Layar was a Dutch company based in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, founded in 2009 by Raimo van der Klein, Claire Boonstra and Maarten Lens-FitzGerald. They created a mobile browser app called Layar. The browser allowed users to find various items, using

augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...

technology. On September 1, 2010, the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...

announced the company as a Technology Pioneer for 2011. In June 2014, Layar was acquired by the UK company

Blippar Blippar, which was one of the UK's first tech unicorns, specialises in augmented reality (AR) content creation and publishing to smartphones and the web. Blippar's product offerings include in-house bespoke AR content creation, with a focus o ...

. The Layar office in Amsterdam was closed down in 2016. In January 2019, it was reported that co-founders Klein and Lens-FitzGerald had expressed interest in buying back the intellectual property of Layar to relaunch it as an independent business.

Technology

The browser makes use of the following: *

Accelerometer An accelerometer is a tool that measures proper acceleration. Proper acceleration is the acceleration (the rate of change of velocity) of a body in its own instantaneous rest frame; this is different from coordinate acceleration, which is accele ...

* Built-in camera *

Compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with ...

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

These are used together to identify the user's location and field of view. From the geographical position, the various forms of data are laid over the camera view like inserting an additional layer.

Content

Data in the browser comes in the form of ''layers''. Layers are

REST Rest or REST may refer to: Relief from activity * Sleep ** Bed rest * Kneeling * Lying (position) * Sitting * Squatting position Structural support * Structural support ** Rest (cue sports) ** Armrest ** Headrest ** Footrest Arts and entert ...

web services serving geo-located

points of interest A point of interest (POI) is a specific point location that someone may find useful or interesting. An example is a point on the Earth representing the location of the Eiffel Tower, or a point on Mars representing the location of its highest m ...

in the vicinity of the user. Layers were developed and maintained by third parties using a free API; Layar as a company was responsible for their validation in the publication process. Third-party projects which utilize Layar can be programs which require QR tags, or locative games, such as

fAR-Play Far-Play (stylized fAR-Play, from augmented reality) is a software platform developed at the University of Alberta, for creating location-based, scavenger-hunt style games which use the GPS and web-connectivity features of a player's smartphone. ...

. As of July 2010, Layar had 1,000 layers.Layar Company Blog: 1000th layer published
As of September 2011, Layar had 2,993 layers.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.layar.com/
Dutch Layar signs global augmented reality deals
Reuters, Jun 18, 2010 * Camille Rickett
Layar to bring its augmented reality to one-third of global smartphones
Venture Beat/Mobile, June 18, 2010 Augmented reality Augmented reality applications Companies based in Amsterdam Eyewear companies of the Netherlands