Red hot Augmented Reality browser Layar announced an upgrade to its service today that adds social features to the act of looking at data on top of the world around you. If you’re using Layar to look through your mobile phone’s camera and see real estate listings for the buildings nearby, social network messages left by your friends in a particular place or Flickr photos from the area – you can now share that data set’s layer with anyone else by sending them its URL.
Layar hopes that it will eventually offer thousands of layers to view the world through and this feature will allow users to tell their friends by email, Facebook, Twitter etc. how to “see the world as I see it.”
Layar is only available for Google Android phones today but the company is testing an iPhone version that is expected to be available next month. Layar was just made globally available on Android two weeks ago.
In addition to sharing links to particular layers, the new version also offers support for sending screenshots to Flickr, Twitpic or elsewhere.
One of the challenges faced by the Augmented Reality industry is how to make the AR experience social and real time. This upgrade by Layar is a good move in that direction. It will also be a very good way to grow the service once it is available on more phones.
