kylie veale, a sassy chick writing her phd on internet genealogy, has pointed me in the direction of a really creepy idea - wired cemeteries.
Two years ago on Halloween, [Robert] Barrows filed an application in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a video-enhanced grave marker.
Or as Barrow calls it, a talking tombstone plugged into a wired cemetery.
He envisions it this way: A person will create an audiotape and/or videotape about his or her life and leave them with a lawyer or a trusted friend.
After the person dies, the tapes will be installed in a tombstone. Visitors walking through a cemetery could hear the tapes, either by wearing a headset or pushing a button on a specially built headstone. The grave would have a built-in video screen and speaker.
as it turns out, his patent was rejected a month ago because it was too similar to another company's idea. while this company hasn't started work on wired tombstones yet, they do offer a website that "helps to celebrate life and life events by preserving life stories to share with friends and family around the world for current and future generations."
nice.
2 comments:
This idea is in an Atom Egoyan movie called Speaking Parts- a cemetery full of looped videoes of the dead.
thanks for the tip - i'll check it out.
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