Layar partner Muzar has helped create a new historical lens through which residents of Port Jefferson, New York can look to see what their town looked like long ago.

As part of the Port Jeff Portal project, the city’s rich history comes alive with location-based photos juxtaposed against the current reality with content in the Layar App.

“Imagine if you could be transported back in time and experience a familiar place as it was 30, 50, or 100 years ago…the buildings…the people…the history,” the town said in a press release today. “Over time digital “walking tours” will be added and updated giving fresh new looks at different historical and chronological points.  The free mobile application available to most major devices will be the gateway into the past of Port Jefferson going back up to 100 years.”

Play video above with audio on full.

“Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There’s nothing you can’t do.
Now you’re in New York.
These streets will make you feel brand new,
Big lights will inspire you,
Let’s hear it for New York, New York, New Yoooork!”

Layar has opened an office in New York! As I write this, I’m in New York moving to our office on Varrick street. Its not just any office, its a collaboration space called WeCross, a space to foster cross-pollination between design, architecture, and technology companies. It’s designed by Studio Dror who will also have an office in the space.

Why New York? Because that’s where the major American publishers and agencies are. In the coming months I will be busy spreading the word and lighting the fire with publishers and agencies for Layar and its Interactive Print offering: the Layar Creator.

Its a great time to start:

• The Layar app is more than ready than ever after the launch of version 7.0 - the easiest and simplest version yet!
• The app has nearly 25 million downloads, and the U.S. accounts for nearly a third of those downloads!
• The Creator is ready. Over 15,000 signups of editors in the first 2 months, of which over 6,000 are U.S.-based. They all are making their print interactive and using the latest version with our new, more powerful buttons and custom colors.

Are you interested in making your U.S. publication interactive and bridging the gap between the desire on your paper and the digital fulfillment you can provide? Use our contact form and select “sales U.S.”

The first big projects are already in production. You’ll hear about them soon so keep an eye on this blog and subscribe to our newsletter so as to not miss anything.

The Occupy Wall Street protests quickly spread from New York City to the rest of the United States to the rest of the world, and it’s only fitting they should now occupy Augmented Reality, where neither blockades nor pepper spray and baton-wielding police officers can keep you off of Wall Street. 

Layar developer and Manifest.AR founding member Mark Skwarek has made a global call to activists to make themselves seen and heard in AR, which according to the AR Occupy Wall Street blog, is much more difficult to do in “actual” reality.

“Protesters were not given permits to protest at Wall Street forcing them blocks from the New York Stock Exchange [NYSE]. Wall Street was barricaded off. Only part of the sidewalk was accessible to the public and there was a constant heavy police presence. 

arOCCUPYWALLSTREET takes the protest to the heart of the financial district, placing them directly in front of the NYSE. Augmented reality gives protesters the ability to have a truly global affect on world events.”

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Layar’s favorite science fiction author and “Guardian Seer of Augmented Reality” Bruce Sterling has just crossed over into the Layar developer realm.

As “Visionary in Residence” at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, Bruce felt the best way to inspire his students to create immersive AR experiences was to create one himself because, as he said, “Sometimes it’s easiest to teach by doing.”

Obviously an Augmented Reality visionary like Bruce Sterling wasn’t going to make a layer to find ATMs or restaurants, but little did we know his finished project would augment an underground, offline media network perfectly aligned with the tenets of AR!

Last week Bruce revealed the Dead Drops layer to the world through his blog, which enabled a new wave of discovery for Berlin-based media artist Aram Bartholl‘s Dead Drops project.

Dead drops are USB flash drives embedded into walls, buildings and curbs that are accessible to everyone and located in public space. Anyone can add to and take from a dead drop, or create their own and add its location to the website. The result of this project is an anonymous, offline peer-to-peer file sharing network.

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