I'm thinking of starting a project for a local University where we would use NFC to read tags along all the campus with specific information. For example: if a user owns a NFC enabled phone, he could use it to grab additional information when walking through important parts of the library, or auditorium, etc. So he could get contact numbers, attention schedules, and even we would like to show him some 3D models using AR when reading the correct information tag.
Which technologies would be required to create a program for doing this? Android would be our first option since the Google Nexus S is the only cellphone that has NFC. But also what about the tags? Are there any places where I could buy them, and then how could we load information inside the tag?
Also for the Augmented reality in iPhone there are libraries like ARToolkit, so here again guess we would need to use the Android NDK to use it. However if there are any libraries for AR written in Java that would be better.
Anyway if I'm missing some point or ignoring an important technology I should consider when planning the project, would be great to hear about it.
Thanks a lot.
NFC technology is an application of RFID so provided the phone could be set to reader mode then all you'd need is passive RFID tags placed at various points. You could easily use Phidgets for the RFID tags.
http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=14
As for AR toolkits there are several ones used for Android. Some using NDK and others in Java.
http://www.arvertising.com/news/2009/11/nyartoolkit-for-android-en/ http://developer.qualcomm.com/dev/augmented-reality http://www.slashgear.com/qualcomm-augmented-reality-sdk-for-android-released-04105775/