The Racist Digital Camera?

Is it bad that we find our friend JozJozJoz's run-in with the Nikon S630 digital camera she got for her mom hilarious, despite our own asian ancestry? The built-in blink detector kept mistaking her smiling eyes for completely closed eyes. Racist? Probably not, since Nikon is a Japanese manufacturer with a tweaked sensor likely designed specifically to recognize larger, Western eyes. But it does illustrate the imperfection of everyday technological features that occasionally reminds us that technology is still sometimes secondary to common sense...

As I was taking pictures of my family, it kept asking "Did someone blink?" even though our eyes were always open.

Comments (4)

Reminds me of the recent "Racial Sensitivity" episode on Better Off Ted where the motion sensors to open doors, turn on lights, operate the elevator, etc. don't pick up on darker skin.

posted by mandelbrotr on May 20th 2009 at 7:44pm
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lol. Self hating camera

posted by chusmabilly on May 21st 2009 at 12:04pm
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Heh, amusing, though I am a caucasian who has very squinty eyes and I'm sure it'd get confused about me too. The camera probably wouldn't like Helen Hunt or Scott Speedman either...

posted by mulad on May 21st 2009 at 12:43pm
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a friend of mine has a camera with smile recognition. It will take the pic when it senses a smile. However, it only seems to work with people who have dark skin and white teeth. I think it started out as a security camera.

posted by dmanciniaz on May 21st 2009 at 11:20pm
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