Hasta La Gadget!

Your next iPhone’s interface could get more in your face with Apple’s acquisition of a face-recognition company, according to reports.

Apple has acquired Polar Rose, a Swedish augmented-reality firm, according to multiple independent news outlets. TechCrunch claims that Polar Rose sold for $22 million.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wired.com earlier reported on a conceptual smartphone app co-developed by Polar Rose called Recognizr, an augmented reality application designed to identify a person just by taking a photo of them.

Demonstrated in the video below, the conceptual app Recognizr uses recognition software to create a 3-D model of a person’s mug and transmits it to a server, which matches it with an image stored in a database. An online server performs facial recognition, shoots back a name of the subject and links to his or her social networking profiles.

The acquisition of Polar Rose comes in line with a recent patent application filed by Apple related to a security feature enabling the iPhone to listen to your heartbeat or scan your face to identify its rightful owner.

See Also:

• Apple's 'Find my iPhone' App Almost Impossible to Use
• Engineers Test Highly Accurate Face Recognition