Microsoft tells dark-skinned users "sucks to be you"
Christmas will be here in 50 days. As they do every year, in anticipation of Black Friday (the shopping “holiday” the Friday after Thanksgiving), video game console manufacturers are going to be aggressively marketing their newest creations.
You might have already seen the commercial for the XBox Kinect which went live this week.
Awesome, right? You want to add it to your list, don’t you? Well, if you are what some might consider “dark skinned”, think again:
While testing out the Kinect, two dark-skinned GameSpot employees experienced problems with the system’s facial recognition abilities. The system recognized one employee inconsistently, while it was never able to properly identify the other despite repeated calibration attempts. However, Kinect had no problems identifying a third dark-skinned GameSpot employee, recognizing his face after a single calibration. Lighter-skinned employees were also consistently picked up on the first try.
Microsoft is blaming it on lighting. This sounds like a job for Oprah.
Black people not being seen by cameras is not really new. It really does have everything to do with lighting.
Consumer Reports debunked this video as well as Kinect.
*shrugs*
What the other guy says. Reflection of light is necessary for any camera to “see” or “recognize.” Darker face, less light reflection. It does suck, but it’s a totally legit phenom. Dunno what the solution could be.