HP computers are racist? ROFL - and HP acknowledges the problem...

[The Straight Story]

Webcam tracker's blindspot now a 'racist' sensation

It may not matter if you're black or white but to the webcams built into HP's computers, skin colour is everything.

A viral video that has notched up almost 90,000 hits on YouTube claims the world's largest PC maker is selling "racist" computers.

The facial tracking software used on its newest PCs, which allows the webcam to automatically follow users if they move around during video chat sessions, appears to be incapable of detecting people with dark skin.

In the video, Desi, an African-American, demonstrates the issue with Wanda, a white colleague. The technology recognises Wanda with ease.

"I think my blackness is interfering with the computer's ability to follow me," Desi says in the clip.

"As you can see the camera is panning to show Wanda's face, it's following her around, but as soon as my blackness enters the frame ... it stops."

HP acknowledged the problem in a post on its blog.

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/webcam-trackers-blindspot-now-a-racist-sensation-20091222-laws.html?autostart=1

Video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DT3tQqgRM

HP responds:
Some of you may have seen or heard of a YouTube video in which the facial-tracking software didn’t work for a customer. We thank Desi, and the people who have seen and commented on his video, for bringing this subject to our attention.

We are working with our partners to learn more. The technology we use is built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose. We believe that the camera might have difficulty “seeing” contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting. While we work on this, take a look here for more information on the impact of lighting on facial tracking software, and how to optimize your webcam experience: http://bit.ly/7HsZHD

We will continue to listen to you and work to deliver great experiences. We invite you to connect with us on the discussion boards and forums here on The Next Bench or on Twitter at @HP_PC.

http://www.thenextbench.com/t5/Voodoo-Blog/Customer-Feedback-is-Important-to-Us/ba-p/51351

[Alexander]

1. "Insufficient foreground lighting" = "black people"

Amazing, the euphemisms people will come up with to justify racism these days.

"Insufficient foreground lighting"...that really takes the cake.

[MercutioATC]

3. You DO realize that this is just a tech issue, right?

I assume your post was sarcasm?

[Renew Deal]

9. BULLSHIT!

:rofl:

[petronius]

12. I doubt they deliberately designed a camera to ignore black people,

but it does suggest that HP has a 'blind spot' with regard to who their customers are. If the software relies on the reflectivity of various parts of the face, it shouldn't be rocket science to test it with a wide variety of skin/eye color combinations.

Of course, HP might in fact have done the comprehensive testing and this is just one of a rare set of customers who fall outside the window of recognizability. It would be interesting to see if this result is regularly repeatable by other dark-skinned users (and whether other combinations - extremely pale, or acne-scarred, etc - have the same issue)...

[Renew Deal]

8. lol

Yes, HP built racist webcams. :rofl:

[Touchdown]

2. That reminds me of an old SNL skit.

Where they advertized flesh colored toilet paper so men can cover up razor burns and people wouldn't notice. At the end, a black guy comes in and says "Hey! What about me?" and they throw him a darker roll... "We've got you covered too Pal!"

:rofl:

[Mnpaul]

4. Get Johnny Chung Lee on board to fix the problem

He can whip up some wii gooogles to make it work. He does some pretty cool stuff with the wii remote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

[HopeHoops]

5. The "smile recognition" feature on newer cameras has the same problem.

I think it is a silly feature anyway, but the contrast necessary to analyze a face depends for any purpose depends heavily on the amount of reflected light.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. For a minute I thought it was about the "master/slave" hard drive configuration.

Hissy fits were thrown over that, some may remember.

[SoCalDem]

7. Stealth hackers.. the next new thing..

[ikri]

10. I believe that facial recognition biometric systems suffer the same problem

There have been stories floating around for a while that suggest biometric systems that rely on facial recognition can't tell the differences in people's faces if they have non-caucasian skin colours.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

11. Quite true

Several different approaches are being tried to solve the problem, most are some sort of automatic gain control. HP could go with that kind of approach since they are not trying to match faces. AGC in a matching system lowers the probability of getting a good match.