Tuesday, November 16, 2004

like tv tuned to a dead channel

tombstone

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:

Anonymous said...

This idea is in an Atom Egoyan movie called Speaking Parts- a cemetery full of looped videoes of the dead.

jojo said...

thanks for the tip - i'll check it out.