HP webcams are totally racist


Webcams. Total headache.

I’ve relied on one for a large part of the past four years to keep in contact with various people in other places and they’ve never been easy to use. They’re like printers- the likelihood of a webcam just straight working are inversely proportional to how badly you need them to be functional at that exact moment.Your boyfriend is home alone and horny? USB device not recognized. Also, trying to get your boobs into that teensy 1? by 1? square is always a bit of a hassle. And now- they’re totally racist, too.

The video below is a compelling example of the pitfalls of camchatting while black- Desi, a black man, is invisible to the camera while Wanda, his white co-worker, is easily tracked by the device. Whoops. HP has responded to the video conceding that their webcams ignore people of color (in “insufficient foreground lighting”):

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

However, I personally prefer this explanation by YouTube commenter MaquisDrake:

Camera must have been made in Japan,? where black people are usually ninjas ? And ninjas must remain part of background ? This camera has obviously ninja-feature built in ?

Oh look it’s a ninja! Where?! WHERE?! ;))))))))

Seriously, HP, fix this ?

[Metafilter via Gizmodo]

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