HP's Racial Webcam

A YouTube video succinctly titled "HP Computers Are Racist" received wide exposure earlier this week; Apparently, HP's Media Smart webcam's Face Tracking software has trouble tracking people with darker complexions.

We decided to take a look at the issue ourselves, gathering volunteers from around the PC World office and sitting them down in front of a PC that uses this technology--the HP Touchsmart 300 (see our video review of this HP all-in-one).
Our Tests

From our testing, it's pretty clear that the Media Smart software does have trouble with darker skin gradients. We aren't experts on the technology, so we gathered folks with a wide variety of skin tones (including the occasional celebrity photo). We also sampled the software in several locations--our brightly lit Test Labs, your typical flourescent-lit cubicle, and a dimly lit office.

Our results seem to indicate that the issue has less to do with race, and more to do with how the algorithm handles lighting. In our own video, we dropped some of our test subjects in front of the camera in a dimly lit office. We had each subject try to engage the face tracking software, and occasionally toggled the lighting. Here's what happened:

While the software missed one of our co-workers with a darker complexion entirely, another who was a bit lighter was tracked with ease--under the right conditions. Wearing glasses or approaching the camera from the wrong angle also confused it a bit.

Conclusion

The problem itself is rather minor: Face Tracking on the Media Smart webcam is optional, designed to keep the camera focused on you during your more animated conversations. It's a feature of little consequence, which has trouble operating under the wrong lighting conditions.

But while the original video is more of a sarcastic poke at a technical snafu than pointed moral outrage, adding Race to the equation turns a glitch into a PR nightmare.

OLPC Plans Super-Thin, Super-Cheap Tablet

The nonprofit group One Laptop Per Child wants to produce a touchscreen tablet computer by 2012 that will cost less than $100. OLPC released its device roadmap this week, which includes two upgrades to the original XO computer, as well as lofty plans for a new 8.5-by-11-inch tablet device called the XO-3.

The XO-3's specs

The design for the XO-3 is ambitious. The tablet would be about 0.24-inch thick (half the thickness of the iPhone), with an 8.5-by-11-inch screen, a virtual keyboard, no buttons at all, and a folding ring for easy carrying. It would be made entirely of plastic, and is designed to be durable and waterproof.

The device would use Palm Pre-style induction charging, so it would use less than a Watt of power, according to Forbes. There's no word on software, but the XO-3 would have an 8-GHz processor.

As if those specs weren't enough of a lofty goal, OLPC's founder Nicholas Negroponte told Forbes the XO-3's "less than $100" target price would be $75--the same number OLPC wanted to hit with its earlier two-screen tablet concept called the XO-2, which has now been scrapped in favor of the XO-3.

Lofty Ambitions

OLPC hopes it won't have to develop the XO-3 alone, and that computer manufacturers will take the lead in developing the device. To that end, OLPC will work on the XO-3 as an open platform that any manufacturer can take over, according to Forbes.

Still, the hardest part for the XO-3 may not be its lofty specs, but its $75 price tag. The original XO fell far short of its $100 price point at $199, and that was for a mere rethinking of existing laptop designs and components. The XO-3, by comparison, would have a more powerful processor than most laptops available today (assuming the 8-GHz spec is not a typo), require significantly less power consumption and use many technologies that are still prohibitively expensive.

Take, for example, Plastic Logic's Que e-reader, which is a real device that has similar hardware specs as the XO-3 concept. However, Plastic Logic has been reluctant to reveal the price for the Que, but it's become clear the all-plastic, super-thin e-reader will not be cheap. Then there's the JooJoo aka CrunchPad tablet, which was planned on hitting a $200 price tag, and is now selling for $500.

The XO-3 sounds like a great idea, but it's doubtful OLPC will be able to make its dreams a reality by 2012. But the group doesn't necessarily have to get all the way to its goal. Negroponte told Forbes if OLPC only achieves half of the XO-3 concept, the resulting device could be a game changer with far reaching consequences.

