HP Webcam Can't Recognize African-American Faces, Users Claim (VIDEO)

Users have reported a glitch with Hewlett-Packard webcams, claiming that the cameras are unable to recognize African-American faces.

The HP webcam referenced in the complaint is said to be equipped with face-tracking software that designed to follow the movements of the user. In a video uploaded to YouTube titled "HP computers are racist," two users describe having experienced troubles with the facial recognition feature, saying the camera failed to work when a darker-skinned face appeared in the camera's frame.

HP has issued a statement in response to the criticism and YouTube video:

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.

WATCH:

Follow HuffPostTech On Facebook And Twitter!

Comments

[Lordcron]

06:05 PM on 12/25/2009

Look... It's just like anything you buy. The stuff from overseas seem to be better. This applies to cars also. Ford, GM and other American made car companies aren't having problems for nothing.

Most of what I buy is from overseas. My laptop is Toshiba and it works like a charm. I never have problems with my Toshiba. On the other hand I got an HP w2207 Monitor and had nothing but problems until I gave up and got an Acer H243H Monitor and this thing work like a charm and has more input options.

I don't do a lot of complaining. I hit them where it hurts the most..... In that bottom line. Nothing speaks louder then low sales. LOL!

[anthonytaurus]

03:08 AM on 12/28/2009

lol. they're all made overseas, probably in the same factory. there's not much manufacturing happening in the US. your best bet at a quality computer is the one you build yourself which currently leaves us with desktops. laptop parts are too expensive lol

[mykebee]

12:59 AM on 12/24/2009

There's a bean counter somewhere behind all this. Something like time to market vs. target market demographics vs. market penetration percentages......

[anthonytaurus]

09:36 AM on 12/28/2009

How about just a continued practice of ignoring people with dark skin. Even I figured that it had to do with the camera recognizing color or contrast specifically. They should have known the limitations as they are the ones who devised the algorithms. The question is how light does one have to be for it to work. Did they only test this on white folks? Do we need to pull out the old brown paper bag test?

My point is, they couldn't have not known this was possible. Something like this would have kept the "time to market" folks at bay b/c it would have caused me to pause. The real problem is that they obviously don't have enough black people working at HP. Even if the R&D folks were too dumb to figure out the obvious, a black person in the higher ups, if s/he existed, would have been able to speak up on this issue.

[fromdnorth]

01:23 PM on 12/23/2009

The man is intelligent and made the comment tongue in cheek.

Not every sentiment expressed in humor is slapstick

[lennyp]

11:24 AM on 12/23/2009

With 30 years designing and implementing embedded computer systems (like what is in this camera)the gist of this article is totally plausible. Please, however, do not attribute this to any evil such as racism. There is a saying "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." which I believe sums it up. What we are seeing here is a big screw up -- kinda like the Mars missions where one set of engineers used the metric system and the other English and they never bothered to talk with each till after the mission failed.

[MrVee]

10:10 AM on 12/23/2009

Racist?
C'mon Son! Who came up with this one? Racist? Web cam technology isn't racist. It uses an outmoded technology that continues to use the original coding to see images. It's not racist. It's lazy programming. There is a lot of it as it relates to digital imagery. Even the latest in digital cameras haven't advanced beyond that same old model to see images. It takes the simplest route to acquire the image, corrects what it can and that's that. It's lazy, but racist? C'mon son! C'mon.

[AppleJuiceJunkie316]

08:35 AM on 12/23/2009

This is actually a well known problem with webcams, I'm surprised no one else has wondered about it before now. Being that I am black, I've seen web cam videos that haven't fully captured my movements and what not, but its amazing no one has sent a message to HP about it yet.

Even microsoft was having trouble with its PROJECT NATAL device. For those of you who don't know about that, its the XBOX360's answer to the Wii's motion sensing technology that uses a series of cameras to track people's motion. Unfortunately, black people can play it very well because it has trouble recognizing our movements. The Natal story broke a while ago and Microsoft has been quiet about it ever since (either working on the problem or trying to fend off allegations of racism). That's why I love Nintendo, they recognized the faults of Natal-like device and went with the Wii technology which is why the Big N is number one!

HP makes good products however as I love their Photosmart C4680 printer I just bought my girlfriend so I won't take it against them. But, security camera technology is something they might want to look into in regards to black people. They have no trouble following me in stores (sorry, I just had to!)

