Gamespot caused a bit of controversy last week after publishing an article claiming two of the company’s “dark-skinned” (apparently “black” is un-PC or something) employees had issues with Kinect’s facial recognition. Predictably enough, the planet subsequently exploded in a tabloid inquisition of “ZOMG RACISMS”, accusing a bit of electronic equipment of egregious bigotry and wearing a pointy white hat.
Sanity prevailed, however, once US product testing people Consumer Reports intervened with a report showing that, in fact, Kinect doesn’t have issues recognising black people and that calibration problems are likely to be a result of – oh, who knew?! – poor lighting.
In a later update, Gamespot went on to say that further in testing, Kinect was consistently failing to recognise one of their black employees, but added that “the system was able to recognise them and sign them in properly when they waved at the camera”. So, basically, Kinect does recognise them. Or what?
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