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Written by DeadGirl
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Tuesday, 04 October 2005 |
Voices from the grave
Joshua Larkin October 4, 2005
BARRE TOWN--Rock of Ages today will announce plans to embed coin-sized memory chips into monuments, allowing photographs and text about the deceased to be electronically transmitted to hand-held computers and laptops.
The device is called a Memory Medallion. Roughly the size of two stacked quarters, the stainless steel medallion can be programmed with photos of the deceased and a few pages of text, both of which can be transmitted to computers via the use of a touch wand and software. The Graniteville monument manufacturer will launch the new product at the National Funeral Directors' Conference being held today in Chicago.
"It's a wonderful thing because what it allows people to do is personalize monuments in ways that they were never able to do before," said Caryn Crump, Rock of Ages' senior vice president of marketing. "And what's important about it is that it allows the human story to be included on the monument."
The Memory Medallion was invented in 1999 by a Pennsylvania district attorney named Glenn Toothman. Speaking yesterday from Chicago, Toothman said his 79-year-old father and the dash that separates birth dates from death dates on gravestones were the inspiration for the invention. Toothman said his father walked into his office after visiting a cemetery one day and commented on how disturbing it was that a person's life was summed up in the dash between the two dates engraved on each grave marker.
"He said to me, you've been the problem solver in this family, you solve this," Toothman said. "About four days after that conversation with my father, I was sleeping and I dreamt that I was walking through a cemetery with my computer and as I touched the gravestones the pictures and stories of my ancestors would come up on the screen, and as unbelievable as that sounds, that's how it happened."
Toothman said he also dreamed of how the device would work, electronically, and within 30 days of the conversation with his father a working prototype had been built. He said Rock of Ages will be the exclusive distributor of Memory Medallions in Canada and the United States, except for in southern Florida where the Catholic Dioceses will continue as distributor. Toothman said Rock of Ages will offer the technology in all of its monuments, from individual gravestones up to family mausoleums.
Brendan McManus, president of Memory Medallion Inc., said "thousands" of the devices have already been placed in monuments around the country. He said each of the small, circular disks contains an electronic memory chip similar to those found in digital cameras. The chips hold one photo, a roughly 600 word story and can contain hypertext links to direct people to Web sites containing more content about the deceased.
"You can make it as simple as an obituary, but what we try to do is tell people to write a story about the person as if they were writing about them to another friend," McManus said.
Using a probe that plugs into a computer port and free downloadable software, visitors to cemeteries and monuments will be able to access the information instantaneously, McManus said. Visitor centers located at public monuments utilizing Memory Medallions will probably have hand held computers available for loan and Rock of Ages will also be selling touch wands, McManus said.
Crump said she anticipates sales of the devices to take off after the company unveils the product at today's conference. Over the last year, the Catholic Diocese of Miami had sold over 3,000 of the devices and Crump said she expects Rock of Ages will also sell a lot of the medallions because more and more people want to personalize monuments for loved ones. Crump said each medallion will cost $595, which includes a touch wand, software, installation of information onto the chip and installation of the medallion onto a monument. Additional touch wands will cost $30. She said the medallions are colored either bronze or silver and will add a personal touch to any monument.
"They're really beautiful," she said. "They enhance the monument."
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Source: http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051004/NEWS/510040350/1002 |
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