CoolPix Cameras Waisis!

The CoolPix camera by Nikon informs users when it detects closed eyes or people blinking when you snap the photo. And it thinks every Asian is blinking.

This of course, has led to charges of “waisism!”

From Time here:

When Joz Wang and her brother bought their mom a Nikon Coolpix S630 digital camera for Mother’s Day last year, they discovered what seemed to be a malfunction. Every time they took a portrait of each other smiling, a message flashed across the screen asking, “Did someone blink?” No one had. “I thought the camera was broken!” Wang, 33, recalls. But when her brother posed with his eyes open so wide that he looked “bug-eyed,” the messages stopped.

Wang, a Taiwanese-American strategy consultant who goes by the Web handle “jozjozjoz,” thought it was funny that the camera had difficulties figuring out when her family had their eyes open. So she posted a photo of the blink warning on her blog under the title, “Racist Camera! No, I did not blink… I’m just Asian!”

Is there something wrong with the technology or are Asians just “squinty?”