Posted on 10/01/2012 5:14:48 AM PDT by Daffynition
Lorie Miller bends over her grandparents' grave in north Philadelphia. She holds a two-inch brass square she's going to attach next to the headstone's names and dates.
Printed onto that square is a QR code — that square digital bar code you can scan with a smartphone. Miller peels off the back of her square to expose the adhesive and pushes it into place. The headstone, which otherwise looks the same as many others around it, has just jumped into the modern age.
Miller hopes other grieving families will do the same. She and her husband, Rick, are launching a new business called Digital Legacys to sell the tags. Visitors to a tagged grave can pull out their smartphones, scan the QR symbol, and be sent to a personalized Web page for the deceased.
"They can just upload the photos to the website and we can build their website for them," Lori Miller says. "They give us a biography of their loved ones, and they can upload videos and backgrounds and music."
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
A brass sheet with painted symbols ,, that’ll last about a year here in Florida ,, unless the symbol is etched where it is EASY for someone to renew it by wiping black paint into the receses it’s worthless.
Hopefully QR codes will stay in fashion like the 8 inch floppy disk. ;-) I suspect in a few years people will wonder what the funny looking symbol represents.
Not only that, but an adhesive backed piece of brass will stay put maybe a few months. Notice the textured background she's putting it on. Maybe a QR code laser etched into the monument itself would be more appropriate.
As the family genealogist, I like the premise, but wonder how long QR codes will stay in vogue.
Also, if anyone’s contemplating doing something like this, make sure the url embedded in the QR code points to a domain name and location you own and control.
Don’t: www.some_service_for_grave_qr_codes.com/johnrsmith-1963
Do: www.some_domain_name_you_own.com/johnrsmith-1963
This will potentially cost more, but for something like this, you’d be ill-advised to trust and pay for another web saas to stay in business and not raise prices (no matter what the initial pitch is).
Note: I haven’t researched any sites that provide this service. Sounds like a decent and desired service possibility though. Just beware of having QR codes made to point to urls that you don’t absolutely control.
Voter registration in the age of Obamacare.
The bronze marker and engraved marble tombstone will last hundreds or thousands of years... The QR code will likely be obsolete in this decade.
I hope they attach one of these to the grave of Miss Rosetta Stone, because otherwise it’s all going to get mighty confusing.
Nice ad for DigitalLegacys.com
I didn’t think our publicly-funded NPR did advertising.
Kind of sad that people need to go to a website to learn about their grandparents or other family members.
"Found a Yankee in my Tree - Will Trade for Horse Thief or Black Sheep"
And inaccessible to people like me....who do not own a [GASP!] smart phone. :)
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