handmade creatures online but didn’t intend to sell any until people started asking to buy them from her. She then decided to make purchases easier by creating an online store, and has recently made the experience more fun by also selling them in Augmented Reality.

We’ve talked about HPSC‘s Herve Pellarin and his virtual commerce (aka v-commerce) layers before, but these AR shops seem to be getting cooler with each new implementation. The LCPlush Anywhere layer, for example, has intricate character designs on the walls, 3D renderings of the plushes and images of the actual products.

Introducing LCPlush: the latest in V-commerce on the Layar platform.

Celine and Herve worked together in France, and it was Herve who gave her the idea for an AR shop. The two joined forces on this project and created the AR shop in only two weeks!

“This guy is amazing because he always has some innovative ideas,” Celine says. “Everytime time I talk to him I learn something new. He made me discover Layar, how it works and how I can use it to sell my plushes.”

The LCPlush Shop layer has geo-located stores in her own city of Montreal, Canada, as well as in Paris, Geneva and Annecy, France that you can literally walk into.

For everyone outside of Canada and France, there’s the LCPlush Anywhere layer that places you in the center of the store where you can view various stuffed curiosities like the Real Monsters-esque Croc Cochmar and the cuddly yet carnivorous CrockNFish.

You also can share your favorite plushes on Facebook or Twitter, access the item in the online store (where you can purchase it via PayPal), or call the company from inside the layer.

The adorable Crock Cochmar in the LCPlush AR shop.

Even with her online store and AR shop capabilities, Celine doesn’t want to increase the number of plush orders much beyond her current 10 or so per week (hand-sewing plushes can get very time-consuming). She is, however, interested in expanding her use of AR, which she believes is an exciting new way to diffuse a brand.

In the near future, Celine would like to add more elements to her LCPlush AR shop. For example, she wants to allow users to customize their own plushes in 3D and place them around the world.

“At the end of the day, the goal is to build a kind of huge LCPlush exhibition and organize some contests with plushes as prizes,” she says.

Celine plans to do more projects with Herve, but also plans to develop new, complex layers on her own using her newly-acquired Layar development skills.

It was over a year an a half ago when Layar co-founder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald posted a video to his YouTube account revealing details of the world’s first augmented reality browser. Today that video has been viewed more than one million times, so we thought it was time to refresh it for 2011.

Today, we are very excited to introduce a brand-spankin’ new video that expresses the vision and philosophy of Layar. Produced by the wonderful people at Campfire Creative, the video below features interviews with the Layar co-founders as well as examples of the impactful augmented reality experiences that live on our platform today.

Some of the really great layers featured in this beautifully-made video include:

• Tweeps Around, by TABworldmedia


• Historic Market Street, by bigBigBang


• In-N-Out Locations, by Dutchcowboy & AugmentReality


• Woomba Mania, by Superimpose / Hoppala


• Hostage Ware Shop, by HPSC

Please feel free to spread this video around, embed it on your website or share a link with your friends on Facebook, Twitter or other social networks. If you would like to download the video, simply follow this link (Right click and choose “Save Link As”).

Outside view of the Layar Augmented Office.

As we mentioned last week, Layar is attending the 2011 GSMA Mobile World Congress conference/exhibition in Barcelona from 14-17 February, and we weren’t about to show up empty-handed.

Each afternoon at MWC Fountain, Layer is holding an Augmented Reality meetup where we show off our new Augmented Office layer, an interactive 3D model that you can literally walk into and access information about the company, layer content, job openings and more.

This layer was created especially for MWC, so it is only visible from Barcelona, but there is also a public version that can be viewed from anywhere in the world.

The 3D office combines elements of virtual reality with AR, enabling a 360 degree view of the space. You can look up at the multilevel ceiling, down at the tile and wooden floors, and around through the many windows where you can still see the “real” world.

Turn or walk around in the office and you see posters on the walls of some of our Layar Partner Network members, where you can touch the pop-up screen to visit their website, email them or follow them on Twitter. You also find portraits of our co-founders and our reps at MWC that you can contact or connect with on Twitter right from the layer.

Inside view of the Layar Augmented Office.

Continuing the office tour, you see posters on the windows for five of our coolest international layers that you can launch directly from inside the Augmented Office layer (A layer within a layer? Now we’re approaching Inception theory—be careful!).

Finally, near the doorway, you see a monitor on the wall that says “Layar News & Jobs” where you can see the current job/internship opportunities and read the latest news on our blog.

The concept of an “augmented office” allows any company to become an international company. You can place an office in the heart of Tokyo, Dubai or at Time Square in New York City.

But just as easily as you can place an office, you can place a store, selling merchandise through Paypal in AR! Case and point: Hostage Wear Shop. Hostage Wear is Layar’s first AR store, selling hats, t-shirts and other urban skate/streetwear products directly from the layer—there’s even a half-pipe in the store! (Although we don’t recommend trying to skateboard in AR… yet).

Outside view of the Hostage Wear shop.

