“There is no doubt that the smartphone is becoming ‘good enough’ much of the time; but thanks to mobile phones, more pictures are being taken than ever before,” said Liz Cutting, executive director and senior imaging analyst at NPD.  “Consumers who use their mobile phones to take pictures and video were more likely to do so instead of their camera when capturing spontaneous moments, but for important events, single purpose cameras or camcorders are still largely the device of choice.”

As individuals capture more of life’s moments in digital form, they’re creating larger and richer digital collections. This trend underscores the importance of planning for your digital afterlife.

Photo by Johnathan Lyman

Death used to be the final disconnect from the mortal world, but that’s not quite the case anymore. From the paranormal to the touching, tales abound about technology beyond the grave. Perhaps more telling is what these stories tell us about our changing culture.

John Jacobs, 55, passed away in 2005 following a battle with pancreatic cancer, but he’s not quite out of touch with his family. The New York Post reported in 2008 that Jacobs’ wife continued to pay the 55-dollar Verizon bill keeping his mobile phone service alive and well, with no plans to shut it off.

“As long as someone is still out there who cares, I still care. My kids still care. His friends still care,” Jacobs says. “I don’t think I’ll ever shut it off.”

In an added twist, Jacobs was buried with his cell phone fully charged. Mourners were startled when the first post-mortem call arrived during the burial service. Jacob’s wife, Marian Seltzer, even had Jacobs’ headstone engraved with his phone number. Family and friends continue to leave voice messages for Jacobs, taking comfort in this facsimile of his presence.

Jacobs’ isn’t the only post-mortem account that Verizon managed. Fox News reported about Charles Whlting of Irvington, NY, who kept his wife’s voicemail active since 2005. Whlting, 80, kept the account active so that he could listen to Catherine Whlting’s voice on the outgoing message. In 2008, a change in the voicemail system brought this story to light, as Whlting thought the recording was lost. Whlting blamed Verizon saying, “Now they took her voice away.” Luckily a Verizon contractor was able to locate an archived copy of the recording and restored Catherine Whlting’s voice to the system.

For a dose of the paranormal, a UK-man believes that he’s receiving text messages from his deceased wife, who, like Jacobs, was buried with her mobile telephone.

“She always had a mobile with her,” Jacobs told The Register. ” We buried her with her phone. There have been messages with words Sadie would say but there’s no number.”

Paranormal events aside, Perhaps Seltzer and Whlting were ahead of their time. Products and online services now abound offering new ways to remember loved ones through technology. Traditional monument manufacturer Quiring Monuments launched its Living Headstone product in March. Free for new headstones and 65 dollars for existing ones, customers receive a QR code to place on the headstone and a five-year subscription to a personal Web page, complete with photos and writings in memory of the deceased. An administrator, presumably a family member, manages the Web page. Cemetery visitors with smartphones can read the QR code and visit a memorial Web page to learn more about the deceased.

Another company, Rosetta Stone (not to be confused with the foreign language software), offers NFC-enabled microchips for headstones. Similar to Quiring, Rosetta Stone directs cemetery visitors with NFC-enabled smartphones to a memorial Web page.

While the exact numbers are open for debate, many sources, including The Washington Post, report that the average lifespan of a Web page is 44-75 days. Pages owned by corporations are likely more durable, but the Web is fleeting. The challenge for any of these memorial Web pages or voicemail accounts is a digital death, when they are no longer accessible.

The founders of 1000Memories, a San Francisco-based startup currently backed by 2.52 Million in funding, want to make ensure the permanence of online memorials. The service allows users to create “memory pages” for loved ones. Unlike other memorial website companies, 1000Memories has partnered with the Internet Archive to ensure accurate inclusion of its pages in the Wayback Machine. The company also published an overview of its safeguards to ensure the permanence of memory pages.

Considering the rise of specialty websites like 1000Memories and new memorial products, we’re clearly in the middle of a culture shift. Technology, once considered irreverent, is now a welcome component of the grieving process. Perhaps further evidence of this is the deluge of online services offering to help individuals secure their digital legacies by leaving a list of user names and passwords or writing emails for their heirs. A significant part of today’s culture, social networking sites also offer memorial services. Facebook, for example, allows survivors to convert profiles into a memorialized state and Twitter offers families archives of their loved ones’ public tweets.

