Facebook acquires Face.com

This has been rumored for months now but Facebook has finally and officially acquired Face.com. Facebook already uses Face.com’s facial recognition technology, which powers its auto-tagging feature. After Facebook acquired Instagram, this could be another acquisition that will be critical if Facebook really wants to sink its teeth deep into the smartphone space. Read on.
With Face.com’s tech, a Facebook smartphone will be able to recognize people in photographs and automatically tag them. This would be similar to what we saw in the Samsung Galaxy S III but for all we know, Samsung could have licensed it from Face.com itself. Even Face.com’s announcement hints at Facebook’s mobile aspirations.

We love building products, and like our friends at Facebook, we think that mobile is a critical part of people’s lives as they both create and consume content, and share contentwith their social graph. By working with Facebook directly, and joining their team, we’ll have more opportunities to build amazing products that will be employed by consumers – that’s all we’ve ever wanted to do.

Either that or Facebook could integrate the auto-tagging feature directly on its Camera app. But with Instagram acquisition, hiring of engineering from Apple and rumors of acquiring Opera Software, we are fairly certain Facebook is doing much more than just accumulating brilliant apps and technology.