Layar, maker of the Layar augmented reality platform for mobile, has today announced Layar Vision, a platform extension that enables phones to “see” and recognize real-world objects, including posters, magazines and newspapers. With Layar Vision, the goal is to provide brands and print media publishers’ with new ways to engage their audience using augmented reality experiences.

About Layar Vision

To use Layar Vision, developers must first upload reference images to Layar’s servers. Those images are then used to extract the fingerprint of the object so it can detect, track and augment the object with audio, video and/or animated 3D objects, as specified. Currently the system only supports 2D images with 3D models on the target objects. Layar Vision will be able to instantly detect up to 50 target objects at launch.

The company says there are some limitations to what the technology can recognize and track. It works best on planar surfaces, like posters, magazines and newspapers, as mentioned above, as well as billboards, flyers, book covers, CD covers, paintings and other surfaces with “a minimum amount of discriminative texture and detail.” This is different than Qualcomm’s recently released AR SDK for iOS (the Android version was already available), which can track both planar objects as well as simple 3D objects like a box.

The Layar platform is already in use by over 10,000 developers who work to build AR experiences for smartphones. These experiences exist both as layers within the Layar smartphone application itself, as well as in third-party apps using the Layar Player. The Layar app has been installed 10 million times, and now has over 2,500 layers, the company says.

Where and When

Developers can expect to see Layar Vision included in the newest beta of the Layar Platform, arriving in the coming weeks, says the company, but no exact date was given for the launch. For developers using the Layar Player in their own apps, they can expect to see Layar Vision in the Q4 release, on both iPhone and Android.

In addition, to kickstart development, Layar is hosting a contest called the “Layar Creation Challenge,” offering a total of $55,000 in cash prizes. The top 10 developers with the best and most useful concepts for Layar Vision will receive between $2,500 and $15,000. You can learn more about Layar Vision and the contest here.

It’s been a big week for mobile app developers, thanks, for the most part, to the AppNation conference held in San Francisco. From Qualcomm’s AR platform to Opera’s new developer program, many of these mobile announcements made headlines across the Web. Others, however, flew a little under the radar.  Below we’ve rounded up some of our favorite stories from the past week, including those from the event and elsewhere.

Qualcomm Releases AR for Android

Qualcomm commercially released its augmented reality platform for Android this week, and revealed the first app to be built with the technology. This showcase app, “Mavs AR,” is a game built in collaboration with the Dallas Mavericks. To use the app, you simply point your phone at your Dallas Mavericks ticket to see a virtual game appear. The platform offers high-performance, interactive 3D experiences, says Qualcomm, and integrates with the Android SDK and NDK. It also supports development using the Unity 3 game development tool. The platform is available for download now at: http://developer.qualcomm.com/dev/augmented-reality.

Opera Launches Appcelerate Program for Mobile Developers

Opera Software launched Appcelerate at AppNation, a new program to help mobile developers promote their apps through the Opera Mobile Store. Developers can now target their content to various channels, geographies, handsets or operating systems. Opera is also offering, for a limited time, matching co-marketing funds for qualified developers. Pay-per-download campaign pricing means you only have to pay when an end user downloads your app. Developers can learn more about the program here.

Xtify Launches Retention Tool for Apps

Developers can use Xtify’s new user retention tool called RETAIN to keep app customers engaged with the application by sending customized messages at pre-configured times. For example, a message could be sent out to a user who hasn’t launched the app in 2 weeks, or who installed the app 30 days ago. Developers can also use it to send other messages, like welcome greetings or requests to “rate the app.”  RETAIN supports iOS, Android and BlackBerry applications and is currently available for free.

GetJar Goes Social to Aid in App Discovery

Independent app store GetJar added a social element to its mobile Web store, allowing users to connect with their Facebook friends within the store. Users can then see what each other are downloading, and can also share their download activity back to Facebook. With GetJar’s My Apps feature, users can also see their history of downloads in the mobile version of the store.

Appsgeyser Launches API

Appsgeyser launched an API at AppNation, which allows power users to create hundreds (or thousands) of mobile applications at once. Currently in private beta, the API lets developers create apps using existing Web content. To demonstrate the technology, YoWindow, a company that had previously developed Web-based weather widgets, transformed that content into over 100 apps in less than 2 hours. Appsgeyser launched in February 2011 and already has over 17,000 apps created through its service, with more than one million installs and 100,000 active daily users.

