Anyone who’s watched CSI or Las Vegas or something similar will have seen their miracle software where you pop in a photo and the software is able to generate a “face-print” and find that person out of a collection of photos and videos. Well, come February 2007, this might actually become a reality for the everyday user.

Swedish startup company Polar Rose has created a visual search engine using facial recognition which will allow users to find people on the net with a photo. While the software is able to train itself, part of the system will still be based on users helping to build the database by entering names and other information on people not recognized by the software already.

The software will be made available as both a browser plug-in and an application interface that can be integrated into other websites or software applications via a royalty-free API.