Three parents – Renicao, Xiao Chang and Susan Rosenthal were worried about their children’s screen time, so they left the high-tech job to create products that encourage children to become involved in the real world, helping them learn a new language. The company recently raised $4.8 million in funding, so their move paid off.
The newly launched gadget is called Dex, resembling a high-tech magnifying glass with a camera lens on one side and a touchscreen on the other. When a child uses the device to take a photo of an object, AI utilizes image recognition technology to identify the object and convert the word into the selected language. It also features interactive story lessons and games.
While there are language learning apps for kids like Duolingo Kids, Dex argues that a more engaging approach that emphasizes practical experiences is needed, allowing children to immerse themselves in language.
“We are trying to teach authentic languages in an interactive way in the real world,” Cao told TechCrunch. “The kids are not only listening and doing what they are told to do, but they are actually thinking, creating, interacting, running around, just getting interested in things and learning the necessary language associated with those concepts and objects.”
Dex is designed for children aged 3-8 and currently supports Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. It also supports 34 dialects, including Egyptian Arabic, Taiwanese Mandarin and Mexican Spanish.
In addition to object recognition, Dex features a library of interactive stories that encourage children to take part in stories actively. As the story unfolds, children are encouraged to respond, such as greeting characters in the language they are learning.
The device comes with a dedicated app for a detailed overview of your child’s progress, including vocabulary words learned by parents, stories they were involved in, and the number of consecutive days they used DEX.
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Additionally, Dex is currently developing a feature that allows children to ask AI chatbot questions and engage in freeform conversations. The feature is already available to some testers, but the company admits it is not ready for a wider deployment. Parents may also note that they refer AI chatbots to their children.
During the Dex test, there were concerns about the possibility that children might learn inappropriate language. The CAO ensured that “strict safety prompts” were included whenever a large language model for vision, inference, and text was used.
He said, “We always have a corresponding safety agent who evaluates conversations in real time and filters conversations by a safe stop word list. Agents suppress conversations when any of the stop words mentioned, including but not limited to those related to sexuality, religion, politics, etc.
Additionally, he said that AI is trained using similar vocabulary standards to those found in Britannica children and other children’s encyclopedias.
In our test, AI ignored topics related to nudity. However, I recognized the term “gun” and translated it accurately. This is something parents should consider when purchasing a device.
In response to our findings, Cao said, “I’m not worried about regulations, but I think this is especially concern among (some) parents.” He said, these concerns led the company to quickly introduce options to the settings, excluding certain words like guns, cigarettes, steam pens, fireworks, marijuana, beer bottles, etc.
Dex also has zero data retention policy. This means there is no risk of sensitive or personal images being saved, but one drawback is that parents are left in the dark about the type of content their child is capturing.
Dex is also actively working towards obtaining COPPA Safe Harbor Status and complies with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
The funding round was led by Paraable and was attended by Eduardo Vivas (curated co-founder), Upscalex, Clayvc and Embeddingvc. Notable angel investors include Pinterest founders Ben Silbermann, Lilian Weng, and Richard Won (formerly Coulcera), former safety director at Openai.
The device costs $250, and it’s a sudden feeling for a product designed for kids. However, Dex is positioned as a more affordable alternative to hiring a tutor who can charge up to $80 per hour, or attending a language immersion school that costs hundreds to thousands of dollars.
Dex says hundreds of families have already purchased the device.
This story was updated after its release.
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