Other OLPC Plans

In addition to the XO-3, OLPC announced two updates to the original XO laptop:

XO 1.5 - The XO 1.5 is the same industrial design as the XO 1.0. Based on a VIA processor (replacing AMD), it will provide 2x the speed, 4x DRAM memory and 4x FLASH memory. It will run both the Linux and Windows operating systems. XO 1.5 will be available in January 2010 at about $200 per unit.

XO 1.75 - The XO 1.75, to be available in early 2011, will be essentially the same industrial design but rubber-bumpered on the outside and in the inside will be an 8.9", touch-sensitive display. The XO 1.75 will be based on an ARM processor from Marvell that will enable 2x the speed at 1/4 the power and is targeted at $150 or less.

Tokyo Students Design a New Robotic Muscle Suit

Students at Tokyo's University of Science have developed a new version of their muscle suit, a wearable robotic suit that assists the muscles when carrying out strenuous tasks.

The original version of the suit, which has been in production for several years, provides assistance to the arms and back but the new version provides assistance to the back only. That means it is lighter and more compact than the original model.

In a demonstration on Wednesday at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo, a student wearing the suit was able to bend down and lift 15 kilograms of weights with the assistance of the robotic suit. Doing so without assistance would be difficult for many people and could cause injury to some.

The university is still developing the suit and the model demonstrated on Wednesday was the first prototype. A production version is due some time in 2010.

With its greater assistance the original version of the suit will remain the most useful for heavier tasks.

In a demonstration of that model on Wednesday a student was asked to carry 10-kilogram bags of rice. With the suit switched off he could manage up to three bags before they started to get too heavy to carry, but with the suit switched on another two bags could be loaded into his arms. He quickly dropped the bags when the suit was switched off as without assistance it was too much weight to carry.

Such suits are being developed with an eye on assisting the physically challenged and workers carrying out physically demanding jobs.

Earlier this year Toyota Motor unveiled similar robot-assisted suits and has been testing them at factories in Japan with workers who have to lift large or heavy sheets of metal or car parts.

Ostendo's 43-Inch Curved Monitor: The Ultimate Gaming Display?

If your existing display just isn't cutting it any more, then it might be time to step up to Ostendo's 43-inch curved monitor. This long-awaited display is now available to buy for just under $6,500.

The Ostendo CRVD is an LED-backlit display featuring a 32:10 aspect ratio. It was first spotted back in early 2008 when Alienware had it on display at the Consumer Electronics Show. It was sighted again a year later at Macworld 2009, this time sporting NEC branding. Since then, we've heard little on when to expect the quad-DLP display.

However, Ostendo has been quietly selling the CRVD since August. The 2880-by-900 pixel resolution monitor is available via Ostendo's Web site now for $6,499.

According to early reports, the CRVD monitor is selling rather well; Early adopters include the military, hardcore gamers, and the Crown prince of Dubai. Recession? What recession?

Ostendo posted a video showing gamer playing on not just one, but three (!), CRVD monitors. Watch in envy as he enjoys nearly $20,000 worth of pixels:

Intel's New Concept CPU: 48 Cores On A Single Chip

A concept chip demonstrated yesterday from Intel's Tera-scale Computing Research Program contains 48 cores on a single silicon chip. Using only as much electricity as a single Intel processor, this experimental chip could enable future generations of laptops to "see" just as we humans view the world through our eyes.

Intel engineers envision this multi-core chip as the future of cloud computing. As all 48 cores of this postage stamp-sized chip use 125 watts at their maximum performance, the advent of similar chips could herald a new era of energy-efficient, smaller data centers, making cloud computing less expensive and more portable.

Applications for these chips include the rapid processing of images, allowing for new methods of interacting with computers with a camera, rather than with keyboards or mice. With so much processing power available in a small area, "virtual dance lessons" and more intuitive controls for video games could become commonplace for laptops.



It could be a while before these chips make their way to the consumer market. Intel plans on sharing 100 of these prototype chips with researchers in order to develop software specially honed for the 48-core chip, but details of the prototypes' availability to industry and academic experts are yet to be released. More information on the chip's design and architecture will be presented at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in February in San Francisco.