As we continue to shift toward a completely digital culture, it’s certain that technology will play a greater role in memorials. As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Diary: “We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” Perhaps our digital memorials will fulfill that goal.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen something like this. A company called Rosetta Stone (not the foreign language software) is offering QR code and NFC (near field communication, a technology based upon RFID) products for addition to headstones. The products from Rosetta Stone allow users to view a similar online memorial.

I have to ask, will the websites for these QR codes be around in 20 years time? The Web today is just 20 years old, and we don’t have much of the original Web left. While the technology has promise, I’d like to hear more about the preservation efforts for the digital half of the memorial.

What do you think? Do you want a QR code on your headstone?

Oh, we’ll have some great biological panelists, too. They’ll discuss artificial intelligence, digital avatars, and the future of identity. Along the way we’ll learn:

* Just how close we are to seeing self-aware, digital life forms
* How new AI technology might enhance our biological lives
* How digital avatars might keep living for you after you die

The singularity won’t be televised, folks. We’ll make sure you don’t miss it.

In addition to the 17 online memorial sites that we currently have on our list of digital legacy services, we are now adding ForeverMissed, Solium, People 2 Remember, Stayalive,  Memory-Of.com, and  Planned Departure.

We’ve seen Facebook being used as a social grieving space for several years already. Profiles of the deceased are routinely transformed into online memorials. But the memorialization process locks the profile and disables the ability to add new “friends.” As a result we’ve seen the creation of memorial “pages” on Facebook. A simple search for “R.I.P” on Facebook shows that people are creating these pages so anyone can participate.

Dedicated online memorial websites go a step further than Facebook. They create a place whose declared purpose is to connect with others and grieve socially. This eliminates the confusion that people experience when encountering death in a vibrantly social place like Facebook.

It is uncertain how sustainable all this growth is. What we are probably seeing is an initial growth explosion of a new industry. My guess is that we’ll see consolidation and drop off of companies in the coming years. But for the time being, the online memorial rush is in full swing.

Photo by Herry Lawford

Would it matter if he or she were a robot? Or no longer alive?

Enter digital avatars. Two companies, Virtual Eternity and Lifenaut have released “digital avatar” products. What is a digital avatar? Well, here’s mine.

That’s my avatar from LifeNaut. It works by an predictive AI program that connects to a store of information about you. Go ahead, ask “me” a question. My name. About my family.

Potential

What’s most interesting is not how this avatar looks and works today. It’s the potential that these avatars have for the future and what they are the beginning of. As you can see if you play with it, this avatar is pretty basic. It’s predictive ability is restricted to the very limited amount of information that I put in its database of my attitudes, feelings, and perspectives – my digital “mind file.”

This is because right now programming these avatars takes a lot of time and energy. But what if it took no energy? What if they tapped into your social media accounts and passively listened to every status update, comment, or post? Imagine how rich a profile it would have in just a few years.

In 2032

Fast forward a couple decades. The AI is 100 times better (Moore’s Law and all that). You can have a natural conversation. Your mind file has 20 years worth of data on your thoughts and beliefs. What was a manipulated still photo is a fully, three-dimensional representation of you. It’s crossed the uncanny valley and is completely convincing.

Now, imagine that you die, and this projection of you “lives” on.

To me, the most compelling questions this technology raises are:

• How would this technology change the way the living experience the death of a loved one?
• How can this technology be used to extended consciousness?
• Is it OK that this is the first step down to a road toward synthetic life forms?
• Is the idea of consciousness transfer to a digital medium and ultimately a new body something we want?

Is this the future of death?

There were several recordings made of the presentation, but most of them aren’t ready yet. But for now, we’ve got a few summaries for you. Update: Audio recording is available below.

Who Owns Your Web Stuff After You Die? Good Question By Giles Turnbull for Time’s Techland

Audio recording from SXSW

Graphic notes from ImageThink

Ustream recording from Dazza Greenwood

Note: The audio begins a few minutes into the video.

