
Paper replicas of iPads and iPhones with other gadgets for sale for the Chinese Qingming festival at a prayer supplies shop near Kuala Lumpur. Chinese people go to cemeteries during the festival to honor the dead with prayers, food, tea, wine and paper replicas of flashy cars, Louis Vuitton bags, and other bling for the ancestors to enjoy in the afterlife. Reuters/2011.
April 4 in China marks Tomb Sweeping Day (Qingming Festival), an ancient cultural tradition in which families honor their ancestors by visiting their tombs and leaving offerings of food. Not unlike Día de Los Muertos, really.
Brian Ashcraft writes at Kotaku:
Paper replicas depict items that can be used in the afterlife, such as clothing, money, and cars, are burned. Over the years, this tradition has evolved with the times as evident by a recent must-have paper replica: the iPad.
Yup. More in China Daily, Shanghai Daily (with a photo gallery), The Telegraph.


The words "iiPad" and "888 GB" are displayed on a paper replica of an Apple iPad on sale for the Chinese Qingming festival, near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The number 888 is auspicious in Chinese culture. Reuters/2011.
After tax, you’re clear of two grand.
Wilson X was the sports manufacturer's entry into the market for smart basketballs, but maintaining the app that made sense of the telemetry from your sensor-equipped roundball was expensive and stupid and so the Wilson X app is no more, and the "B" in "B-ball" stands for "bricked."
Angela Lashbrook has followed the online recommendations for vacuum cleaners and found them wanting. The high-end brands that never get consideration in roundups of vacs are much better at sucking your carpet clean of filth. A simple task like cleaning my kitchen or vacuuming my rugs may seem small and relatively unimportant. But research shows […]
Looking to de-clutter your kitchen counter? Start with those multiple, tangled charging cables for your multiple, power-hungry devices. There’s a workhorse solution for all those power needs, and it’s just as just as well suited to travel as home use: The Scout Wireless 5000mAh Charger. Compact and sleek at nine ounces, it doesn’t look like […]
Use a single password for every website, and you’re compromising your security. Use a different one each time, and you’re bound to lose track of them. The solution? RoboForm Everywhere, a catch-all tool that will not only manage the passwords on every site you visit but generate better ones. As a simple password database, it’s […]
Just a reminder: Print isn’t dead. And now that printers are becoming as portable as cell phones, it might be around for quite some time. Enter the MEMOBIRD Mobile Thermal Printer, a mini-printer that is versatile, portable – and most importantly, never needs a refill on ink or toner. Measuring just a few inches around, […]