Claire Boonstra studied civil engineering at the Technical University of Delft. After her studies she soon left the building industry for the engaging world of New Media. After working at KPN mobile, Unilever and Talpa Digital eventually she started Layar with co-founders Raimo van der Klein & Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, with whom she had also been a part of the team that founded Mobile Mondays Amsterdam. Layar is based in Amsterdam.

So explain to us what’s so great about Layar?

Three years ago, when I was working with Raimo and Maarten we were already very interested in Augmented Reality (AR). We were thinking about the concept of ‘Physical World Hyperlinking’ through QR-codes¹. When the first smartphones came equipped with a camera, GPS and a compass in 2008 real AR became possible for mobile devices. June 18^th Layar was launched as the first ‘Augmented Reality Browser’. Now, nearly one year later we can justifiably say that we were at the basis of a new mass medium (for reference, check Tomi Ahonens “Mobile: the 7^th Mass Medium”). It has all the characteristics of a mass medium, but it has one important added feature: AR is the first non-boxed medium. All visual media are restricted in the sense that the content needed to be projected on a screen, and therefore had to fit the specifications of the screen. AR is not projected on a screen, it is projected on your physical surroundings, and therefore it is free of these restrictions. With Layar, the world around you becomes like a canvas. When using your phone to view augmentations, the phone works as a looking glass into the medium.

¹ using markers (like QR code) for Augmented Reality

We are working hard to design this new medium.  We have introduced an infrastructure for financial transactions within Layar. We also work on making the medium more accessible: the applications comes pre-installed on tens of millions of phones and is getting a lot of publicity through companies like Verizon and Disney. We have also announced a service that enables the contextual search for content (Layar has announced Layar Stream, a service that will present content to its users based on contextual information such as GPS-location).

The new functionality greatly enhances the level of the content we find on Layar. The content is moving from the “where is?” to complete experiences. Examples of this we see in the NAi layer, by the Dutch Architecture Institute (NAi), the Berliner Mauer² Layer and games on Layar like Splinter Cell³.

²The Berlin Wall in Layar

³ Splinter Cell on Layar

With AR the experience of a “place”, the Genius Loci and the definition of location itself is changing. The way we interact with, the way we regulate and eventually the way we design spaces and places might change. What are your thoughts on this subject?

AR is a very young medium and it is way too early to start laying out new regulation. Together with all our users we are en route to find out all there is to know about this medium, and how to use it. At a certain point users will be able to filter or disapprove certain content. Smart algorithms  and Layar Stream will help them in this sense.

It is in everyone’s best interest to make sure these filters work to the user’s needs. Nobody wants commercials in their garden or filth on their sidewalks. Perhaps people will get the opportunity to place “Geo-fences” to create augment free spaces. If regulation or filtering will make the medium better, Layar will definitely participate in the process.

Bruce Sterlings keynote at the public launch of Layar in 2009 addresses some of these question: “Yes there will be porn layers, yes there will be Nazi layers.” Which is okay, as long as people have the possibility to filter them out. (link)

Now that we have this shiny new medium, how should we design for it?

Developing successful AR content asks for more skills then plain coding or interaction design. You are designing for mobile devices, you are designing spatial content, the application has to fit into the user’s everyday life. All these things have to be taken into consideration. Also, some developers get frustrated when they find out not every part of the technology is completely solved. The technology is developing rapidly, most of the questions have been answered, but some innovations take some time. For example:

• GPS has its inaccuracy, especially in an urban environment. The compass in your phone reacts to magnetic objects around you. This means that the content will be ‘wobbly’. Until we are able to fix your position more accurately it is better to create floating objects, instead of objects connected to buildings or the ground. Work creatively within the technical possibilities.
• We can’t use GPS indoors yet, we don’t have image recognition⁴ yet, we haven’t solved occlusion⁵ yet. Take that into account.

⁴ image recognition: smart algorithms figure out what your camera is seeing. If it recognizes what you are looking at, it is likely your phone can also figure out where you are exactly.
⁵ occlusion: when your camera knows what it is looking at, it also knows which parts of the physical world are in front of the digital content (for example, a building blocking your view). Then it can hide the objects that should not be visible

⁵ occlusion

• Mobile devices have small screens, limited processing power, run out of battery pretty quick and do not have access to broadband internet. Don’t expect them to easily load complex 3d-models with thousands of polygons and hi-res textures. The NAi layer is a good example⁶. In NAi you can see the Markthal by MVRDV in 3D at its location while it is still under construction. When you open Layar, at first a simple 3D icon will load, so you can see the size of the building. Soon it has loaded an intermediate model, with 300 polygons and one low-res texture. Now you can take a tour around the building and see how the shape fits it’s environment. While you are doing this, the final model is being loaded, an accurate model with 11.000 polygons and multiple hi-res pre-lighted textures that show you in detail how the building will look.

⁶ NAi layer

You have to think about why people would stop to hold up a mobile phone in front of their face. People who are actively involved in something (traffic, shopping, etc.) won’t. So think about moments where people have some time to kill, or about special places people might want to experience more profoundly.  For example:

• How can you enrich the final resting place of a loved one at a cemetery?
• Can you catch the sentiments that are connected to a historic place (the spot where Kennedy was shot, or more local, where Theo van Gogh was murdered?
• Augment places where people have to wait: queues at Disney world, a football stadium before the match has started, bus stops.
• Augment places with popular media connected to it: A Beatles tour through Liverpool, a Sex And The City tour through New York.

Can you tell us something about the obstacles you are facing and the opportunities you see?

The commercial interest in AR is very hype related. The current paradigm is: Mobile = App. Brands want exactly that. We try to persuade them that being part of our platform and of the new medium is so much more valuable and that it will greatly enhance the possibility of dicovering their content, but many companies don’t see this yet.

One thing we are eagerly awaiting are commercial AR glasses⁷. We really expect to see them some time soon, and this would make the experience immersive. When this happens AR will really  take a giant leap forward. AR is getting pretty heavy media coverage, so you can be sure a lot of people are working hard to make this possible. The question remains whether having images projected at less than a centimeter from your eyes really is a pleasant experience and if such glasses are capable of projecting the overlaid image on the object you’re actually looking at. E.g. shifting focus from far away to nearby.

.

⁷ AR glasses

I see incredible opportunities for people to discover things they didn’t know they were looking for. Your mobile phone is like a monkey travelling with you on your shoulder. It knows where you are, it knows what you like and it has a pretty good idea what you are doing. If it senses that you are moving around wildly with a lot of background noise somewhere in the city at night,  you are probably at a nightclub enjoying a night out. Similarly it knows you are probably on a big trip when it finds itself in the jungle in Puerto Rico. Filters will help you find the content that is appropriate for each of the situations you might be in.

What would you like to say to the designers of our new digital life?

Come and help us create an engaging new medium and don’t be frustrated if things don’t immediately work the way you would like them to.

Tags: interviews // 1 Comment »