Tecno is an active innovator on the imaging front. Last year the company introduced three new technologies, including the Universal Tone. Now the Transsion Holdings’ subsidiary launched a campaign and a new website to further promote its skin tone recognition algorithm. Let’s discuss the Tecno ToneProud campaign and the new tone-recognising website further.
Tecno ToneProud Campaign Overview
The human skin comes in a spectrum of colours and smartphone cameras historically struggled with capturing its vastness. An MIT and Stanford University study from 2018 stated some commercial AI systems had a skin-tone bias. As a result, the algorithm shifted the skin colour of the subject, usually to a lighter tone. Some Chinese smartphone manufacturers were guilty of this. It was so evident that this skin tone-shifting problem turned into a feature instead.
While it was the case a while back, the same cannot be said anymore. Imaging technology in phones has taken leaps in this aspect. Premium phones all across capture skin tones pretty accurately. However, the same cannot be said for the midrange and budget space — where Tecno thrives. The company questioned if smartphones truly capture the full spectrum of human diversity. They did not forget to add “especially in often-overlooked emerging markets” at the end.
With this, Tecno launched its ToneProud campaign partnering with celebrities across the world and skin tone spectrum. The cast included Nigerian singer-songwriter Johnny Drille, Indonesian-born singer-songwriter Anggun, Saudi Arabian filmmaker and actress Fatima Al-Banawi, and Polish actress Ewa Kepys. The campaign revolves around fighting tone bias by embracing your skin tones and accurate representation of it in photos and media.
Tone recognition website
Tecno developed its Universal Tone software by collaborating with colour science experts and includes 268 different skin tones in its database. General folks can utilise this algorithm to find out theirs as well. For this, the company has put up a dedicated website — 268toneproud.com. This site accesses the front camera of your phone to scan your skin colour and provides the code for it in hex triplet numbers.
Tecno ToneProud Campaign: Conclusion
While Tecno’s ToneProud campaign sounds inclusive, empowering, great, and all, it is also an opportunity for the company to collect free data samples. All the photos taken through the 268toneproud.com website will go into Tecno’s database and will be utilised to further develop the Universal Tone algorithm.
In the meantime, the camera hardware largely influences the photos taken by a smartphone. This is why, I find the accuracy of the whole “finding your skin tone” a bit questionable. A person might get two different skin tone codes if they log into the website from different devices with different camera hardware.
Additionally, some critics have also raised concerns about their privacy with the Tecno ToneProud campaign.
- Meanwhile, check out our Tecno Camon 30 Premier review video:
