Today on the Morning Browser I explored a cool application shared on the weekly wave by @timTech. It’s called Layar, a mobile augmented reality browser.

Here’s a description from Layar’s about page:

Layar is a free application on your mobile phone which shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of reality through the camera of your mobile phone.

On top of the camera image (displaying reality) Layar adds content layers. Layers are the equivalent of webpages in normal browsers. Just like there are thousands of websites there will be thousands of layers. One can easily switch between layers by selecting another via the menu button, pressing the logobar or by swiping your finger across the screen.

The environment for AR is developing rapidly because of how readily available a viewer (mobile phone) is to people. Mobile devices equipped with GPS, cameras and web access have made using AR very practical and as easy as looking around you through your camera’s lens.

In the near future, mobile communications and technologies (like laptops and cameras) will be reduced to nothing more than viewers (or glasses) that access and manipulate remotely hosted data through virtual graphic user interfaces.

The path of all successful technological evolution has one thing in common: it brings us closer to the way we naturally engage the world. If it does not, it becomes next year’s yard sale item. Interacting with content as layers over your surrounding environment will become the new way content is delivered as it gets us closer to the way we naturally engage the world. You will definitely want to explore this path toward the future.