Apple Buys Polar Rose: Future iPads/iPhones to Recognize Your Ugly Mug?

The iPhone just got the ability to transmit your smiling face via FaceTime, and it looks like Apple is pretty serious about it being able to read your face too. According to a variety of European news outlets, Apple purchased Polar Rose today for between $22 million and $30 million. The company is known for a stable of facial-recognition software. While the deal hasn’t been confirmed yet, it would indicate that Apple is making a serious attempt at integrating facial recognition into its devices.

Earlier this year before Apple debuted the iPad, the Wall Street Journal reported about Apple working with facial-recognition capabilities for recognizing multiple users–say in a family. As we all know, the iPad didn’t include a camera, let alone fancy facial recognition. However, Apple will certainly include a front-facing camera in the next version of the iPad to leverage its new FaceTime software, as it recently did on the iPhone 4, so perhaps it will build Polar Rose technology into it to allow for facially-defined security and preferences. [via AppleInsider]