So HP recently developed a smart web cam that will track your face as you move around a room (I don’t know, don’t ask me, maybe some people do web conferencing/skype/nudie cam while standing up). It works really really great!
If you’re not black.
I guess the HP techs designed it to look for contrasts between your nose, cheek bones, and eyes, but the camera lacks the ability/resolution to detect that on a black person.
So how does this apply to video games, you ask? Because as game developers, we’ve learned that you don’t make a product/game/application for yourself. You make it for the demographic you’re designing it for (kids, Moms, hardcore gamers, casual web development, etc.). You need to test it using your core demographic, because if you don’t, you’re only designing it for yourself. I’m working on a longer post regarding this design philosophy, so hopefully we’ll see that go up later this week. But in the meantime, let’s enjoy the HP engineering fail, shall we? How much do you want to bet that the entire HP design/engineering/tech team that worked on this didn’t have a single black guy on it?
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4 responses so far ↓
1 jtd // Dec 29, 2009 at 12:52 pm
If this is true, wowwwww.
I’m glad our computers are dell and others.
Only our printers are hp!
2 Twitter Trackbacks for Why Focus Testing is Important [game-ism.com] on Topsy.com // Jan 14, 2010 at 8:31 pm
[...] Why Focus Testing is Important http://www.game-ism.com/2009/12/21/why-focus-testing-is-important – view page – cached So HP recently developed a smart web cam that will track your face as you move around a room (I don’t know, don’t ask me, maybe some people do web conferencing/skype/nudie cam while standing up). It works really really [...]
3 GraveHorizon // Jan 21, 2010 at 1:01 am
I think it’s the contrast or light setting. The camera isn’t determining that he’s black and subsequently ignoring him. I would hope that there’s an option to modify the setting, like on most cameras. Like an indoor or cloudy setting. Or maybe they really should have designed the camera better. Seems like they dropped the ball. Where’s the diversity setting, HP?
4 David // May 16, 2010 at 12:11 pm
I think its something they probably need to fine tune in the contrast settings, yea probably cause they didn’t have a single black/latino working on the product. Good find on that HP video.
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