Before you go freaking out, Facebook's new facial recognition feature isn't there quite yet. For now, facial recognition simply means recognizing that a face is present and leaving it at that. The feature, added Wednesday, hopes to make the tagging process quicker and simpler, as part of a larger effort on Facebook's part to improve the entire photo uploading, browsing and tagging process. According to Facebook, more than 100 million photos are uploaded daily - a statistic that looks to rival that of YouTube's 24 hours of video uploaded every minute. In addition to the sheer volume, there is barely a person on the social network that hasn't been part of the photo uploading process, with 99 percent of the more than 400 million users having uploaded at least one photo. What Facebook's new product manager for photos Sam Odio is trying to point out here in his blog post is that uploading photos is massively popular and in need of some streamlining. Odio was the founder of Divvyshot, the company behind the facial recognition technology that was acquired by Facebook two months ago. For now, facial recognition will identifiy that a face is present in an uploaded photo, asking the user “Whose face is this?” According to Facebook, the feature is in limited testing, so you may not see it yet, but this and more will be coming for all soon.
