If there's one player in the augmented reality field that has the influence and momentum to lead this technology out of the niche and into the mainstream, it's the Amsterdam-headquartered Layar.

With more than 1 million active users on Android, iOS, bada, and Symbian, Layar is the world’s largest mobile AR platform, a statistic which facilitated the company securing $14 million in a funding round last November.

At that time, Layar's co-founder Raimo van der Klein promised to use this investment to provide his firm's large ecosystem of content creators with substantive development tools.

True to the boss's word, Layar yesterday launched a new product, Layar Connect, which enables third parties worldwide to build full-service CMS.

Layar upon Layar

In addition, a series of Layar Creation Tools – built on top of Layar Connect – will break down the barriers to entry for relative newcomers to AR development, thereby increasing the potential for its widespread adoption and inclusion.

"We're focused on the democratisation of augmented reality and want to make it easier to create and publish AR content for all," Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, Layar co-founder and general manager, said.

"With Layar Connect, we are the first in the industry to move management and publication of AR content to third parties. This creates opportunities for Layar partners to add increased value to their business - a big step in the professionalization of the AR industry."

Layar will look to encourage its partners to create their own high quality tools (recognised by a Certified Layar Creation Tool badge), so that the AR content becomes more localised.

[source: PR Newswire]