Sencha Releases JS 4

Sencha says it’s working to close the gap between what you can deliver within a Web browser and what you can deliver in a native application. With its release of JS 4, that gap is smaller. The biggest software release from the company in the past 2 years, JS 4 makes it easier to develop cross-platform apps using the Sencha JavaScript framework. Highlights of the release include major enhancements to the drawing and charting capabilities of Ext JS (including plug-in free charting, sans Flash), comprehensive cross-browser support, theming, and an improved data package.

Appsbar App Building Tool Launched

Appsbar is new free tool for building mobile applications using a “wizard” format that walks you through each step of the app building process. The tool is meant to fill the gap between the expensive, professionally-produced apps and the overly-simplified apps that exist today. App creators can customize their apps with background colors, fonts, or their own images, plus as many or as few functions and pages as they choose. Currently, Appsbar supports iPhone, Android and Windows phones. You can see some of the end results of using Appsbar over on Appsbar’s Facebook page.

The hype surrounding augmented reality has started to die down, but that’s no reason you shouldn’t learn how to build your own AR applications. There are now a variety of tools to give users of varying skill levels the ability to create AR tools of their own. Here are three tutorials with different barriers to entry.

Layar Tutorial

Layar is a popular augmented reality browser for both Android and iOS, and one of the easiest ways to get started with AR. Layar has a beginner’s tutorial on its wiki.

These are the steps:

1. Sign up to be a developer
2. Define and edit a layer on the publishing site
3. Prepare the database
4. Gather POIs information
5. Build a web service
6. Test the layer
7. Publish the layer

Doesn’t sound so hard, does it?

You can also check out this Layar tutorial, but the link doesn’t seem to be working just now.

Integrating Wikitude with WordPress Tutorial

Looking for something easier? Use WordPress? The plugin WP-Geo enables you to display geotagged WordPress posts in the AR browser Wikitude. And there’s a tutorial on doing just that at ihrwebprofi.at. Here’s what you need:

• A self-hosted WordPress installation
• PHP5 (It might work with PHP4, but hasn’t been tested)
• A Facebook, Twitter, Google or Yahoo! account
• A compatible smartphone for testing and display

If you still prefer Layar, and want something easy, check out Hoppala. Last summer, we called Hoppala the WordPress of augmented reality. It’s designed to give non-technical users an easy way to get started with Layar.

flARToolkit Tutorial

Looks for something more challenging? flARToolkit is a Flash-based augmented reality toolkit based on ARToolKit. It was ported to Flash from C by saqoosha. Using it, you’ll be able to create AR applications with your own graphics and animation.

Here’s a beginner’s guide at ActiveTuts.

A screencast is a quick way to indroduce a product or feature and to show customers how something works. Screencasts are a popular online instructional tool, allowing you to explain things in a way many users will find preferable to dense text and more helpful than screenshots alone.

There are a number of tools available that make screencasting fairly simple, but here are some tips to help you along the way:

Choose the Right Tool

There are lots of options for screencasting, both software downloads and browser-based tools, available both for purchase and for free. A few options include Camtasia, Jing, ScreenToaster, and ScreenFlow. Make sure that the tool you use will meet your specifications:

Video: Will it record from a webcam or video camera?
Audio: Can you add a voice track? Will it record the computer’s audio? Can you record the audio live?
Editing: Will it handle multiple video and audio tracks? Does it have capabilities for transitions, zooming, and magnification?
Output: Does it allow you to export the file into the format you need?

Make a Script

Plan what you want to show. Let me channel my inner English teacher here, and advise you to write a script for your screencast. Your script should contain not just what you plan to say, but the images that will accompany your voiceover. Make sure to think about the genre of your screencast: is it a tutorial? A demo? Doing so will help you craft the words and images into the best possible presentation.

Capturing the Screencast

Although you can capture your whole screen in a screencast, you only need to record the pertinent action. Jon Udell advises “presenters to size the application window (or windows) to something like 800 by 600. That’s partly to minimize the quantity of video that has to be delivered, which continues to matter because broadband isn’t yet where it needs to be. But equally, it’s a way to focus on the real action.”

Depending on the tool you select, you might have to record everything – screen and voice – all in one uninterrupted take. Although there are different opinions on this, I’ve found it easiest to record and edit the video first, then record the voice second, so as to match the speed and transition of the videos.

Think of the screencast in sections. You can record the video and the audio in chunks or chapters, which might make piecing things together in the editing room easier.

Editing the Screencast

Editing is arguably the most important step and the key to making a good screencast. Although you can capture lots of raw footage, you’ll want to whittle this down to a succinct presentation.

A screen capture tool will capture every little detail: when you hesitated or wandered with your mouse, when you chose the wrong menu, when you had to resize or reorder screens. You should trim all of these unnecessary frames out.

