"Reaction [beta]"
The HP diet 19 Sep 2006
...and before you ask, it's not about dining on nothing but sauce for a month.
Hewlett Packard's new Photosmart digital cameras come with a controversial new "Slimming" feature. You simply drag a slider to "instantly trim off pounds from the subjects in your photos!"
HP apparently thinks this type of thing is fun, the blogosphere however thinks it's grossly irresponsible. HiveLogic criticises HP for "Helping America Perpetuate False Body Images." 37signals is concerned "that the demo on their site only uses women models - perfectly healthy looking woman at that". Daring Fireball thinks that "this is just sick."
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7 comments so far
Steve J 20 Sep 2006 10:49 AM
Sickening and no doubt inspired by the recently publicized photos of Rosie O’Donnell and Katie Couric in which they were also digitally “slimmed”.
sb 20 Sep 2006 08:43 PM
Let's get things straight, this isn't about the technology - you can stretch or shrink photos on mobile phones these days too. It's about marketing - in this case, really insensitive markting.
mark 21 Sep 2006 12:57 AM
Makes you wonder if HP employs any women
Shane 21 Sep 2006 12:19 PM
@mark:
I think they might:
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/11/6MVD.html
:)
But seriously - the slimming feature really pissed me off.
JJ 21 Sep 2006 01:33 PM
OMG! That is shocking! And why did HP focus solely on women in their demo? (Don't men have body issues as well?)
It just feels such a crass gimmick.
joi 21 Sep 2006 02:38 PM
This makes internet dating even more of a risky business: "Disclaimer: the pics on this dating site may have been digitally slimmed"!
Chris 21 Sep 2006 11:51 PM
Interesting that people don't get upset about "red eye reduction"; contrast and brightness settings; soft focus filters and other standard camera features that improve the way that people look when photographed. Why should we view a slimming feature any differently?