Picasa Web Albums Gets Face Recognition

Google has launched a one-two combo of Picasa 3.0 (beta), the next generation of its free photo-editing software, along with a major technology upgrade to its free online photo-sharing site, Picasa Web Albums.
Picasa Web Albums now helps users automatically sort and share their online photos based on who is in each picture. Instead of requiring users to label their photos one-by-one, the ‘name tags’ feature in Picasa Web Albums uses advanced clustering technology to quickly group together pictures of the same person.
It also features a remodeled user interface, and uses new technology to help users organize and share photos.
Users can share full-resolution albums for free with friends and family and the web albums are viewable as full-window slideshows that load in the background so users can flip quickly from one photo to the next.
A new ‘Explore’ section gives users a way to enjoy photos published by other Google Photos users around the world, including a ‘Where in the World’ game in which you guess the mystery locales of geo-tagged photos.
New features in Picasa 3 make getting photos online easier, with a one-click ‘web sync’ that uploads an album and keeps it updated on the web when changes are made on the PC.
New tools also include a drag-and-drop photo-collage tool ; a retouching brush to wipe out scratches and blemishes, and repair old photos; a slideshow movie maker that uploads to YouTube with a click; Auto red-eye removal; Smart auto-cropping and a fast-launching Photo Viewer to inspect and manipulate images while in the Windows filesystem. (story Link)