The facial recognition features found in iPhoto and Aperture are pretty popular with users, and make it infinitely easier to sort out and organize a mess of photos in short order--even if your cat is involved. If a recent acquisition made by the Cupertino-based company is any indication, it would appear that Apple may be interested in building upon their success with facial recognition technology. According to CNET, Apple has purchased a small but promising Swedish tech company called Polar Rose, who specialize in--you guessed it--facial recognition applications.
It's speculated that a number of Polar Rose's existing facial recognition products--FaceCloud, FaceCore and Recgonizr--could easily be integrated into existing Apple platforms to provide facial recognition services server-side, as a cloud-based solution or via integration into an iOS device. So how is Apple planning on using the wares of their latest acquisition? While there's no definitive answer for this as of yet, its a safe bet that given the amount of attention they've been paying to their iOS platform of late, we could very well be seeing some form of facial recognition application baked into future iPhone, iPad and iPod touch releases. If the Polar Rose's in-house product demo video which we've included below is any indication, the software they're developed is already pretty darn slick. Just imagine what it could evolve into with a little nudge from Cupertino.
Follow this article's author, Seamus Bellamy on Twitter.
