Okay, before anyone gets too upset and contact the ACLU, just watch this video below. It’s pretty funny and because we all know that computers can’t actually be racist.
Co-workers “white” Wanda and “Black” Desi discovered that the face tracking feature in HP’s web cam is unable to recognize or track black faces. Which is ironic considering how “racial profiling usually consists of cameras following black people around a store *too* often,” as one YouTube commenter writes.
HP has since seen the video and responded:
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.