Your screencast should be informative and interesting, but brief. People are unlikely to sit through a 20 minute video (if you have that much information to convey, consider offering the video in chapters). Aim for a 3-5 minute product.

As you edit your screencast, avoid the temptation to utilize all the fancy dissolves and swipes for your transitions. And be sure to check your work before you publish.

It might take some time to master making a screencast, particularly if you’re using some of the more elaborate tools. But a screencast is a good way to easily explain your product or service, and so it might be worthwhile honing your scriptwriting and screencasting skills.

Read here for more ReadWriteWeb coverage on screencasts. And below is an example from crowdSPRING, who also have a “How To” for screencasts on their blog.

In many cases it’s worse to have your investor back out on a term sheet then it is to never be offered one. Before popping the champagne bottles and celebrating what looks like an offer, it’s best to remember that VC term sheets are not legally binding. While it’s certainly a feat to be offered one, angel investor and Hunch cofounder Chris Dixon wrote a great piece reminding startup entrepreneurs what can happen if your potential investor changes his or her mind.

In a recent blog post Dixon explains the unfortunate circumstance of one of his portfolio companies. Says Dixon, “Yesterday, one of the 40 or so startups I’ve invested in (either personally or through Founder Collective had a well-known VC back out of a term sheet for no particular reason besides that they decided they no longer liked the business concept. It’s the first time I’ve seen this happen in my career.”

Dixon explains that generally VCs only do this in extreme cases of fraud or upon finding that founders have criminal backgrounds. Because of this, any rescinded term sheet can be devastating for startup companies.

As is the case with startup CEOs, word travels fast on Sand Hill Road. In a recent presentation I watched as one founder revealed his funding from several well-established angel investors. Those in the room perked up as soon as they realized that major players were already involved in the company. The same logic can be attributed to the loss of a term sheet.

When one firm backs out of an offer, others who may have been interested will look at you under extreme scrutiny. Although Dixon’s case appears to be an anomaly, it’s important to remember that as an entrepreneur you should remain ever-diligent and avoid over-promising returns and results.

Writing about China as an American is always tricky, but nowhere near as tricky as what an American company faces doing business there. Let me say upfront, I don’t envy Google. The company has had more success in China than a lot of other big Valley names, but isn’t and will likely never be the market leader. And to get that far, many in the West feel Google has had to compromise its “do-no-evil” ethics by agreeing to some of the government’s censorship rules. Google has been damned either way: China is too big of a market to ignore, but getting as far as they have has come at a steep price to their reputation and international (read: Western) integrity.

Enter the now famous blog post (that was notably, only on the English-language site) saying that Google was no longer playing by the Chinese government’s rules and was prepared to close down Chinese operations if it came to that. Valley elites erupted into applause on Twitter and blogs saying Google was showing more backbone than the US government and was a model of integrity for the world.

I’ll give Google this much: They’re taking a bad situation and making something good out of it, both from a human and business point of view. I’m not saying human rights didn’t play into the decision, but this was as much about business. Lest we get too self-righteous as Westerners, we should remember three things:

1. Google’s business was not doing well in China. Does anyone really think Google would be doing this if it had top market share in the country? For one thing, I’d guess that would open them up to shareholder lawsuits. Google is a for-profit, publicly-held company at the end of the day. When I met with Google’s former head of China Kai-fu Lee in Beijing last October, he noted that one reason he left Google was that it was clear the company was never going to substantially increase its market share or beat Baidu. Google has clearly decided doing business in China isn’t worth it, and are turning what would be a negative into a marketing positive for its business in the rest of the world.

2. Google is ready to burn bridges. This is not how negotiations are done in China, and Google has done well enough there to know that. You don’t get results by pressuring the government in a public, English-language blog post. If Google were indeed still working with the government this letter would not have been posted because it has likely slammed every door shut, as a long-time entrepreneur in China Marc van der Chijs and many others said on Twitter. This was a scorched earth move, aimed at buying Google some good will in the rest of the world; Chinese customers and staff were essentially just thrown under the bus.

3. This is only going to be a trickier issue in the next decade. Think the Shanda acquisition of Mochi Media was an isolated event? Think again. Chinese Web companies are building huge cash hoards and valuable stock currencies and it’s still a comparatively young Web market. Increasingly, these companies could be likely buyers of US startups—not the other way around. Will the Valley’s rhetoric stick then?

This may be the most shocking part: In retrospect Yahoo has played China far better than Google. It pulled out of the country years ago, knowing it wouldn’t win and owns nearly 40% of the Alibaba, a company that very definitely knows how to grow in China. Entrepreneur and angel investor in China Bill Bishop —who hasn’t always agreed with my China coverage in the past—pointed this out, adding “Not often Yahoo looks smarter than Google.”

