Prepare the Vidstone

SPECIAL INSTALLMENT Good Friday
You had to know this was coming: a video display screen for headstones.

Visit a graveyard, and you expect to find flowers, shade trees, weeping willows, neatly cut grass and gleaming marble tombstones. Not solar-powered video panels.

But prepare to be surprised. A Miami inventor has put together a tombstone with a 7-inch, shatterproof video screen. Powered by the sun, it can give the dead numerous hours of screen time. Known as the Serenity Panel, it can run video clips of the deceased playing with their grandchildren, running marathons or celebrating at a party.

The inventor came up with the idea at his father-in-law’s funeral. “At the end of the wake,” he explained to Catherine Skipp of The Washington Post, “there was a drop-down projection screen.” A video showed the dearly departed wearing a top hat and pink boa with a martini in his hand. “What better way to celebrate life?” he asked.

His inspiration produced the Serenity Panel, also known as the Vidstone. A number of units were quickly ordered, and the...