Funnily enough, the Hostage Wear Shop layer actually started out as a joke. Herve Pellarin, creator of both Layar’s Augmented Office and Hostage Wear Shop (and the concept of virtual commerce in general), originally made the layer for his best friend to, in Pellarin’s words, “shut his mouth” about the frustration and expense of constantly having to make the tradeshow circuit to gain brand recognition and sell merchandise.

As anyone working in AR knows, monetization is a major issue at the moment, so virtual commerce is an exciting and much welcomed new element to the platform.

Pellarin is the man behind French development company HPSC, a member of the Layar Partner Network. He has made virtual commerce his primary focus, embarking on several new [mostly confidential] projects, and continues to push the boundaries in AR. Pellarin may still wear the coding hat, but assures us “I’m not a programmer. I’m a dreamer; an AR-chitect.”

You can contact Herve Pellarin at nocomp@gmail.com or follow @nocomp on Twitter.

Augmented Reality is the medium for interactivity, animation and cool visuals. That’s how you get engagement and that’s what our new 4.0 release of the Layar Augmented Reality Browser for Android is focused on. Today we’ve announced the next wave of interactive Augmented Reality experiences.

In the spirit of sharing the new capabilities of this release, we’ve listed several amazing layers below. These layers show the new interaction and interface capabilities of the new release of the platform and the browser. A special thanks to the Layar Partner Network members who created these. You can update to the latest version through the Android Market and view the layers mentioned below (iPhone version will follow soon).

ARcade by HPSC 2010 is the 30th anniversary of the legendary PAC-MAN game is the inspiration of the ARcade game on Layar. In this game players run after blinky cubes in a retro-arcade decor. The line of cubes is generated for the player, who gets points for every cubes he goes through. Players must register to play and see leaderboards of the day and the week.

Direct link to open the game on your phone http://m.layar.com/open/arcade

Woomba by Superimpose and Hoppala The Woombas escaped! Circus director Zambarini needs your help to catch them again. But watch out for the Wookies who disguise as Woombas and try to get you. Score points by catching different game characters, leading you on a fun trail.

Direct link to open the game on your phone http://m.layar.com/open/woombamania

Other showcases:

Read more » Categories Business Developers Layers Games Users Tags dnl-pro elipse-ad g-maps hoppala hpsc international screenshots tabworldmedia Permalink: www.layar.com/news/blog/185 Tweet   Layer of the week: Shop till you drop in the new Hostage virtual shopping layer Redactie May 30, 2010 You could already find the best sales with the Sales Locator or Local Sale Finder layers, buy things through the eLay Mobile Marketplace layer, or see what people around you bought with the JustBought.it layer. Now you can even walk into the Augmented Reality Hostage shop, and buy street wear from the French brand Hostage Wear. Layar developers take shopping to the next level. The Hostage layer is a 3D shop linked to Hostage Wear’s existing e-shop and is a crossover between a real store and a webshop. We talked to the creator Herve Pellarin from hpsc.fr to explain us about this new shopping experience. What’s the difference between a webshop and this new virtual shop in Layar? Herve: “The main difference, is the fact that you have to go to a specific location where the virtual shop is located, to see and buy the products (at least in the distance radius of the layer). These shops can exist anywhere, but at the same time are set to specific locations. This new online shopping approach offers many possibilities for creating special events or private sales around the Augmented Reality shop. For example: ‘Meet Hostage Wear Saturday May 29th from 8AM to 8PM on Broadway for a private sale.’ Users and customers will share an AR experience, but also a common happening at the same location.” What inspired you to create a virtual shop in a layer? Herve: “The whole idea is based on a simple question: Why should famous brands be the only one who can open shops in famous avenues of the world? Why could an unknow brand not have its own shop on these same famous avenues? In a layer, any shop can exist at any point, so smaller shops can open their virtual shops in the biggest avenues.” So far, the Hostage shop has opened its virtual doors at the following places all over the world: L.A (Venice Beach) Moscow (Red Square) Paris (Les Halles) Paris (Trocadero) London (Piccadilly Circus) Barcelona (Fuente Mágica) Tokyo (Harajuku) Santa-Clara (Convention Center) N.Y (Madison Square Park) Chicago (Millenium Park) Beijing (Forbidden City) Amsterdam (Rietland Park) Sydney (Opera House) Cape Town (Mouille Point) Geneva (Jardin Anglais) Dubai (Jumeirah Beach) Seattle (Amazon HQ Park) Argonay (Soccer field) Madrid (Puerta del Sol) Rome (san marco place) Berlin( Wichertstraße) Marseille (Avenue du Prado) Herve: “The shop will be extended in the future, so stay tuned ;)” Other things you’d like to share: Herve: “Thanks Layar, for providing such an incredible tool, imagination will soon be the only limit…” Categories Business Developers Layers Stores & Shopping Users Tags hpsc Permalink: www.layar.com/news/blog/133 Tweet   We request not to sign up and further make payments for Layar services. Please proceed to use Blippbuilder to create AR experiences. We use cookies to improve our services. Don’t worry, they don’t store personal or sensitive information and you can disable them at any time in your browser settings.