Dex is a AI camera that helps children learn new languages

Three Parents – Reni Cao, Xiao Zhang and Susan Rosenthal – were concerned about their children’s screen time, so they left their technical jobs to create a product that encourages children to communicate with the real world with their help also learn a new language. They resulted in their step, as the company recently raised $ 4.8 million of financing.

The newly launched tool is called Dex It is similar to a high -tech magnifying cup with a camera lens on one side and a touch screen on the other hand. When children use the device to take pictures of the objects, artificial intelligence uses images recognition technique to determine the object and translate the word into the specific language. It also features interactive story and games.

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While language learning applications that focus on children such as Duolingo children exist, Dex argues that it requires a more attractive approach that emphasizes practical experiences, allowing children to indulge in the language.

“We are trying to teach an authentic language in the real world in an interactive way,” Tesso told Techcrunch. “Children not only listen or do what is said to them, but they really think, create, interact, run, and curiosity only about things, and acquire the necessary language associated with these concepts and things.”

Dex is designed for children between the ages of 3 and 8 years and is currently supporting Chinese, French, German, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. It also provides support for 34 accents, including Egyptian Arabic, Taiwanese and Spanish Mexican.

In addition to identifying objects, Dex features an interactive library that encourages children to actively participate in narration. With the development of the story, children are required to respond, such as greeting characters in the language they learn.

The device comes with an application dedicated to parents to see a detailed overview of their child’s progress, including the words of the vocabulary they learned, the stories they participated with, and the number of successive days they used Dex.

In addition, Dex is currently developing an feature that allows children to ask Chatbot questions Amnesty International and participate in free talks. This feature is already available for some laboratories, but the company admits it is not ready for a wider offering. Parents may also be careful about offering Chatbots Amnesty International for their children.

During our test of DeX, we had concerns about the child’s possibility of learning inappropriate words. CAO assured us that “solid safety claims” are included whenever the great language model is used through vision, thinking, and the text to speech.

He said: “We have a safety agent always holds conversations in the actual time and conversations filters with the list of safe suspension words. The customer will suppress the conversation if any of the stopping words, including, but not limited to, is related to sex, religion, politics, etc.. Parents will soon be able to add to the allocated stoppage lists.”

In addition, he said artificial intelligence is trained to use vocabulary standards similar to that in Britannica Kids and other children’s encyclopedias.

In our tests, I succeeded in ignoring artificial intelligence topics related to nudity. However, it may be recognized and accurately translated with the term “weapon”, which is something that parents should take into account when purchasing the device.

In response to the results we reached, Cao told us, “from an organizational point of view, I am not concerned, but I think this is a source of concern, especially among (some) parents.” He added that these concerns prompted the company to provide an option in settings soon to liquidate specific words, such as weapons, cigarettes, VAPE pens, fireworks, marijuana and beer bottles.

Dex also has a zero data retaining policy. Although this means that there is no risk in storing sensitive or personal images, a negative aspect can be left in the dark about the type of content that their children may take.

DeX is also actively working on a COPPA certificate, which makes it compatible with the online privacy protection law for children.

The company obtained funding from Clayvc, Inmbeddingvc, Paable and Upscalex. Among the prominent owners of the owners, the founder of Pinterest Ben Silberman, co-founder, Eduardo Vivas, Lillian Wing, former chief safety at Openai, and Richard Wong (former-Cousera.

The price of the device is $ 250, which feels a slope of a product designed for children. However, DeX puts itself as a more reasonable alternative to employing a teacher, which can receive up to $ 80 per hour, or attend the language of language immersion, which can cost several hundreds even thousands of dollars.

Dex says hundreds of families have already bought the device.