Is it possible to get a live reading of the pixel info as you hover over a - say a photo of someones face?
It seems you have to click on the picture and wait for a box to open up with info.
I opened the sample points panel hoping it might show something live but no it's just for putting permanent point on the photo.

If you open up an image, double click the foreground color patch and you get the color dialogue. Use the color picker that you see in the screen shot and you can hover all over your image and you will see your fg colors change with the numbers shown also.

What you want is the pointer tool "Windows>Dockable dialogs>Pointer"

Once the Color Picker Information box is open, you can hold down the mouse button and move the pointer around to see the info about the color underneath it. The eyedropper molly described will do this also, with the values being displayed in the Color Selection dialog (this eyedropper works anywhere on the screen, whereas the Color Picker only works on the image you are editing).



Suh-weet!

A very much overlooked dialog... this one and the Histogram are part my main dock.

Wow i am spoilt for choice! thanks guys I am much happier!
The Dockable Dialogues/pointer is what i had in mind just didn't know where to find it and that it would be simply called "pointer".