Google hires Neven Vision and takes on Riya

Neven Vision is a company that specializes in biometric identification -- the blog entry from Google about the company explains that the technology could be used to determine if a person in a photograph.  It even goes on to explain that one day it might even recognize people, places or objects.

Riya is a search engine that lets you search for people in photos by using facial recognition, and could now see some competition in the near future.  Google was rumored to have interest in Riya in the past, but it looks like they found another company to help them produce a "Riya" of their own. 

Even though they have hired the team at Neven Vision, there are no enhancements to Picasa yet -- but they say that they will have something to show us soon.