Search and Discovery for Augmented Reality

Layar announced today, a new feature that will help make using the Layar reality browser as a search engine, a simpler and smarter choice.

With so many new layers becoming available, Layar is expecting users to be overwhelmed with content, and rightly so. There are currently over 600 published layers with around 1.2m augmented objects served daily.

Layar Stream generates a stream out of the 1.2 million augmented objects served daily by Layar. The ranking is based on a proprietary algorithm using contextual elements like location, usage and popularity of content in all published layers. Layar Stream holds information about the type of available content and whether it contains 3D objects, images, video or audio. Users can optimize their stream by filtering on keywords, categories and distance.

Raimo van der Klein, CEO: “Layar Stream is the necessary building block to make Augmented Reality part of every day life. There is a whole augmented world out there that is waiting to be discovered. You just need to tap into Layar Stream”

Layar Stream sounds like a fantastic idea in principal, and if Layar have got it right, could see Layar quickly becoming the search engine of choice for mobile web users.

We look forward to testing it when it comes out on the Android platform later this month.