Google launches photo editor with facial recognition feature

Picasa 3.5, now with name tags and more [Google Blog]

Not content with their current ubiquity of the world's information, Google has launched a new version of their Picasa photo editing software with a facial recognition feature. With this feature, Google and Picasa users will now be able to match names to pictures.

It works like this. A Picasa user tags the various faces within a photo album with the names of the people in the photo. Google is able to use its facial recognition technology to identify other pictures in the user's album that include the faces of people that were previously tagged. The tagged photos can then be uploaded to the web and shared with others. While there are some privacy features for the tagged photos, each user has the option of setting whether the tagged photos are available for anyone on the web to view.  Hmm.  A little scary when I think of some old photos of me in my younger days that might still be floating around.

As with many other Google products, the Picasa update is free for users to download and use. In addition to the facial recognition features of the update, Picasa now allows users to tag the exact geographic location in which each of their photos were taken to share with the world.

Comments

[mike lazfsh]

This is actually a really nice program. I used the previous verion to create numerous projects for my wife. Very simple and nice.