Racist gadgets? It’s certainly not the first time we’ve
heard this before. A while back, there was some talk of racist HP Webcams–meaning that the devices
had difficulty recognizing users with different (read: darker) skin tones.
The complaint is more or less the same, this time around.
Shortly after first Xbox 360 Kinect reviews first started rolling, we started
hearing reports that the peripheral’s camera was having some difficulty recognizing
players with darker skin.
GameSpot had something to say about the matter, “In testing
the Kinect, two dark-skinned GameSpot employees had problems getting the
system’s facial recognition features to work.”
Consumer Reports, on the other hand, has taken these
statements to heart, attempting to debunk them, much as it did with the HP
reports. “The log-in problem is related to low-level lighting and not directly
to players’ skin color,” writes the site. “Like the HP webcam, the Kinect camera needs enough
light and contrast to determine features in a person’s face before it can
perform software recognition and log someone into the game console
automatically.”
So there you have it–one less racist video game peripheral to worry
about!
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