New RFID tech tracks you to the tomb

A new product, the RosettaStone (www.personalrosettastone.com), guarantees that RFID will follow you straight to your grave.

The RosettaStone is a palm-size stone tablet representing the deceased. It bears an RFID tag that communicates with mobile phones — directing users to an Internet memorial archive.

That archive might contain photos and recordings of the departed, or notes made by others “left below.’’

The RosettaStone uses the RFID technology, Near Field Communication, or NFC, which is likely to become standard issue on new mobile phones by 2012. (The RFID industry is promoting NFC as a handy way to make contactless payments and other transactions.)

Don’t own an NFC phone? You can always raise a departed one’s data, by punching the URL on the RosettaStone into your handset.

The device works as an heirloom or memento, which you can keep in a leather and felt pouch. (Imagine handing the stones out at a funeral.) You can also have the RosettaStone affixed, or inlaid, on a headstone, according to its manufacturer, Phoenix-based Objecs, LLC.

The RosettaStone is available as a piece of granite, or travertine — the latter looks like it came from a set of runes you would find in a Wiccan store in Salem. Prices start at a little more than $200, and include lifetime access to the online memorial database.