interactive tombstones

[bookworm]

These tombstones can be scanned by a smartphone to take you to a memorial webpage.

Viv Miller sat on the ground, next to her husband's tombstone.

She grabbed her smartphone, scanned a code on an aluminum tag stuck to the memorial and a website popped up on her phone. She read through her husband's obituary, looked at his photo and signed a virtual guestbook, while sitting on the grass in Lakewood Cemetery in Holland, Mich., trying to hold back the tears.

"It was very emotional," Miller said. "My husband was sick for 11 years and it's been an emotional couple of months, obviously."

She said the interactive tombstone helped her grieve and made her feel closer to her husband, Steve Miller, who died March 9 at the age of 65 from mantle cell lymphoma.

Miller's interactive tombstone was made by Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Patten Monument, which is among a number of companies around the country to offer the technology. It uses Monumark Tag technology that can be affixed to any gravestone.

"It's a way to make cemeteries interactive and far more educational right now," said Andrew Bolt, president of Patten, which he said is producing about 7,000 headstones a year.

The service can also be accessed away from the cemetery. Friends and family can go to http://www.monumark.com and see precisely where the tombstone is located on a satellite image provided by Google Earth. The website also includes a photo of the tombstone.
Tim Lynch Jr., the funeral director at Lynch & Sons Funeral Home in Walled Lake, said he has sold a couple of the monuments. But the service is so new that those monuments aren't even designed yet.

"Personally, I think it's great; I love it," Lynch said. "I think it's unique. It kind of fits our Facebook generation. While it's not Facebook, it's kind of similar to it. I think it's great that a monument can now tell a story."

Stephanie Zafarana, Miller's 40-year-old daughter, has looked at the website a few times from a computer at
her home in Dearborn, Mich. "I think it's pretty neat. All of my dad's brothers and sisters live in Ohio and they can virtually visit the grave site at any moment," Zafarana said.

The aluminum tag is about the size of a postage stamp. It is not carved into the tombstone. It sticks to a smooth surface.

The QR Code can be programmed to direct someone to any website. "If the family wanted it to go to the loved ones' Facebook page or the funeral home's link, it could be redirected to any website," Bolt said.

Bolt said the tag could be applied to existing headstones for $55 for five years of service. "It could be applied to historical memorials, like the Dodge Mausoleum in Detroit," Bolt said. "You could go, QR Code it, and read all about the Dodge family."

Bolt said the tags could be replaced easily if there is another kind of a reader system that becomes more popular in the future.

In some ways, this interactive service is the extension of a bigger trend — baby boomers want to personalize their tombstones.

"If you go to old sections of a cemetery, from the 1910s or 1920s or older, you will see a lot of ornate, fancy bigger monuments," Bolt said. "When you get into the '50s, '60s and '70s, they become very homogenous, all a similar size and shape. Now, in the '90s and the 21st century, baby boomers want things to be very unique. They are very personalized."

Lynch said customer reaction has been mixed. "Those who are my generation, and I'm 37, and maybe my parents' generation, who are comfortable with computers, they seem to like it," Lynch said. "The folks who are in the 80s and 90s, I wouldn't say they are opposed to it, but they aren't as warm to it."

Lynch said the reaction was similar when his funeral home started a website.

"People were like, 'Why do you have a website? Why do you need to put our death notice on your website? Who will check it?' " he said. "And now, you wouldn't even consider doing business without a website. I think this is going to become the norm."

[darcie]

Aw, I thought it was going to scream at you or play messages from beyond the grave or something.

[bookworm]

I didn't even think about it that way.

[~JCGJ~]

I have now officially lost any respect I had for modern technology...
Sure, it's an interesting idea, but it's just...
It used to be disrespectful to take pictures of graves...
Maybe I'm just too traditional, but I just...
I don't like it...

[Christian A.]

Actually, when I saw the topic title, I pictured a literal interactive headstone. Like, one that had a touchscreen monitor with the person's name and birth and death date's, but then it could also display other information. So, close to what you described, but actually on the gravestone.

[bookworm]

Like, one that had a touchscreen monitor with the person's name and birth and death date's, but then it could also display other information.

I imagine we’ll have those too someday.

[darcie]

No, I think someday we'll launch our dead away from Earth because all the cemetery land has been taken up. It will be like the older tradition some cultures had of sending the body out on a raft and little floating candles in the water. Except in space.

[Kairi]

:/ I was hoping this involved scaring the poop out of the living with a prerecorded message, as opposed to smartphone scanning technology.

[Marvin D.]

:/ I was hoping this involved scaring the poop out of the living with a prerecorded message, as opposed to smartphone scanning technology.

Me. .too

[~JCGJ~]

No, I think someday we'll launch our dead away from Earth because all the cemetery land has been taken up. It will be like the older tradition some cultures had of sending the body out on a raft and little floating candles in the water. Except in space.

That already happens, occaisionally.

If you pay a few million dollars in advance, you can have your body sent to space.

No decomposition, and you get to freak out the natives of the other planets!

[bookworm]

Like, one that had a touchscreen monitor with the person's name and birth and death date's, but then it could also display other information.

I imagine we’ll have those too someday.

I guess we kind of already do actually.

[ique]

Bizarre.

I kind of wish this was implemented in a non-digital way. Like there was some kind of physical display or weather-proof memory book you could view at the tombstone that showed who the person was and their life. In a manner more charming than a QR code thing. >_> But I guess it's kind of cool.

[Kait]

Bizarre.

I kind of wish this was implemented in a non-digital way. Like there was some kind of physical display or weather-proof memory book you could view at the tombstone that showed who the person was and their life. In a manner more charming than a QR code thing. >_> But I guess it's kind of cool.

This is what I thought "interactive tombstones" meant. It would be WAY more awesome. And I would consider not getting cremated just to be able to have an awesome technological tombstone.

[J-man]

This reminds of of the graves in the movie Serenity.. They were stone-looking graves with screens built in them that showed movies of the people who had died. 0_o

[Kait]

This reminds of of the graves in the movie Serenity.. They were stone-looking graves with screens built in them that showed movies of the people who had died. 0_o

Yet another reason why Firefly/Serenity is AMAZING.

[J-man]

I need to go watch firefly now, I just happened across Serenity on netflix the other night and watched it 'cause I was bored. Good movie.

[Pirate Oriana]

No, I think someday we'll launch our dead away from Earth because all the cemetery land has been taken up. It will be like the older tradition some cultures had of sending the body out on a raft and little floating candles in the water. Except in space.

Or we could actually just stick with the original. Or go back to the whole setting people on fire thing; a few logs and a lighter are a lot cheaper than a spaceship.