Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

QR Codes For Memorials

Posted by samzenpus on from the last-message dept.

mikejuk writes "Companies in America, Denmark and the UK are adding QR codes to gravestones that can be used to view online memorials via smartphones. The idea is that these living headstones can include photographs, videos and memories of the dead person from family and friends. Genealogists and historians have always found graveyards a useful resource. If the QR idea takes hold memorials will be able to tell much more to future generations."

7 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. EEEEEEE by Mr.+Kinky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the QR idea takes hold memorials will be able to tell much more to future generations

    Yes, put obsolete technology there. Why not just put floppies?

    You don't need QR codes for that information anymore. Everything is saved anyway. You could just put the persons social security number there and all that information and much more would still be available.

    1. Re:EEEEEEE by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The QR codes would only work as advertised if the "cloud" part of the system is still intact. Otherwise you'd have just some fancy hieroglyphics for future archaelogists to decipher. If this is the case, why not just carve out the human readable URL of the poor dude's FB/Twitter/G+ page.

    2. Re:EEEEEEE by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have one word for those that think this would be a good idea....Geocities? Anybody remember Geocities? people had their whole lives on those pages and guess what? Went tits up and bye bye all that work. Of course most people aren't web designers so it was a brightly colored nightmare, but hey, some people like gaudy crap.

      For these to work you have to have a "permanent cloud", we're talking centuries permanent, except the cloud is the biggest "her today, gone this afternoon" medium we have. if you want to do something like this what we need is the data embedded in the stone itself, hell putting a fricking flash stick in the rock would be a better idea than this, at least if you have it built in the rock, with it read only, it should last for decades if the person isn't rock star popular.

      TLDR? Stupid idea because it depends on something that never lasts.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. Companies don't live forever. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If the QR idea takes hold memorials will be able to tell much more to future generations

    Or not, if these companies go out of business, which is extremely likely to happen in the next few decades or centuries.

    If you want to add additional data, encode it somehow and engrave it on the stone itself. And put an additional tablet in each graveyard explaining the encoding.

  3. Future generations? by pnot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If the QR idea takes hold memorials will be able to tell much more to future generations.

    Uh huh. How many future generations? For how long are QR codes going to be a popular format, and for how long are these companies going to be around?

    1. Re:Future generations? by gman003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More to the point, how long are QR codes on a tombstone going to be readable?

      When I visited England, I visited several churches and graveyards. Some of them were barely legible, after sitting out in the rain (and acid rain) for centuries. I know QR codes have a lot of error correction on them, but are they going to be readable after 1cm of stone has eroded away?

  4. +5 Monday Morning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Looks like I chose the wrong week to try and avoid stupidity.

    This is the stupidest idea I've heard since Friday. I must be reading Slashdot again.