Prezi presentation from the panelists

Include information in pre-need planning

Pre-need planning is a great opportunity to talk with individuals about their estate plans digital and otherwise. In fact, according to a Lawyers.com study released in February, 2010 only 35% of Americans report having a will. I’m certain far less have considered their digital possessions.

Provide advice to family members

Funeral homes often prepare tribute videos and other remembrance items that require photos. At this stage funeral professionals could provide advice to family members for how to access the digital files of the deceased. This could be accessing photos stored locally on a computer or on sites like Flickr and Facebook. Of course, this is a bit after-the-fact, but there’s an opportunity to help guide them through finding and securing these assets.

Be an advocate in your community

Funeral professionals are often well connected and respected in their communities. Whether its speaking, writing or simply bringing up the topic when the occasion is right, there’s an opportunity here to raise awareness about this issue amongst those who may not have considered it before.

These are just a few ideas we discussed during our call. If you think of others, please leave them in the comments.

Photo by MudflapDC

Mable Hewett - 1927-2010

As we were preparing for Grandma’s funeral my Mother stopped by my childhood bedroom, in which I had set up a makeshift office for the week. She said, “Now there’s one person who didn’t have a digital legacy to worry about.” I thought for a moment, suspecting she was correct, but then glanced down at my computer screen and responded, “Have you been on Facebook today?”

It occurred to me that the my wall and those of several family members contained an outpouring of support from friends. Many of the people who never even knew my Grandmother. Facebook was where I had turned the previous evening to tell my friends of the sad news. Their support was unbelievably valuable to me and, at least in some small way, a part of my Grandmother’s legacy. I have to wonder if Facebook posts and emails will someday become the replacement for cards and flowers. I suspect that we’ll have both and that both will be equally as meaningful in the grieving process. I know it was for me.

Later that day we began preparing photos to submit to the funeral home for a tribute slide show. Mom pulled out several boxes of photos and we began to go through them. It was a great trip down memory lane and when it was finished I said “I’ve got more.” I opened up iPhoto and began to look through photos from Grandma’s birthday party, just three weeks earlier, and from countless other family events. My sister looked through Facebook at the same time. We compiled the photos into a new album and I fetched a USB drive that we could put them on and send to the funeral home. I also took a moment to teach my aunt how to email photos from her BlackBerry and she contributed a few. Meanwhile my Mother found a printed photo of my Grandmother and her brothers and sisters and said, “Evan, you took this one.” Not finding it on my MacBook I found a book of old CD-R discs and pulled out one labeled “Backup Spring 2003.” I didn’t find the photo she mentioned, in fact I never did, but I did find several others that we added to the album. As I placed the files on the USB drive, I started to think about how we compiled all of these photos. Some of them came from my hard drive, others from Facebook, CDs and even a mobile phone.

For someone who barely understood what we were doing on “that computer” all of the time, we compiled an impressive set of digital memories. And if it wasn’t for the need to submit photos for this slide show, they may have never come together in one place. I’ve opened that iPhoto album several times since that day and it’s availability to me at all times right here on my laptop is comforting. It’s a place I can go to remember and honor her.

So this post is for you, Grandma. While you didn’t have any digital things of your own, our photos and messages are a very important part of your legacy. We treasure them deeply and I hope that others realize the importance of their digital things through this story.

The site, virtualeternity.com, allows you to upload a photo of yourself. Immediately you begin to see your avatar take life. Their application makes your photo come alive. Your photo blinks and your mouth opens and closes as it talks. The head even bobs around naturally giving it an immediately life-life appearance.

So how does it work?

You begin by training it. You answer personality tests. You teach it to answer in the same way that you do. You also upload photos that your future avatar can talk about. You can even make a voice profile so that it talks in your voice.

Once it’s trained, it can answer questions that are typed into a text field. Now, it isn’t perfect. In fact, the makers say that it’s still in beta. It fails on many questions, but it answers some correctly. And you can assume that the more data that you give it the more that it’ll know about you. You can also assume that with time, effort and increased computing power, these avatars could get pretty high fidelity.

This is an amazing platform for knowing people from the past, whether they are famous people or your grandparent. And while its current functionality needs some work, the potential is here to offer people something that is really unprecedented and something that we have never seen before, except in science fiction.