New from NPR! 來看看互動式墓碑，沒有毛骨悚然的靈異體驗，只有溫馨與科技...

                     設計精美造型獨特的墓碑(headstone)，在左下角加上了QR Code，馬上摩登起來。

看到沒，智慧手機一掃描，就能馬上連結專有的網址，閱讀往生者生前的故事與相關資訊。
                                   A trip to the cemetery will never be the same!
                    英文的everlasting memories將會成真。因為人人都可因為QR code而不朽。

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Technology Brings Digital Memories To Grave Sites

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

And its time now for All Tech Considered.

We begin today with a visit to a cemetery, a space normally reserved for old marble and perfectly clipped修剪工整的 grass. But imagine a headstone with a code that lets you pull up拉出 photos and read stories about the dearly departed過世的摯愛. We're going to hear about a company that is adding that digital element to the cemetery experience辦理後事的過程.

From member station KPLU in Seattle, Bellamy Pailthorp explains all it takes is a smartphone and a free app.

BELLAMY PAILTHORP: Death and the human desire for remembrance懷念 are the constants不變的 that have kept Dave Quiring's company, Quiring Monuments, going for three generations now. He's part grief counselor喪禮顧問, part artisan工匠, part editor編輯.

Mr. DAVE QUIRING (Owner, Quiring Monuments): My job is to help people tell a story in stone, generally.

PAILTHORP: He inherited繼承了 his role 43 years ago, when his dad died. Since then, he's added bronze, glass, even stainless steel and color photographs to the materials this Seattle Company uses to make modern headstones具有當代風格的墓碑. And now he's going digital 數位化by offering black-and-white QR codes碼 for gravestones.

You may have seen QR codes in magazine ads. They're a little larger than a postage stamp 郵票and look a bit like a combination of a bar code and a Rorschach blot羅夏克墨漬測驗. You scan them with a free smartphone app and they bring up a website. Quiring pulls one from his shirt pocket.

PAILTHORP: That was my iPhone beeping, and we're slowly checking information into my phone.

Mr. QUIRING: Yup. Yup, you can see it.

PAILTHORP: A few seconds later, my smartphone brings up a sepia深褐色 picture of a man in a double-breasted suit雙排扣西裝 looking out at us.

Mr. QUIRING: There's my dad, quite the dapper穿著光鮮時髦 guy back in 1930.

PAILTHORP: The monument seller beams臉上因為喜悅而充滿光彩 at the sight of this picture and the slideshow that follows. There's the obit英文訃聞的簡稱 that was in the newspaper after his dad died, and a scan of part of a Robert Frost poem 美國詩人(1987-1963)that his wife found in his wallet. It became David Sr.'s epitaph碑文.

PAILTHORP: We head to the veterans cemetery榮民墓園 less than a mile up the road from the shop, so we can take a look at family's plot. From the car, Quiring - who himself served during Vietnam打過越戰 - looks past some blooming cherry trees盛開的櫻花樹. Rows and rows of uniform white markers cover the hillside. His shop has a federal contract聯邦政府的合約(准許墓園與相關工程開發) to make them. He'd love to see his black-and-white QR code stickers added to each and every one.

Mr. QUIRING: And then you could make a tour through there and it would be more than just a bunch of white monuments. It would be distinct獨特的 lives of people who really deserve to have their stories told關於這些已逝者生前的故事與生活片段值得與人分享.

PAILTHORP: It's an idea that's catching on蔚為風潮 and not just with QR codes. A company in Phoenix has started selling tombstones with RFID tags無線射頻辨識系統標籤for digital storytelling. That's a technology used for tracking things like library books and clothing in retail sales.

Mr. HARRY COLES (Army Veteran): Oh, yeah.

PAILTHORP: Also in this cemetery is 80-year-old Harry Coles. He's an Army veteran visiting both his brother's and his mother's graves. He doesn't own a cell phone, much less a smart one. But he likes my demonstration of how the QR codes work at the Quiring family's graves.

PAILTHORP: Requires a bit of a steady hand手要穩, but it's not as hard as typing.

Mr. COLES: I'll be darned我的媽媽呀(通常用在驚訝到無言以對的時候). Now that's something new.

PAILTHORP: Coles says he's old-fashioned老派, so he wouldn't want anyone to buy one for him. But he thinks having one could mean a lot.

Mr. COLES: For some people, it brings back happy memories and probably some bad memories, sorrowful memories. But mostly, I would think, it's out of love出自於愛. That's the basis for the whole thing這也是這個科技點子之所以問世的主要原因.

PAILTHORP: And it's the vision for Quiring Monuments: Using technology to help future generations connect with their past.

For NPR News, I'm Bellamy Pailthorp in Seattle.