Barcodes on tombs to connect with the dead

WHAT BETTER WAY TO pay your respects to your dearly departed than to use your mobile phone to scan a barcode on their grave and use it to access their pictures and other information about them? Well, the Japanese certainly seem to like the idea.

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. Buying your dear dead departed one of the techy stones will set you back about 1 million yen ($10,010). Better hope that they’re the grateful dead kind of relative.

Something lazy relatives might have to take into account though; the gravestone barcodes can also be used by family members to see a list of people who have been visiting the grave. So if you’re not on it, you better hope you already got your inheritance, sunshine. µ

L’Inq
Ishinokoe web site (in Japanese)
USA Today