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Layar, one of the leading Augmented Reality application platforms, has brought us one step close to practical Augmented Reality for mobile devices by introducing Layar Vision.  Layar Vision brings the ability to recognize real world objects, much like Google Goggles, and uses them as an AR markup tag.  Here is a quick video to explain.

Now I said that it was one step closer to practical AR for mobile.  But we are not there yet.  One problem with Layar Vision is that the markup tag isn’t immediately recognizable as such.  Here is an example of a standard AR markup tag, from the well known GE Augmented Reality advertisment.

When presented with a tag like this, consumers are more likely to recognize it as an AR tag.  They have been primed to expect an AR experience from a black and white box with a thick border and a geometric image inside, much like they have been primed to recognize a QR code as a scannable 2D bar code.  Moving the AR experience to a framework that uses real world objects goes against this user expectation.  Here is another video by Layar that shows some of their use cases.

While the use cases are very good, and the technology is cool, I would bet that the majority of the consumers would not know what is meant by the “Scan This” messages on the Layar objects.  In fact, in a world where we are presented with text and advertisements on a constant basis, having the AR Markup blend in with the real world might be a negative rather than a positive.

Layar Vision is a great addition to the Layar framework, and I can see marketing uses for it.  But I still think that using a traditional AR markup tag, possible in conjunction with the Layar browser, will be more successful at bringing practical AR experiences to the mobile user.