Connecting with the Dead

Here's a new one - and another inventive use of technology from the Japanese:

A Japanese tombstone maker, Ishinokoe, has started putting the little square, black and white barcodes behind small, lockable doors on gravestones, allowing relatives of the deceased to access information and pictures about them, and even upload their own contributions. It will supposedly give people a way of staying “in touch” with the dead. Like a sort of gravestone based, family fueled, wiki of the dead.

The bar codes are not new in Japan, in fact, they’re regularly used to upload road maps to mobile phones, printed on the back of business cards, and even on restaurant brochures. But Ishinokoe wants to honour the dead by making their graves not just dreary, sad places containing the deceased’s remains, but a place where families can access good memories from when their loved one was alive.

Friends and relatives can use their mobiles to upload holiday snaps, poems, anecdotes and a whole host of information, that will then be accessible to others with authority to access the code.
The dead cool barcoded stones will be on sale from next month, but they don’t come cheap...

Read more at 'Barcodes on tombs to connect with the dead'
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