Location-based social network Brightkite announced this morning that it has added what it calls the first mobile Augmented Reality advertising for US markets to its AR layer in the Layar augmented reality browser. Augmented Reality (AR) is a class of technologies that place data from the web on top of a camera view of the physical world. Layar is a browser for a wide variety of AR data layers, from real-estate listings to government data to messages posted to networks like Brightkite. It is available for Android phones and was available on the iPhone until it was withdrawn from the marketplace last week due to excessive crashes. The Brightkite ads appear to be just for electronics retailer BestBuy so far and are displayed as unique markers in your field of view when pointed towards one of the stores. Sponsor Big round circles have been added to Brightkite annotations of the camera view of users, designating the location of nearby BustBuy stores. The circles join the clearly different annotations for text messages and photos posted by nearby users. The ads are relatively unobtrusive for now. These ads appear in all search results pages, whether they are relevant or not. For example, no one has posted on Brightkite about "pizza" within miles of me for the last 3 days, but a search for pizza displays a number of search results on my phone's radar. It turns out those are the BestBuys in my area. The same results appear in searches for "love" and "flatulence" - it's all BestBuy. If advertising proliferates on platforms like this then it's going to have to become contextual. These are the early days in mobile Augmented Reality advertising, but the field is expected to be big. AR has been become increasingly common in recent months as a gimmick in print ads that can be held up to a webcam to display a 3D image, but we're unaware of previous experiments like what Brightkite is doing on Layar. Is the advertising industry excited about mobile AR advertising? Blake Robinson , Director of Research and Measurement at social media marketing firm Attention , says he is. "If the question is whether or not money will be pumped into mobile AR advertising," he says,"I'd say it's a question of if, but when - and I'd say soon. "For the first time in a long time local businesses could be given opportunities by advertisers to reach not just potential patrons but people who are literally at their doorsteps. There is a lot of potential for good here, a lot of potential for irritation too, but I'm more excited than daunted." Will consumers find the ads more useful than invasive? That's an age-old question in the relationship between advertisers and consumers. Discuss

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Location-Based Ads Come to Augmented Reality in the US

Holidays can be a tough time for those of us with startup companies. While the rest of the world is carving turkeys, lighting Menorahs and singing carols, we're sneaking moments away from family to check our messages. You've created your vacation responses, forwarded your phone to voice mail and emailed your emergency contacts to clients. But a good business person makes sure services run smoothly, even during the holidays. Twilio may be one company that can help. Sponsor Twilio is a web-service API that allows businesses to build their own customizable phones services and communications apps. Hosted on Amazon Web Services, Twilio's infrastructure grows depending on customer demand. The company's per-call pricing model is affordable and after watching CEO Jeff Lawson demo the service, we were surprised to see how user-friendly it truly is. At this week's SF New Tech Event , Lawson was given 5 minutes to set up a conference call. After 10 lines of code he had a call-in number, mute settings, admin prompts and more than 50 members of the audience calling in during his live demo. After seeing the audience respond to the service, we realized that Twilio would be a great for putting your company on holiday autopilot. Twilio offers a variety of usages including notifications, phone polls, call forwarding, voice transcription and triaging. If a client needs a reminder during the holidays you can automate a message and pre-program it to call them on a specific date. If you want to remain available in case of an emergency, you can forward a list of pre-determined numbers to your mobile while leaving the rest in voicemail. And if you're looking to create a simple directory, you can use Twilio to create a list of people, options or customer service contacts. In late September ReadWriteWeb covered Buzzeromatic's latest Twilio-based door application . In this case, users can grant timed building access to visitors by programming the door buzzer with a password. Rather than waiting for deliveries, Twilio ensures that you're warm at home when deliveries arrive to your building entryway. At this early stage, we know we're just scratching the surface on all of Twilio's capabilities. If you've hacked together a cool application or holiday game plan using Twilio or a similar service, let us know in the comments below. Discuss

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Put Your Startup on Holiday Autopilot with Twilio

You'd think it was odd if you called me for directions and I told you to go 0.2 miles southeast and make a slight right onto Old Route 17. You'd expect me to say something more like, "Start driving away from the library and take the second right just after the McDonald's." Google Maps India has just launched a hybridized version of directions that give geographically accurate distances and directions as well as landmarks most humans would also recognize. We can imagine this coming to the rural U.S. and Google telling us to "follow that-there little jog in the road where the big oak tree used to be before Jimmy Ray hit it with his daddy's combine, bless his heart, for 2.3 miles." Sponsor Although most urban Americans are comfortable navigating by street signs, in other parts of our country and the rest of the world, landmarks are a necessity in successfully reaching one's destination. Other times, it's simply reassuring to know that you haven't actually missed a turn or your destination because you haven't yet passed a given landmark. How many times has someone told you on the phone to "keep going straight until you pass the shopping center" or something of that sort, and it saved you a missed turn as well as a general sense of anxiety? In the words of UX Googler Olga Khroustaleva , "We found that using landmarks in directions helps for two simple reasons: they are easier to see than street signs and they are easier to remember than street names... Sometimes there are simply too many signs to look at, and the street sign drowns in the visual noise. A good landmark always stands out." The point of the whole experiment was to give drivers a sense of confidence when exploring new territory. Ultimately, the Google team found that a combination of street names and distances as well as landmarks gave the best results and best satisfied users. Sree Unnikrishnan and Manik Gupta wrote on the Google India blog, "This effort was possible thanks to the large amount of landmark data that users like you contributed through Google Map Maker. Our new algorithm determines from available signals, which of these landmarks are most useful for navigation, based on importance and closeness to the turns that you're making." Here's a look at the Google Maps directions design we all know: And here's a version Google Maps India tried that added landmarks to other data to confirm directions: Finally, here's what Indian travellers will see moving forward: Looks pretty sweet to us! What do you folks think? Would you like to see more Map Maker landmark data for driving directions all over the world, too? Let us know in the comments. Discuss

