Reuters Investigates

A peek inside our layer

We stepped into the new new Media Universe for our report on Augmented Reality, creating our own app which will alert anyone using it (iPhone or Android-phones only so far) when they are near one of the new movers and shakers of the business. It wasn’t so hard — you can see how we did it here.

But for anyone who just wants an overview, here’s the contents of the layer we made and published through Hoppala (on a Firefox browser) and AR browser firm Layar. It’s our take on the movers and shakers in the AR industry, mainly linking to Twitter feeds, and Tarmo Virki is happy to learn of any updates. These entries are unadorned:

Company: Int13 What it does: mobile gaming firm ARDefender game for iPhone, bada  Weblink: http://twitter.com/#!/Int13

Parrot creator of AR.Drone plastic and foam-made helicopter controlled by iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/ar-games

Forrester research firm sees AR as disruptive technology http://twitter.com/#!/Forrester%20Research

Total Immersion founded 1999, an AR pioneer makes AR apps for many industries strategic alliance with Adobe http://twitter.com/#!/totalimmersion

Hoppala AR technology provider makes easy-to-use Layar tools

This is going to hurt

In Britain, the coalition government is readying its “comprehensive spending review” later this month. Rather than get caught up in chasing which government departments or bodies will be cut, two of our reporters focused on a single council – in this case, the City of Birmingham, which happens to be the biggest local authority in Europe – and explored what it’s doing to prepare for the change ahead.

For a lot of people, the most visible sign of cuts in Britain will be at a local level, as services are pulled back and jobs are lost. In the leadup to the spending review details,  lobbyists in London have been doing great business. Check out their tactics for survival – although if you’re worried about your government contract but haven’t done anything about it, you’re probably already too late.

Have Europe’s unions had their day?

Here in Europe, as spending cuts bite ever deeper, you might expect people to have taken to the streets in their thousands and be up in arms, in defence of the hard-won rights that this round of austerity is threatening. Some are, but not in anything like the numbers they have been in the past. With a Europe-wide day of action coming up on Sept 29 that may change…

But, so far at least, the most remarkable thing has been just how tame the strikes have been, how ineffective the unions look. Why is it that? Are Europe’s unions less powerful? Or less relevant? Sarah Morris in Spain and Gavin Jones in Italy found a host of reasons why young and old today are not rallying to the cause — and not just that they’re scared of losing their jobs.