Many people claim that they have face recognition solution. Face recognition is definitely a very important application. A company in Singapore (www.xidtech.com) has interesting approach to application of face recognition. They call it face synthesis approach. This approach relies on creating a three dimensional model of the face, usually using only one photo, and creating thousands of photos of the person under different conditions using this model. They store all these models and use them in applications like access control. It is a very clever idea and could in fact be used in many other interesting applications.
To see details of their operation, you can see two video clips: clip 1 here and clip 2 here.
This technology is already being applied in interesting environments. I think with appropriate modifications, it could even be applied in consumer application for managing photos.
(Disclaimer: I am an advisor to XiD.)
the website http://www.gizmoz.com/ also does something related to this topic. It really does look interesting…. . it was released some 10 months back…
avi