How could we have missed this major oddity back in 2017? We are talking the supposed world’s first digital tombstone that appeared in Slovenia back in 2017. Digital tombstone, btw, is not quite a virtual tombstone as one might have imagined. It is the traditional tombstone of granite or whatnot, but with a large, wait for it… 48-inch touchscreen right smack on it.
From a distance, it looks like any ordinary tombstone, albeit a rather opulent one, but when someone walks in front it, sensors bring the tombstone to life with custom digital content as opposed to just static name of the deceased. When nobody is standing in front of the weatherproof digital tombstone, it will just display the decease’s name and years of his/her birth and death. Now, that’s truly high-tech after life. The sky is the limit when it comes to what could be displayed.
The digital tombstone was created with the help from University of Maribor’s professor, Milan Zorman, and sold in by Slovenia tombstone company Bioenergija for 3,000 euros (about US$3,356 today). Not sure if Bioenergija is at it after like two years. Anyways, back in 2017, the first prototype was installed in a cemetery in Maribor, Slovenia’s second largest city.
There was plan to develop a smartphone app to further increase the tombstone’s interactivity. Though we are sure if it has been done. Fast forward to 2018, a U.S. company iTernal USA has introduced the first digital tombstone in the United State.
Images: EPA via Daily Mail.
