A few weeks ago, Mozilla pulled the plug on its Connected Devices Experiment: a bunch of internal non-profit hardware-related startups. One of our main objectives was to determine if we could come up with designs that could help turn the tide against the spyware-riddled and gruyère-level security devices that are currently being offered (or pushed) to unwary users. One of the startups was Project Lighthouse. We tried to provide an affordable, simple and privacy-friendly tool for people suffering from vision impairment and who needed help in their daily life.

At its core, Lighthouse is an idea we have been discussing in Connected Devices: can we build a device that will help people with partial or total vision disabilities? From there, we started a number of experiments. I figured out it was time to braindump some of them. Our problem Consider the following example: How do we get from this beautiful picture of Mozilla’s Paris office to the text “PRIDE and PREJUDICE”, “Jane Austen”, “Great Books”, “Great Prices”, “$9.