That but with nice metadata associated with them. Imagine Rapportive in real life. That would be incredibly useful.

I look forward to the day when my enemies leave an unattended Facebook session open, and I can update their status so they have a big "I'm carrying five grand in my wallet right now" sign floating above their heads as they walk around dark alleyways.

I know that was in jest (if not, you may be turning into a supervillian), but the actual implications of having facial recognition built into contacts is immense. It will be a Minority Report type world, where anonymity would be completely gone.

I guess it would mean no criminal outlaws or parole violators walking around, but for a common man to not be able to walk anywhere without everyone around him knowing everything there is to know about him....that's scary

It is, but then again that's what most humans have lived their entire lives doing, living in small communities where everyone knew everyone else since childhood.

isn't that why most people leave small towns, to go to a big city and be anonymous. To be able to get away from their past?

I imagine that sharing facial-recognition data will be protected by new laws - although, of course, it won't work.

Perhaps we'll start seeing new fashions arise as a result: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/03/cv-dazzle/

I guess we would no longer need passports or any government id. Just one look at us by the authorities and that's it.

In time, you could go beyond facial recognition and perhaps include gait recognition too.

My prediction is that face paint will come into style: http://venturebeat.com/2010/07/02/facial-recognition-camoufl...

Or perhaps infrared LED accessories: http://hackedgadgets.com/2008/02/21/ir-leds-used-to-defeat-s...

Perhaps a persistence-of-vision patterns that say "ANON" covering your face? http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/amazing-persi...