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

12:36 PM on 12/23/2009

Actually Ubisoft has come out with Your Shape for the wii that uses a webcam like device. Several games are planned to use it. When Ubisoft revealed it people in the audience said well there is the first third party game for Natal and were shocked to see it for the wii.

http://kotaku.com/5423301/we-played-a-wii-game-without-a-wii-controller
http://diehardgamefan.com/2009/12/04/review-your-shape-featuring-jenny-mccarthy/

[maxbianco]

05:21 AM on 12/23/2009

i don't think its a really big deal. im african-american; HP has a camera that cant see me. so what, Ive got money that will NEVER see them.

hahahahahaha!!

[Philclock]

04:13 AM on 12/23/2009

Racist computers??

This is illogical.

[bismillah001]

03:29 AM on 12/23/2009

Somewhere Akon is furious.

http://cdn.hellobeautiful.com/files/2009/05/akon-throwing-kid.jpg

[Palemoon]

01:23 AM on 12/23/2009

I can see why this story was moved so quickly off the front page... it's being sh0t down by people who are now testing the claims made by the man in the video.

http://www.thegrio.com/2009/12/hp-face-tracking-webcams-arent-racist.php

"TheGrio.com is a black and African-American video news site that focuses on underrepresented stories in existing national news that are important to the African-American community."

Posted that Wikipedia description of the site that did the testing to sh00t down the claims made by the man in the video. You can't say they are biased.

[tek kwene]

08:17 AM on 12/23/2009

I don't think any really thinks HP is racist, but there was a lack of consideration in that they did not account properly for browner complexions and varying lighting conditions while developing and testing the software. It most certainly should have occurred to HP and their engineers to include both variables in their test sets.

[popart]

11:44 PM on 12/22/2009

just as long as black people show up on those crappy security cameras...right!

[Lordcron]

11:32 PM on 12/22/2009

The engineers are more then likely white and so they failed to test the software on people of color..... Maybe they thought it would work on everyone? Or. maybe the didn't anticipate people of color being able to afford there laptops?.

I'm a Toshiba man so it doesn't matter one way or the other to me. Toshiba is well rounded in it's engineering.

[tiredofthesameoldstuff]

11:35 PM on 12/22/2009

Actually this isn't the first time a camera has failed to pick up people with certain skin tones. Regular ordinary cameras can often not capture the blackness of certain people if the camera and the lighting conditions are not set properly.

[Z-Liberator]

10:32 PM on 12/22/2009

Its a joke people get a grip! Didnt he say he bought one himself? Get some humor, please!

[urnumbersix]

11:51 PM on 12/22/2009

But he// - it should work for him just as well as anyone else.
The money he paid was Green! Green, just like everyone's else.

Shameful.

[tek kwene]

08:20 AM on 12/23/2009

No, I think he is laughing at how ridiculous this is...or to keep from turning into angry black man. You know, like The Hulk. But The Hulk is green and would most likely be recognized by the camera.

[wonkguy]

08:30 PM on 12/22/2009

That is absolutely hillarious. Given who the people are who developed this technology(Department of Defense/Homeland Security) and what they developed it for (keeping track of certain types of people in public places) it is histerical that two store clerks in a Radio Shack figured out that if doesn't work on black people and then they published their findings on YouTube. Just too funny.

[BenNC]

06:38 PM on 12/22/2009

Yup,
I use a face detection algorithm, and it definitely misses more AA faces than others.

The argument that this is not racism, and rather is a "technical" glitch is weak.

It is a kind of accidental racism - and I'm grateful the problem is being addressed.

Their is something called a "training set" which is used to "train" the detection Neural Net. Chances are good that the training set is not "outcome optimized" and may instead be "input normalized" or said another way - the number of Blacks in the training set may not be sufficient to yield a race-neutral result, and may instead the training set may only reflect the number of blacks in the sample population.

Adding to the problem, this technology may have been developed in Japan or Russia/FSU - or a University, where the racial mix is less than ideal.

Good luck HP. Thanks for being the kind of Big Brother company that everyone hates - thus raising awareness.

[Peets101]

07:55 PM on 12/22/2009

Oh for cripes sake. Calling HP names because of an engineering glitch requires a lot of projection about their motives. I'm an engineer and I can't count the times that a project had problems because not all conditions were anticipated or allowed for. I'm not a mean or stupid or malicious person - it's just not possible to design for all conditions without an unlimited budget.

[tek kwene]

07:54 AM on 12/23/2009

The "condition" of a buyer being black could not have been anticipated? You don't think HP has an unlimited budget, or certainly one that would allow them to include a sufficient number of blacks in the test set? You're a real engineer?

Never mind. I think I can answer each of these questions myself.