Computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard (HP) have denied that their webcams are racist after a YouTube video uploaded in America showed the failings of the facial-tracking technology to pick up a black face.
A man who introduces himself as Desi demonstrates the problems with the HP cameras as the software fails to adapt to his movements.
“I’m black,” comments Desi in the YouTube clip, “I think my blackness is interfering with the computer’s ability to follow me.” When Desi asks his white colleague Wanda to come to the camera, the technology immediately springs to life and starts tracking her movements from left to right as she moves around.
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“I’m going on record and I’m saying it: Hewlett-Packard computers are racist,” concludes Desi.
Whilst the situation has undoubtedly been hugely embarrassing for the company, pushing Microsoft’s PhotoShop faux-pas firmly to the background of computer racial blunders, HP at least had the good sense to defuse the situation intelligently without getting righteous or overly defensive about the situation.
Rather than try and cover up the video, HP posted a link to it in their own blog and thanked Desi for his insightful feedback. The company made no attempt to defend the webcam with a counter-video showing it tracking a black face, nor did it explicitly go on a campaign to promote its virtues of racial equality.
Instead, HP ignored the race issue and focused on the fact that one of its customers had a problem with a faulty piece of software. “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,” wrote HP’s administrator Frosty.
