After a report that Kinect for Xbox 360 has problems detecting the faces of gamers with darker skin, Consumer Reports has claimed this is not the case. According to The Associated Press:
Consumer Reports said Thursday the problem is related to low-level lighting, and not directly to players’ skin color. Kinect’s camera, it says, needs enough light and contrast so it can determine players’ facial features. Then it can perform software recognition and log them in to the Xbox gaming system.
Well that takes all the fun out of it. I was already on my fifth page of “Microsoft hardware is racist” jokes. Damn it.
It goes in the same group with the cameras with face detection and blink detection. It has a hard time finding dark skinned faces and always thinks Asians are blinking. I knew this would topic would come up. I called it like 8 months ago.
This is definitely a good thing for MS, as they also were under criticism for racism about a year and a half ago with some of their advertising. They definitely don't want anymore bad press on this topic.