We know that you’ve just been itching to sit back and soak up a nice long video about augmented reality, the future and the evolution of technology. Well, your wait is over as we have for you another keynote from Augmented Reality Event 2011 in Santa Clara, California. This time, we’ve got Jaron Lanier who spoke for a good 40 minutes at ARE for the attendees.

Lanier is a computer scientist well-known for ushering in the term “virtual reality.” He helped develop some of the first VR goggles and gloves, and in recent days has worked with Second Life and Xbox Kinnect. He also is a music composer, connoisseur and instrument collector, and he showed off one of his unique instruments at ARE.

At the beginning of his talk, Lanier plays a khene, an ancient Laotian instrument. Lanier says the khene is possibly the first example of digital technology because sounds are created by air flowing through a series of open and shut (on versus off, 1 versus zero) switches. He uses this as a launching point for his discussion of technology, making for a very interesting talk.

Layar has an extremely diverse community of developers creating augmented reality experiences of all shapes and sizes. To give you an idea of the different things that can be done on the Layar platform, we’ve put together a set of case studies featuring some truly unique examples.

Below are five case studies that show the flexibility and capabilities of the Layar platform and our outstanding community of developers. For each, click the “Case Study PDF” link to view the case study in full.

Layar Augmented Office - Case Study PDF
The Layar Augmented Office is an interactive 3D model that you can literally walk into and access information about the company, layer content, job openings and more.

streetARt - Case Study PDF
streetARt is an iPhone application that displays the public art, graffiti, tags and other forms of street art in your neighborhood. The third-party app uses the Layar Player to embed an Augmented Reality view, but it can also be viewed within the Layar app.

Exile on Your Street - Case Study PDF
Exile on Your Street is the official layer for The Rolling Stones, in promotion of the 2010 Exile on Main Street (Rarities Edition) album. Create and add posters in AR, listen to audio tracks, watch videos, purchase music on iTunes, and more.

The Invisible Artist - Case Study PDF
The Invisible Artist is a 3D Augmented Reality guide to 10 of London’s top contemporary art museums.

UAR - Case Study PDF
UAR (Urban Augmented Reality) displays images and 3D models of the past, future and “what might have been” for architecture in the Netherlands.

You can also find these case studies at any time on our Examples page.

We continue our series of blog posts profiling the members of the Layar team with our next interviewee: Klasien van de Zandschulp. Layar has welcomed many new fresh faces to the Amsterdam office in the last several weeks (including yours truly) and Klasien, a new addition to the user research and interaction design team, is already helping to make Layar better and easier to use.

Klasien is a native Dutch gal, and seemingly stereotypical being born on a farm in Ede.

“My parents are farmers so I was born and grew up on their farm among the cows,” she says “I have an older brother, older sister and a little brother, and they are all farmers except for my little brother. We used to walk on wooden shoes - “klompen” - but now they replaced them for plastic ones.”

Her older siblings remain farmers, but Klasien sprung free from her home to study Digital Communication and Multimedia Design in Arnhem. Following school she worked for several years at a publisher creating Websites and eBooks, but then moved on to work at Mediamatic Lab as a project manager and interaction designer.

“My previous job was at a television station where I introduced the utilization of social networks and integrated these free services into the concept for the website I was working on,” says Klasien. “Focusing on using the website alongside the TV channel, I optimized the way a user experiences the website channel streams.”

As if her work experience couldn’t get any more new media, Klasien is now improving the experiences of the users of Layar’s Augmented Reality platform. “My main goal is to create a smile on the face of the end user, and keep it there,” she says.

As for the things that keep a smile on her face, Klasien says her three biggest interests outside of technology are music, music and music. She likes DJ’ing music, going to concerts and festivals and her favorite musician is Andrew Bird (at least according to her Last.fm profile).

Klasien and the user experience team have been conducting interviews and sessions with users to discover ways in which Layar can be improved. If you’d like to participate in the user testing group, email Klasien at klasien@layar.com. You can also get in touch with her via her LinkedIn profile!