Hmmm, Kinect may be racist...

humanji

I just read this article on Gamespot:

Gamespot wrote:

GameSpot testing suggests facial recognition features of Microsoft's motion-sensing camera system might not work properly for some gamers.
Source: In testing the Kinect, two dark-skinned GameSpot employees had problems getting the system's facial recognition features to work.

What we heard: Part of Microsoft's $500 million marketing push for Kinect includes positioning it as an accessible entertainment device for all audiences. However, it may be more accessible to some than others.

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.

It's important to note that the problems were only experienced with the system's facial recognition feature, and don't prevent users from playing Kinect games. Skeletal tracking, a primary means of controlling games with Kinect, appeared to work the same for all GameSpot employees.

The system's inability to recognize a user only means that he or she would need to sign in manually, and some games' features may not work properly as a result. For example, when a second player joins in to Kinect Adventures during the title's drop-in, drop-out multiplayer, the system can't bring up that player's proper in-game avatar automatically if it can't identify the new user first.

If Kinect does have some technical issues related to users' pigmentation, it wouldn't be a first for recognition technology. Last holiday season, users of Hewlett-Packard computers with built-in webcams reported problems with a face-tracking feature.

HP blamed the problem on the webcam's technology, "standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose." It said the system could have problems "seeing" that contrast if there is insufficient foreground lighting.

The official story: "The goal of Kinect is to break down the barriers for everyone to play, and it will work with people of all shapes and ethnicities at launch."--A Microsoft representative, who added that Kinect owners having calibration or recognition problems can e-mail questions to xaccess@microsoft.com.

Bogus or not bogus: Not bogus that Kinect has problems identifying some users. Abstain on how widespread those problems are, or whether they're due to skin color at all. With the system launching tonight and Microsoft expecting to sell 5 million by year's end, it shouldn't be long before the scope and cause of such problems are identified.

It's just like that episode of Better Off Ted where the company had to hire white people to walk around with any black workers so that the motion scanners would pick them up.

This could be a hilarious embarrasement for MS, or it may simply be an isolated incident.

TouchingVirus

Face tracking on black or dark-skinned people is a tough computer problem. HP also faced similar accusations when their facial recognition software was unable to (or struggled, I can't quite remember) to detect black people.

quad_red

LIGHTNING wrote: »

A similar thing happened with Canon (or Sony) and their blink detection on their camera range. It keep picking Asian people up as constantly blinking!

Well, given that both Canon and Sony are Asian companies, that's a slight problem!

TouchingVirus

LIGHTNING wrote: »

A similar thing happened with Canon (or Sony) and their blink detection on their camera range. It keep picking Asian people up as constantly blinking!

That has made my day, the ironing is delicious

jmx009

Does anyone know the technical reason behind why motion sensors are not able to pick up colored people?

The Recliner

LIGHTNING wrote: »

A similar thing happened with Canon (or Sony) and their blink detection on their camera range. It keep picking Asian people up as constantly blinking!

My feckin' camera (Nikon) keeps telling me to retake photos I am in due to blinking

I am not Asian but I do have deep set narrow eyes that close up when I smile, so if I smile for a photo the camera thinks I am blinking

It is annoying but funny

Hecklar

LIGHTNING wrote: »

A similar thing happened with Canon (or Sony) and their blink detection on their camera range. It keep picking Asian people up as constantly blinking!

That would probably be Nikon,



I've tried it myself and its genuine.

Raze_them_all

TouchingVirus wrote: »

Face tracking on black or dark-skinned people is a tough computer problem. HP also faced similar accusations when their facial recognition software was unable to (or struggled, I can't quite remember) to detect black people.

Completely unable. There's a youtube video of a white woman and black guy showing it tracking her, she goes off camera,he comes on cam, it ignores him,she comes back and picks her up straight away!

Fingleberries

jmx009 wrote: »

Does anyone know the technical reason behind why motion sensors are not able to pick up colored people?

Being Cynical about this, but is that not why MS had an African American guy demoing Kinect at E3? Just to show it worked...

RobertFoster

Raze_them_all wrote: »

There's a youtube video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4DT3tQqgRM

The guy doesn't seem too bothered

It'd suck if you spent €150 on Kinect and it didn't work for you though.

Oafley Jones

This story has been doing the rounds since at least the summer, so it's not a new revelation, and given that, i'm sure it's as calibrated as it can get.