LightRod.org today released an Alpha of it’s open browser to view the OAR, or Open Augmented Reality network. The OAR is an overlay of standard URLs that provide geographically relevant information. For example point to ‘http://www.padz.com’, and the nearest rental properties from the site are displayed in a mobile phone or desktop browser. This browser is the first of it’s kind, and has been made open source by LightRod.
The OAR servers are referenced from the web-page of the URL and are compatible with Layar, for which some 200 layers of information are available world-wide. LightRod also provide an open source server to supply relevant nearest results to the OAR browser.
OAR layers are internally hyperlinkable, so that a tree of layers of geographic information can be created.
What does this mean for augmented reality? It means that anybody can freely create and promote their own layers of information in an open playing field. They can also host a browser, or make adjustments to it. Geographically relevant information is not only in the hands of large corporations, but is available for all to publish and explore.
The browser is explained at LightRod.org and available to run immediately on mobile phones (or desktops) at http://oar.lightrod.org without any download.
