Art is everywhere. Whether as simple as a crude marker sketch in a bathroom stall, or as intricate as a mixed-media mural covering the side of a building, there are dozens of inspired artistic creations free to view right outside your door. 

These pieces are often hidden in back alleys and tunnels, or painted over by the city or a rival artist, however, with MOB‘s new mobile streetARt application (available for free in the iTunes store), you can see the many different types of public art around you, past and present.

MOB developer Rob Manson has talked about street art with colleagues for years, as there are hundreds of great public art pieces on the streets and at skate parks near his house in Bondi Beach, Australia as well as in Sydney and Melbourne. Once the Layar Player became available for iPhone, Manson wanted to create an app to show it off that used widely distributed content in the AR view, so an ever-growing international collection of street art was the perfect fit.

Manson started the content-gathering process by running scripts across Flickr, which resulted in about 30,000 street art images in over 500 locations. The streetARt app then adds to that content, allowing users to snap photos and upload them directly to streetARtAPP.com.

In the iPhone app, users join the streetARt community by connecting their Twitter accounts where they can “like” and comment on photos as well as upload their own from inside the app. Currently the “likes” and comments are only visible to other app users, but Facebook/Twitter sharing is coming soon, along with other features like permalinks and advanced filtering options.

While Layar Player (and therefore the streetARt app) is currently only available for iPhone, streetARt’s content is fully viewable from within the Layar application, so both iPhone and Android users can view the images.

MOB is an Australia-based business innovation lab focused on mobile and online platforms. A member of the Layar Partner Network, MOB is responsible for the BuildAR layer creation tool as well as numerous other layers.

With the new year upon us, we here at Layar thought what beter way to ring it in than to release a new version of Layar for the iPhone! Right now, anyone with an iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS can go to the App Store and download Layar 4.0!

So what’s new in version 4.0? The most noticeable update is support for the gyroscope in the iPhone 4. Now when you look around your world with Layar, objects will move across your screen in closer sync with your motions. This creates a much smoother experience and takes Augmented Reality another step towards the blending of the digital and real world.

Also new in this version is an updated interface for the Camera View. When viewing a layer, you’ll see an Info button and a button to switch between Camera, List and Map Views. Clicking the Info button will let you see more info about that layer, add it to your favorites, view layer options, switch to Bird’s Eye View or calibrate the horizon.

And finally, the other addition you will notice in Layar 4.0 for iPhone is the ability to use iOS multi-tasking and app switching. A double tap of the home button on your iPhone will bring up your recently used apps, and you can use this feature to switch back and forth without losing your place in Layar!

You may also notice that we have redesigned the Download section of our Website with more detailed descriptions of the iPhone and Android versions of Layar.

We hope you enjoy the update, and Happy New Year!

A challenge for users is to discover popular Augmented Reality content which is located around them. The latest iPhone release of the Layar Reality Browser solves this. From now on the Layar app starts with a list of nearby popular augmented spots. From this list users can select a spot they like and play the associated layer in Augmented Reality.

Other changes are a new navigation tab bar. The tab bar is used to quickly switch between Nearby, Layers, Search and Yours. Also we updated the search functionality. It now searches both spots and layers.

This latest version of the Layar Reality Browser is available now for download in the App store.

More Relevance
In the previous version users first needed to choose a specific layer, either from the featured or the popular list, before they could see content. This worked well with a limited amount of layers. The amount of layers has now grown to over 1.200, many of which are great local layers. In this new version users don’t need to choose a layer to see relevant and available AR content, the app right away opens with it.

Android users have had the nearby augmented reality search ability since June. The Android release has shown that users discover more local content and are no longer confronted with layers that don’t contain content around their location. Layer owners like brands, publishers and agencies now can be sure that their content will be shown when it is relevant: when the user is nearby.

How the new nearby screen works
On top is the “compass” with all spots plotted in a 360 degree view. This shows you exactly where all spots are located.

Each spot in the list has a category icon like Games, Fun or Food & Drink. Next to that, the title of the listed spot is shown as well as the layer title. Also the distance to the spot is displayed. On the right-side of each list item there is a “play” icon which opens the layer with the spot in focus. When a list item is tapped more information of the specific spot is shown.

Slide a spot to the left or to the right to see other options. A spot can be seen on the map, saved or you can select to hide content from this layer from your nearby view. This hide option comes in handy when for example during a concert you want to hide all tweets which most likely will fill up the list at that specific moment.

You can find your hidden layers in the your filter settings (top left corner). Other filters are amongst others a custom search range which can be enlarged when in a rural area.

The list is refreshed by pulling the complte list down. The list starts with 10 spots. More popular spots can be loaded by taping “load more items” at the bottom of the list.

Today iPhone users can buy paid layers with the latest release of the Layar Reality Browser. Download now, its available from the Apple App store. The iPhone release follows the release for Android of less then 4 weeks ago.

The Augmented Reality content store with its paid layers offers publishers a way to monetize their content and offers users more variety and quality in layers available.

The first payment provider is Paypal. The store is setup to support payments to residents of United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. More countries, currencies, payment methods and providers will be added regularly.

Publishers ready to start exploring the medium and monetizing their content can go to http://site.layar.com/create.

Examples of the fast growing paid layers collection
Spotcrime (USA), Sold House Price Data 2010, Walt Disney World, Album Cover Atlas, Dinosaurs, Disneyland, Explore South Africa, Greeting Cards, EyeTour Puerto Rico, Rhône-Alpes Tourisme Guides, TripSay and several Berlitz UK Travel Guides.

世界を見る - 세상을보고 - Увидеть мир*

Many things are better in your own native language. So is Layar. The Layar Reality Browser now has language support in Japanese, Korean and Russian. Get yours in the app store.

Also, for those who missed it: Layar already has language support in English, French, Italian, Dutch, Spanish and German.

* See the world!