INVENTORS usually try to come up with things that will change people鈥檚 lives. But Robert Barrows is hoping to make an impact after their death. He鈥檚 patenting video-equipped tombstones to let cemetery visitors watch messages from the dead.
Barrows, of Burlingame, California, has filed a patent application for a hollow headstone fitted with a flat LCD touch screen (US 2004/85337). It also houses a computer with a hard disc or microchip memory that allows the deceased to speak from the grave through a video message. They might just relate their life stories, says Barrows, or worse: they could confess to lurid indiscretions. 鈥淚t鈥檚 history from the horse鈥檚 mouth.鈥�
The tombstone would draw its electricity from the cemetery鈥檚 lighting system. And to avoid a grave鈥檚 soundtrack clashing with the one next door, people can also listen through wireless headphones.
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Barrows is not first to come up with an electronically enhanced tombstone. Scott Mindrum, president of Making Everlasting Memories in Cincinnati, Ohio 鈥� which hosts memorial tributes on the internet 鈥� has a patent on a gravestone that displays a collection of the deceased鈥檚 photographs, alongside tributes from their friends.
If his patent is granted, Barrows hopes that when people make out their will, they also leave a parting video with their lawyer. They could also choose how grandiose to make their video monument: a standard flat-screen TV or perhaps a high-definition plasma screen in a more extravagant mausoleum.
Gary Collison, professor of American studies at Pennsylvania State University in Pittsburgh, thinks video tombstones are a natural progression from outsize monumental stonework. 鈥淐emeteries are places where people try to outdo each other, display their wealth and power. This would certainly be a new way to do that,鈥� he says.
