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Compared to how things used to be done with desktop computers, accessing your smartphone seems as instantaneous as it gets. You just pick up the device, tap a button, slide a finger to the right, enter (or Swype) your passcode and you're in. The whole process takes about two seconds and requires virtually no physical energy on your part. Piece of cake.

As quick and painless as this seems, Apple wants to simplify things even further for owners of its iPhones, iPads and other iOS devices. Imagine walking up to your phone or tablet in its dock and seeing the screen light up with a greeting. You pick it up and pull it a few inches closer to your face, and voilà! the screen is unlocked and the digital universe is instantly at your finger tips.

If you think recently-unveiled products like the Facebook Timeline and Amazon's cloud-powered Silk Web browser have raised privacy issues, an innovation that lies just around the corner could blow them both out of the water.

Facial recognition technology has been around for decades, but until recently it's been slow, inefficient and largely limited to proprietary implementations, such as databases used by law enforcement. That could all be about to change, and the results are bound to send shivers down the spines of digital privacy advocates.

Facebook is treading carefully with its facial-recognition "tag suggestion" feature and now is making it easier for users to opt out of the feature according to Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen, via Bloomberg. When last we heard from Facebook's facial recognition feature it had just been opened released as a global feature but remained opt out as opposed to opt in, upsetting many users and privacy advocates across the world.

According to Bloomberg, Jepsen said that Facebook will begin running online ads today that link users to their privacy settings, allowing them to opt out of the service. Have you seen the ads to which Jepsen refers? Have you or will you opt out of the "tag suggestion" feature?

Facial recognition and detection software is a hot button issue on the Web right now. Facebook has stirred a hornets nest by using facial recognition with users' pictures, asking people to tag their friends. Google has said that is a line of creepy it will not cross.

Facial detection software is not just limited to the Web though. A new startup in Chicago called SceneTap uses facial detection and people-counting cameras to scope out your local bar to tell you "what is going on." What is the male-to-female ratio at your favorite club? Who is buying drinks? SceneTap cameras see it all and provide the data to users and bar owners. Seem a little creepy? Maybe not as much as you might think.

Facebook changed the security options of millions of international users today. The photo-tagging facial recognition program that Facebook unveiled to North American in July 2010 has arrived in most of the rest of the world today, according to security company Sophos.

Facebook does not tag people in photos automatically, but prompts users to tag friends that the facial recognition system recognizes. The service is opt-out in Facebook's security settings as opposed to opt-in. That aspect of the facial recognition feature and Facebook's approach to privacy altogether is what bothers privacy and security advocates like Sophos.

Facial recognition meets Search. We knew this was coming, right?

CNN reports that Google is working on a mobile app that will use facial recognition technology to turn mobile phone photos into a means to identify people. The app would serve as a form of visual "search," displaying results including name and email address.

Updated: Google says it is not working on a mobile app of this nature and would not introduce any facial recognition technology into any of its apps "unless there was a strong privacy model in place."

While privacy advocates will be quick to identify all the dangers and implications of such a thing, Google is making it clear ahead of time that the service will be "opt in." Users will have to agree to let their faces and data be retrievable by the app.

There's very little gray area on this one: You're either completely excited by the potential for built-in facial recognition combined with smartphones and social networks, or your entirely creeped out and afraid for the future of the planet.

The future is nearly here and I, for one, welcome our new overlords, who today come to us in the form of a Silicon Valley company called Viewdle that we first wrote about last October. Read on to find out how they plan to make what you see above a reality.

Imagine taking a picture using your smartphone and immediately having all of your Facebook friends automatically tagged, without even visiting the website, the app, or looking at the picture itself. This is the future that Viewdle plans to make a reality.

We spoke with Jason Mitura, the chief product officer for Viewdle, and he told us that the company would offer a real change in facial recognition technology by taking the process out of the cloud and into the device itself.

Polar Rose, a Swedish-based facial recognition startup launched in summer 2007, is shutting down its consumer-facing service that allowed users to tag people in photos anywhere on the Web. Last spring, the innovative company introduced facial recognition to popular photo-sharing site Flickr by way of a third-party browser plugin. With the plugin installed, Polar Rose users could tag their Flickr photos with the names of their Facebook contacts and then alert those friends on Facebook that they had been tagged. It also organized Flickr photos into pages by person and could recognize people automatically in later uploads.

Unfortunately, this and all other end user-focused services are being terminated as the company switches its focus to its series of facial recognition products. Says Polar Rose's Thijs Stalenhoef, the service was "fun while it lasted."

Swedish software and design company The Astonishing Tribe, also known as TAT, has been developing a rather astonishing augmented reality application for mobile phones. Originally built as a software concept, the Android app called "Recongnizr" is a mobile prototype that allows you to use your phone in order to "see" who a person is and what web services and social networks they're connected to. App users can also associate traditional address book details with their profile like their full name, address, phone number and email, for example.