smartphones just got a whole lot smarter with face verification.

Using an Nokia N900, a University of Manchester (UK) research team has developed a prototype that quickly locks and tracks 22 facial features in real-time (even when upside down) using the Nokia’s front-facing camera. The Active Appearance modeling technique was developed for a EU-funded Mobile Biometrics (MoBio) project as a means of using face verification to authenticate smartphone access to social media sites.

There’s no word yet on when we come face-to-face with this technology.