According to www.patentlyapple.com, Apple is working on putting face recognition into its handsets.
Patents filed by the company show that it is developing face recognition technology though it is unclear whether this will be used for simple functions like an alternative to passwords, or whether it will be used to put a name and personal details to a face in a crowd.
Although the latter is a technology used by police and customs, it would involve too much processing power for a handset.
However, with fast wireless links, e.g. the 100Mbits/sec link of LTE, a handset could capture an image and send it to be it analysed remotely.
Clearly, it would involve some major legal issues over peoples’ personal image rights.
However, such an app, if it could be made to work, would be a killer app of significant proportions.