We’ve just been introduced to an interesting company: Doctations. This relatively new site aims to open communication channels and online services to turn any doctor’s practice into a web-based community.

The software, an Internet-based healthcare transaction interface, allows doctors to upload and save medical data, to share test results with patients, and to analyze information with their colleagues. Patients in this system can manage their healthcare, schedule appointments, request prescription refills, research medications, access articles, and communicate with doctors – all securely, quickly, and cost-effectively. Our question: Why aren’t systems like these in place everywhere right now?

Unfortunately, a combination of data security concerns and industry regulations such as HIPAA have made doctor-patient online communication – even via email – nearly impossible. Doctations’ data transactions are made secure through an encrypted database and a secure login and password. Voice identification processes are available, as well. These data security measures are compliant with all relevant industry regulations.

More than just a task manager, the interface allows physicians to access a messaging system that includes audio and video chats, kind of like Skype. Using this part of the service, physicians could conduct online consultations with their patients via webcam. It’s unclear whether the system would also allow homebound patients to send vital statistics such as weight and blood pressure to physicians automatically through the use of monitored devices, another trending topic in “telehealth“. Online consultations – and getting insurance companies to pay for them – have also been a subject of great concern to the American Medial Association, which has been lobbying for more modern billing practices for online consults since 2004.

Doctations has also expressed the goal of making physicians’ offices entirely paperless by moving source data (such as reports, faxes, and mail) and business processes online. The company has partnered with Sure Scripts and Quest Diagnostics to send prescription requests and order lab results. The company has also partnered with science and health publisher Elsevier to give patients access to important research materials and decision support alerts.

These are just a few noteworthy features we found while browsing around the Doctations website. The service appears to be full-featured for all aspects of a medical practice, from staffing and billing to patient-focused task management. The service is available on a subscription basis for healthcare providers.

Check out this CNBC interview with Doctations founder and neurosurgeon Dr. Louis Cornacchia:

Although many users would love the opportunity to have quicker, simpler, less expensive healthcare as well as greater access to their physicians, others still probably have concerns about the security of putting their most personal information online. On which side of the fence do you find yourself? And for our readers who are also medical doctors, would it make sense to implement such software in your own practice? What are the objections?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments. We’re going to switch on the webcam and see if we can get a doctor to look at this troubling mole.

Ribbit just announced the launch of Ribbit Mobile. Ribbit Mobile is a cloud-based VoIP telephony service that brings together web-based calling, smart call routing and voicemail transcriptions.

It is hard to look at Ribbit Mobile without comparing it to Google Voice. Just like Google Voice, Ribbit gives users a new phone number or they can use call forwarding to transfer calls from their mobile phones to Ribbit’s platform. Ribbit Mobile also has quite a few features that Google doesn’t offer, including the ability to ring different phones simultaneously and to make calls from within the browser.

More Features than Google Voice

As Ribbit Mobile is part of Ribbit’s open VoIP platform, the service can even forward calls to your Skype, MSN or Google Talk account if you don’t pick up your mobile phone. Whenever you miss a call or when a new voicemail arrives, Ribbit can also ping you by email, Skype, Google Talk or SMS. Through its partners, Ribbit offers widgets for popular start pages like iGoogle and social networks like Facebook and MySpace. Through these – as well as on the service’s homepage – users can receive and place calls from their browsers. This is a feature that Google Voice doesn’t offer yet.

GrandCentral, which Google bought and then transformed into Google Voice, offered some of the features that Ribbit Mobile now offers. Google dropped quite a few useful features like simultaneous rings and call chains from Google Voice’s feature line-up, however.

Besides call chains, another nice feature of Ribbit Mobile is that you can choose which number will appear on your contacts’ phones when you call, even if you are calling from your computer. Once you are on a call, you can also easily transfer calls from any device to another. Because of this, you can start a call in the web interface or iGoogle and then continue the call on your cell phone.

Just like Google Voice, Ribbit gives users the option to set up a new phone number for their Ribbit accounts. Users can earch for a specific numbers and letter combination in these numbers. For now, Ribbit only offers numbers in select cities in California and New York.

A service like Ribbit Mobile wouldn’t be very useful us you couldn’t easily import your contacts. Thankfully, users can import contacts from Plaxo and as an Outlook CSV file (Google Contacts can export an Outlook CSV file).

