ReadWriteWeb

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.

Le Web 2008 conference, the web conference held this week in Paris, was not about bright, shiny, and new. It was about solid, reliable, and usable. The creative energy of the past few years now seems to be channelled towards building and growing apps that everyone, not just the tech community, wants. Here's a rundown of the major topics covered: portable identity, improved search, cloud storage, and video search.