Tag Archives: racist

HP computers are racist

The face tracking feature of the HP web cam will not recognize or track black faces.

via YouTube – HP computers are racist.

This is pretty funny – you’d have to wonder how they’d code such software that only worked on white (that is, not-black) faces. You’d think that face detection software would work on blacks and whites, but apparently not.

UPDATE: HP responded. Here’s how to create software that is racist:

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.

Facebook > MySpace? You’re a racist.

Abandon your MySpace account for Facebook? You might just be a racist.

[…]

Referring to MySpace as the “ghetto of the digital landscape,” Boyd indicated that MySpace users are more likely to be “brown or black” and espouse a different set of ideals in conflict with those espoused by the teens she surveyed over four years. She said that patterns in migration across social networking sites echoed those of a white exodus from cities in the past. Boyd also said that teens who use Facebook are more likely to condescend their MySpace-favoring peers.

via MySpace now a “digital ghetto” | TransCosmic – the ongoing journey;.

WTF.

I am, however, somewhat inclined to agree with some of the arguments – Facebook can generally be seen as the “rich man’s MySpace”, the social network for those who put some sort of value into their personal networks. Facebook is generally considered to be a “better, more refined” version of MySpace, too.