If you’re in the Los Angeles area, we’ve got a special event coming up that we hope you’ll join us for!

On Friday May 20th, we will be hosting LAYAR DAY L.A. - a full day of hacking space and time with augmented reality. Join us as we seek inspiration from visionary thinkers and from street-level artists, and help us make some cool AR!

Meet the Layar team at 10:45am at the Geffen Contemporary for an informal visit to the Art in the Streets exhibition of street art. MOCA opens at 11am and admission is $10 at the door.

From 1:30-3:00pm, we move to the Arts Center College of Design where artist Sander Veenhof and Layar’s Gene Becker will lead a hands-on workshop for artists, designers and enthusiasts who want to learn to make augmented reality experiences on the Layar platform. We’ll use street art, public AR art exhibitions and historical layers as examples of hacking space and time.

Following the workshop, join us from 3:00-6:00pm for an afternoon with some of the most visionary and creative minds in augmented reality. We have an incredible lineup of speakers including noted author Bruce Sterling, Layar co-founder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, Scott Fisher of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and Dutch artist Sander Veenhof.

The LAYAR DAY L.A. workshop and symposium is hosted by Art Center College of Design, and will be held in the Faculty Dining Room at ACCD’s Hillside Campus, 1700 Lida St., Pasadena, CA. The informal tour of Art in the Streets will meet at 10:45am at the Geffen Contemporary.

Space is limited so visit this page to reserve your place at either the workshop or symposium.

UNTETHER.tv is an Internet video series hosted by entrepreneur and mobile industry expert Rob Woodbridge. The thesis of the series, Woodbridge says, is to discuss the new business environment created by the burgeoning mobile industry and to hear the stories from the people on the front lines.

The series features interviews with notable mobile industry figures, and recently our very own Maarten Lens-FitzGerald was Rob’s guest for a discussion about Layar and augmented reality. In this interview, which clocks in at just under an hour, Maarten discusses how Layar got off the ground and how we’ve reached where we are today.

But more importantly, Maarten explains where Layar is headed and how augmented reality itself will impact the world in the near future. So take a look at the embedded video below, or if you’d rather kick back with your eyes closed you can also download and audio version of the interview for your listening pleasure.

Enjoy!

There is data all around us. We just don’t always know it. Real estate data, legal data, government data - it’s all there, and most of it is publicly available. Augmented reality is one of the best ways to visualize some of this data, helping us gain a deeper insight into the world around us.

This is the idea of open data, and such was the topic for discussion on the Dutch business radio station BNR recently as Layar’s own Maarten Lens-FitzGerald shared his opinions.

Maarten gave his favorite examples of open data on Layar, such as the Recovery.org layer, which showed where stimulus money was dispersed throughout America. Users could see which institutions and organizations were given money from the U.S. government, as well as how much.

As Layar grows to include more functionality, Maarten hopes that layers like these can be improved on to create a more engaging experience. Instead of just seeing icons to locate the various places money was doled out, why not see 3D piles of cash stacked on one another in correlation with the amount of money? The scene would be a 3D graphical display of data that you could literally walk around in.

Other items mentioned include the Spot Crime layer which uses public data to display crime reports around you, and a layer in the U.K. which shows the value of homes around you. All this information, which is publicly available, becomes much more powerful when put into context in our everyday lives.

So if you are a Dutchophone, you can listen to the entire interview here (sorry, no English version).

After a few visits to the Layar office from photographers, videographers and writers, Reuters has published a special report on augmented reality featuring an interview with Layar co-founder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald.

The piece focuses on the industry of augmented reality, where it originated from, where it is now and - most importantly - where it’s going in the future (with Layar at the helm).

“While revenues from AR alone amount to no more than a few tens of millions of dollars, that number is set to double annually to reach $350 million in 2014, according to New York-based ABI Research,” writes the article’s author, Tarmo Virki. “The impact across the broader mobile and computer industry could be much bigger, convincing consumers to use their mobile devices even more than they already do.”

Be sure to click through to the Reuters article and read all about augmented reality and Layar’s role in the future of the technology. Also be sure to check out this video (embedded below) shot by the Reuters crew which features many examples of great layers as well as an interview with Maarten.

Photo above by Reuters.