Caller ID 2.0

As Ribbit’s CEO Ted Griggs and co-founder Crick Waters told us yesterday, the company wants users to look at Ribbit Mobile as a “personal customer relationship management (CRM) platform.” To do so, Ribbit Mobile doesn’t just display a caller’s name and phone number. Users can also add notes to every call and connect their Ribbit address book with their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr accounts. Through this, the Ribbit team noted, conversations can now take place within a context.

Voicemail Transcriptions

Ribbit offers two levels of voicemail transcriptions. Free accounts come with automated transcriptions. Users with professional accounts – which are free during the beta period – can also choose to have ‘business-class’ level transcriptions, where a human checks the computer-transcribed text and edits it.

Ribbit for Developers

Because Ribbit is an open platform, developers can use the service in their own applications. Ribbit already features five apps in its app store, including an SMS widget, an Adobe AIR app for checking voicemails and a conference widget. Ribbit also plans to launch its own mobile applications for the iPhone and Blackberry platforms soon. Developers are free to charge for their applications and Ribbit also offers a profit-sharing program where developers will be paid if users use their applications.

Joining the Beta

Ribbit will slowly scale the service up over the next few weeks. The company will hand out new accounts on a first come, first serve basis. You can sign up for an account here. All service levels are available for free during the beta period, though Ribbit plans to charge for the pro accounts later on.

The University of Southern California (USC) will be sharing some numbers about its startup funding activities at First Look L.A. tomorrow, an invitation-only event it’s organizing in partnership with UCLA and CalTech. These numbers are nothing to sneeze at: in less than two years, USC has managed to raise an impressive $115 million in funding for 15 startups.

For your background: the University of Southern California, to be more precise its Stevens Institute for Innovation, helps USC spin-offs manage intellectual property, regularly incubates and showcases new high-tech ventures and connects promising young teams to appropriate investors for follow-up financing and commercialization.

Los Angeles-based USC tells us 15 startups have raised a healthy $115 million in funding in total since the beginning of the 2008 calendar year, tapping ‘creative’ financing sources beyond venture capital such as private and overseas investors as well as government grants. Based on those funding numbers, USC asserts the spin-offs are averaging close to $7 million in funding each, not including those that haven’t yet secured a significant investment and also excluding funding numbers for startups that couldn’t be verified through multiple sources.

You can find some of the startups on the USC Stevens Institute website, but most familiar to you will be Box.net, Orgoo (now dead) and Flixya.com. Another promising one is BigStage, which lets you create photo-realistic 3D-animated avatars that can be used in virtual worlds, video games, etc. The startup was recently ranked 18th in Forbes Magazine’s list of America’s Most Promising Companies and has raised over $10 million in financing over two rounds.

Needless to say, I think it’s a great to see universities doing their part in furthering technological innovation and giving promising young companies a leg up, and I think it’s equally great to see them reach out and disclose numbers. Id be interested to seeing how they stack up to other education and research organization’s results.

Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin has just made a surprise appearance at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. He discussed Twitter, advertising, Bing, and answered audience questions.

Here are some of the highlights:

On Tim Armstrong: Tim Armstrong used to be one of Google’s top executives, but recently became the CEO of AOL. They saw each other backstage, and said that AOL was lucky to have someone of his caliber at the helm.

On Twitter: He was very happy for Evan Williams, Twitter Co-founder and CEO, who sold his first company, Blogger, to Google years ago. He was not personally involved in the Twitter search deal.

Then he was asked by John Battelle whether or not he (Google) tried to acquire Twitter. He simply stated that “I did not try to buy Twitter,” but if a companies approach them, they consider.

On online advertising: “The Internet as an advertising platform is very efficient,” he said. He thinks Internet rates are going to go up, “a rising tide.” He discussed the decision to create AdWords, part of their core advertising system. A good decision, if we say so ourselves.

On entering new areas: Google enters areas where they find problems. Gmail, for example, they entered because solutions at that time were not scalable, did not switch between computers easily, etc. Android solved the problem of closed, proprietary mobile operating systems.

On Bing: He stated that search is a competitive market and business. He said he uses all search engines (not surprising).

On the Yahoo/Microsoft Deal: He wouldn’t comment on whether the search deal should go through, but did say that Yahoo has some innovations he hopes don’t just disappear.

On Chrome for Mac: Sergey is currently using Chrome for Mac. He’s been disappointed with the timing of the beta of Chrome for Mac (he would have rather had them launch simultaneously), but is pleased with Chrome.

On Google Books: He discussed the controversy surrounding Google Books (there is a challenge by Microsoft, Amazon, and others to a settlement Google had with authors and publishers), but simply stated that he thought Google Books provided a huge value to society by preserving and sharing books with everyone.

Tags: Google, Sergey Brin