Juniper Research has forecast that over 2.5 billion mobile augmented reality (AR) applications will be downloaded to smartphones and tablets every year by 2017.

The research company points out this is 3½ times the number of downloads of the Angry Birds game last year.

The Welsh town of Monmouth is having QR codes - mobile barcodes - added to landmarks and other points of interest. It’s a project called Monmouthpedia, which is described as the first Wikipedia project to cover a whole town.

The QR codes will link to articles on notable places, people, artefacts, flora and fauna in a wide variety of languages including Welsh.

Mark Bridge writes:

The 2012 International CES is expected to be the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow. It runs from 10th to the 13th of January in Las Vegas next year and will contain technology from more than 2,700 companies spread over a record-breaking 1.8 million square feet of exhibition space.

Yesterday I saw a preview of what’s expected there – and all without leaving the UK. Instead I headed to a conference centre where the first-ever ‘CES Unveiled at London’ event took place.

The Layar mobile augmented reality browser is now available for a number of Symbian S60 and Symbian^3 handsets. It overlays online digital content on top of a ‘real world’ image from the phone’s camera.

Users with the Nokia N8, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia E7, Nokia N97 and N97 mini devices can download the Layar Reality Browser from the Ovi store.

The total value of mobile augmented reality - a 'digital overlay' shown on top of on-screen images - will approach $1.5 billion (£930 million) in 2015, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

That’s up from just $1.5 million in 2010, an average annual growth of 295% over the five-year period.