Inspiration
The internet is an amazing tool for learning, and we wanted to make it more accessible and inclusive.
What it does
Medusa is a google chrome extension that blocks a user's phobias and/or triggers by blurring out any images of them present on the current web page. We specifically chose to build this product as a chrome extension instead of an app or separate website because an extension is more lightweight and easy to use.
How we built it
We built a backend server that calls on Google Cloud Vision API to label each images present in the website the user is currently looking at. We then matched each label to the phobias inputted by the user through the front end. If there was a match, the image is blurred.
Challenges we ran into
It was our first time building a chrome extension, so there were a lot of confusion trying to understand how an extension works, what permission it inherently get from chrome vs what we need to specify in our settings, etc. In addition, we were also not as familiar with Javascript so we ran into some API issues when building backend server.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- We have a mostly-working product! It has a clean front-end, and the blurring effect works!
- Learning javascript, express.js, and asynchronous function calls
- The idea of making learning more accessible for everyone
What's next for Medusa
Because the labels assigned by Google don't block 100% of potentially triggering images, we could work to expand Medusa by adding synonyms of the user-given phobias to the trigger-list, so Medusa captures more images to accurately blur.
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