Neven Vision’s mobile software enables secure authorization of cell phone functions such as sending emails, unlocking applications or payment transactions via facial recognition software, which can be used on your mobile phone in lieu of manually entering a PIN. In addition, the potential implication for law enforcement personnel in the field is obvious, but also there’s tremendous potential for consumer marketing applications. The company is developing “shoot and recognize” programs that can send a sample track from a band to a user’s phone after the consumer shoots an image of the band’s CD cover in a store, for example, or deliver coupons, and/or additional product information for products in a grocery store.

Another interesting company is ScanR, which utilizes the camera on your mobile phone to capture white board images, or scan documents, and turn them into PDF form, or email or fax them for easy archiving or distribution. The company received yesterday $4.65 million Series A funding led by Trinity Ventures. The technology only works with camera phones with a resolution of at least one megapixel, but nearly 400 million phones with such capability will be sold in 2006.

Finally, Six Apart, a provider of blogging software, announced today its acquisition of SplashBlog Corp, a Seattle-based developer of software that enables blogs to easily and instantly update with photographs taken via mobile phones.

[thanks, VentureWire and BusinessWire]