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Turn Right at the Gas Station: Google Maps Gets More Human

The latest quarterly survey by comScore reports that the iPhone just passed Windows Mobile phones in US market share, though it remains at just over half the level of the Blackberry. The iPhone has been outselling Windows Mobile for some time, so it was only a matter of time until there were more iPhones in peoples' hands. Android is still at the back of the pack but is showing signs of significant momentum. Sponsor Tracing links back from blog to blog the comScore phone survey of users about what types of phones they have in their hands appears first on FierceDeveloper ; comScore's press contact was unavailable for comment but mobile developers say the numbers are unsurprising. Android growth has been steady but that platform remains below Windows Mobile, Palm's WebOS and Symbian. Another report by comScore this morning though found that consumer interest in Android is growing fast and now rivals consumer interest in the iPhone. "Of those American consumers in the market for a smartphone," comScore writes, "17 percent are considering the purchase of an android-supported device in next three months, compared to 20 percent indicating they plan to purchase an iPhone. Android's prospects may fare even better in the global marketplace. "Android will continue to pick up market share, especially in the global smartphone market, because of Symbian's lack of innovation in the last 3-4 years," mobile blogger Jason Harris told us today. "Symbian is said to have 37% worldwide market share, and this will further erode as more folks give Android a look. Especially with the Nexus One coming out - a phone that is sold directly from Google and not from your carrier - that's very cohesive with the European model. Right now Android has only been available from carriers, leading to OS fragmentation. Now with the Nexus One, the phone will come from Google itself, meaning your OS updates will be direct from the source, not via the carrier, who has customized the Android OS to their liking. That might work in the US, where we are carrier-centric, but not in other markets, especially emerging markets." Discuss

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More People Now Use iPhones Than Windows Mobile

Popular travel book publisher Lonely Planet has begun selling Augmented Reality apps for 10 US cities for $5 each in the Android Marketplace. The apps were built in conjunction with Mobilizy, the company behind user generated content AR app Wikitude . In addition to offering Lonely Planet content overlayed on top of locations you view through your phone's camera view, you can also plan itineraries and get step by step directions from the app. Augmented Reality is a technology in a formative stage but support from the Lonely Planet brand is a big, if unsurprising, step. Sponsor Will consumers go for it? GoMoNews is skeptical , pointing out that AR technology is still clumsy and Lonely Planet's offering is very limited so far. National Geographic's travel blog voices no such concerns . Travel is the most logical application of consumer-focused Augmented Reality, but we expect a large number of consumer and marketing companies to explore this new paradigm of layering data on top of the viewed world. Some of the most interesting applications of Augmented Reality are outside the consumer market; AR could prove very useful for medical procedures or mechanical repair, for example. The technology remains limited, though, by the inability of most applications to process live video of what they are actually looking at, instead of merely offering up data based on what's believed to be in a given GPS position. Discuss

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Lonely Planet Launches Augmented Reality Apps

Excuse the pun, but while climate change isn't usually a hot topic during the winter months, a number of companies have released environmental resources in conjunction with this week's United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. World leaders are currently convening in Copenhagen to tackle our toughest environmental issues and provide positive solutions to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Below are just some of the resources netizens can consult to learn about the issues. Sponsor 1. COP15 Twitter and

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6 Climate Change Resources

Look at how smart phones are reaching into the enterprise and it's clear a cultural shift is taking place that is transforming the relationship between IT and business users. Smart phones in the enterprise are a user-driven phenomena. People buy smart phones to do work, but also for personal use. IDC is estimating that by 2013, a billion mobile devices will access the Internet. In light of this onslaught, how do IT managers keep things in check? MobileIron believes the trick is in treating smart phones as computers. By employing a data-centric model, IT can manage and control how smart phones are used, while at the same time creating a cooperative environment with users. Sponsor MobileIron uses the data from smart phones to help IT administrators create social graphs for users that gives insights into the business. Call histories and SMS messages are no longer locked in the phone. Instead, the information can be aggregated and analyzed. IT is slowly learning that the days of using command and control tactics are ending. As smart phones become ubiquitous, IT is struggling to keep up with security and the costs of managing how employees access information and applications. Serving as a police agency is ineffective. The real answer is to develop a cooperative culture. For example, MobileIron provides the capabilities for an enterprise to establish its own "app stores." IT can manage what applications may be accessed by users. The MobileIron methods allow for all sorts of opportunities. Costly roaming charges can be monitored as can service quality. MobileIron demonstrates how smart phones are becoming an icon for cultural change in the enterprise. In many ways, the social Web is changing how we view the way we work. The advent of smart phones accelerates that shift and will force the enterprise to alter the way IT has historically worked with business users. Discuss

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Smart Phones Show How the Times are a Changing