Ever been at a large family gathering and wondered if that cute bloke over there would make a great mate or is a walking cultural taboo violation? Or if that elderly aunt is your mother’s father’s sister or your mother’s mother’s sister in-law?

Now you can know! Programmed by Aunt Elsie who knows the family tree like the spider veins on the back of her hand, each family member gets a unique LED tag (two actually, one for the front, one for the back). The tag reads the closest (or otherwise designated by small laser pointer) tag, recognizes that tag’s ID and calculate the familial relationship between the respective owners of the tags. The relationship is then displayed on each tag.

Optional settings include a flashing display for members of the opposite (or same, whatever) sex that are single and not blood-related.
-- grip, Dec 05 2003

nTags http://www.ntag.com/
These'll do it. [waugsqueke, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

as long as its not on my big toe!
-- po, Dec 05 2003


It's only the Catholic Church where you have to worry about not marrying your cousins, so I'd suggest you convert to another faith. (Try Anglican/Episcopalian: only immediate family members are out, and you should know most of them by now.)

And you can now get electronic name tags that find links between people: try those.
-- DrCurry, Dec 05 2003


Well baked, without your goofy last paragraph add-on. Voila le linque.
-- waugsqueke, Dec 05 2003


Good application of tags - but they should not communicate directly. Each tag should talk only to Aunt Elsie's mainframe computer (Bluetooth?). That way the dear old lady can make near real-time adjustments to avoid embarrassments; e.g. Johanna is after John, but John just stepped out of the closet and wants to meet James.
-- kbecker, Dec 05 2003



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