I finally managed to get my HTC Hero via an upgrade to Meteor. After using the phone for only a day I am extremely impressed with the applications I have used and the ability of the phone.
The one application that I was really excited to use was Layar.
Layar is a free application on your mobile phone which shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of reality through the camera of your mobile phone.
Developers can create Augmented Reality layers that can be viewed in the browser. There are a few Irish examples out there like
I’m glad to see there are a few Irish developer doing a great job here. This video will give you an idea of what layar can do.
Here is a presentation from Dirk Groten of Layar on how to develop Layers. You can read more about the presentation on the layar blog.
I am really looking forward to developing applications for android and some layers for the layar browser.
If you are a java developer, download the eclipse plugin for android development and look at some of the sample applications out there. You will be amazed how easy it is to move over to android development. I can really see a lot of developers moving to android in the next few years. With so many java developers out there at the moment, this could be the driving force that pushes android ahead of iPhone.