Picasa Gets Smart With Facial Recognition

It’s a big day for Google. In addition to the company’s official Chrome browser announcement later today, the G-Team is also planning to reveal plans for a revamped Picasa that’ll feature cutting-edge facial recognition technology.

The new tool will analyze people’s faces and link images it sees as having the same person. Once you fill in that person’s name, Picasa will let you access all of his or her pictures with a single click. It’s basically tagging, without the work.

A new beta version of Picasa’s image editing utility will also be released. The software is said to include new “movie making” options for photo-music montages as well as advanced retouching tools, collage capabilities, and dynamic synchronization for photos uploaded from external Web sites.

The stuff is set to go live just after noon PT Tuesday.