HP Webcam: Blacks bias?
By Yasmin Ahmed

Tech giant Hewlett Packard (HP) has done very well in recent years.  Under the able leadership of its Chairman and CEO, Mark Hurd, Hewlett Packard has gone from strength to strength.  In November, 2009, it posted revenues of $31 Billion.

HP was one of the first to see the potential in India and its local operations are key to its success worldwide.  HP has promoted a number of Indians to key positions in the company.  In every sense of the word, it is an equal opportunity organization.

But sometimes HP is caught in embarrassing situations due to inadvertent mistakes and glitchy software.  American blog ‘The Daily What’ published evidence and a report asking why the latest HP Webcam ‘does not pick up African Americans too well’. This HP Webcam is designed to follow a person if they move left, right, up or down.  But you can see from the evidence published by the Daily What (and also uploaded to YouTube); it works well for white people but not blacks.

HP manager Tony "Frosty" Welch is the lead Social Media Strategist for HP PSG and the Community Manager for The Next Bench. He soon offered HP’s apologizes and a promise to fix it

“
Customer Feedback is Important to Us
By Frosty yesterday PM
.
It’s no secret that I feel privileged to work with one of the largest and most innovative teams in the technology industry. On any given day, I might collaborate with HP employees in regions ranging from Japan to India and Latin America to Europe.

Everything we do is focused on ensuring that we provide a high-quality experience for all our customers, who are ethnically diverse and live and work around the world. That’s why when issues surface, we take them seriously and work hard to understand the root causes.

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. While we work on this, take a look here for more information on the impact of lighting on facial tracking software, and how to optimize your webcam experience:  http://bit.ly/7HsZHD

We will continue to listen to you and work to deliver great experiences.
“

While HP is clearly not racist, this video has provided much merriment to many techies.