Seeing dead people

Grave markers are being implanted with computer chips that will relate the story of the person buried in that grave.

Mountain View Cemetery and Mausoleum was founded in 1882, the year downtown Los Angeles first glowed with electric lights. .... The cemetery plans to embed a Memory Medallion, a coin-sized, stainless steel-encased computer chip, in 50 of its tombstones. About a dozen are in place so far.

These medallions are read with a hand-held computer or a laptop. One possibility mentioned in the article is that some day, medallions would be able to project a hologram of the deceased, allowing for a virtual conversation.

Come to think of it, the technology is available – kind of.

Mount the reader hardware on a VR goggle set, and let people walk around with the goggles. When a medallion is triggered, a 3-D image of the deceased is superimposed on the cemetery, visible through the goggles. Sensors would tell what direction the goggles are looking, and so the image would stay anchored in one place, rather than floating as the goggles move.

And I can see a business, selling pre-need medallions. That way, people could record what they want to show visitors to their grave markers.

Afraid that might bias history? That's already a problem.

Computerized grave markers eventually could be able to simulate the deceased's image in a hologram, allowing visitors to carry on virtual-reality conversations with the dead. But dubious observers worry that such technology could be used to rewrite history. "While this offers an exciting chance to hear voices from our past, at the same time, it provides descendants a tempting opportunity to beef up Grandpa's resume," said Michele Zack, Altadena historian and author of the recently published book "Altadena: Between Wilderness and City." As an example, Zack criticizes the Memory Medallion's history of pioneer Fred Twombly. "Although his work in Pasadena development was important, he did not establish Pasadena's first water system" as the medallion says, Zack said. "That honor belongs to pioneer Benjamin Eaton, who was the first to tap water from the Arroyo Seco in the 1860s and built the first iron-pipe pressure system in Southern California, in 1874."

History, though, is written, not by the victors, but by whose who hold the pen last.