INVENTORS usually try to come up with things that will change people’s lives. But Robert Barrows is hoping to make an impact after their death. He’s 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…
