Comments on: HP Face Tracking Software Not Racist, Just Contrast Challenged http://blog.laptopmag.com/hp-webcam News and views on today's hottest laptops, cell phones, and other mobile devices. Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:37:24 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Matthew Daly http://blog.laptopmag.com/hp-webcam/comment-page-1#comment-25394 Matthew Daly Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:13:08 +0000 http://blog.laptopmag.com/?p=25067#comment-25394 I used to work with very similar tech (not for HP), and that has given me a certain sympathy towards R&D in times like this. I would suspect that the researchers fully understood the limits of the algorithm and applied a disproportionate effort to addressing the outlying cases. At some point, it's marketing that came along and decided that the kewl vs. failure ratio was sufficient to justify putting the algorithm into live products. In my case, I watched a similar circumstance where the issue was an algorithmic bias against redheads with certain hairstyles. It was rare to start and got very rare by the time they tested against every redhead who ever ate in the corporate cafeterias, so if you encountered that in the field you'd be wrong to think that it's because company X has some anti-Irish agenda. I'm shocked at the lack of range of Mr. Wilson's skintone even when the camera is able to identify that he has a face. It seems quite good when he's really in close, but other times it would seem to be thinking "Ooooh, a white wall with a spotlight!" and shifting all of its powers of differentiation away from the man in the foreground. Maybe those are hard decisions for a real vidcam, but a webcam should be optimized to focus on two people five feet away from a camera and make them both look good in questionable lighting, because that's exactly what webcams are used for. I used to work with very similar tech (not for HP), and that has given me a certain sympathy towards R&D in times like this. I would suspect that the researchers fully understood the limits of the algorithm and applied a disproportionate effort to addressing the outlying cases. At some point, it’s marketing that came along and decided that the kewl vs. failure ratio was sufficient to justify putting the algorithm into live products. In my case, I watched a similar circumstance where the issue was an algorithmic bias against redheads with certain hairstyles. It was rare to start and got very rare by the time they tested against every redhead who ever ate in the corporate cafeterias, so if you encountered that in the field you’d be wrong to think that it’s because company X has some anti-Irish agenda.

I’m shocked at the lack of range of Mr. Wilson’s skintone even when the camera is able to identify that he has a face. It seems quite good when he’s really in close, but other times it would seem to be thinking “Ooooh, a white wall with a spotlight!” and shifting all of its powers of differentiation away from the man in the foreground. Maybe those are hard decisions for a real vidcam, but a webcam should be optimized to focus on two people five feet away from a camera and make them both look good in questionable lighting, because that’s exactly what webcams are used for.

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