Dex is an AI-powered camera device that helps children learn new languages

Three parents – Reni Cao, Xiao Zhang and Susan Rosenthal – worried about the screen time of their children, so they left their technical jobs to create a product that encourages children to get in touch with the real world and also help them teach a new language. Their relocation has paid off because the company recently collected $ 4.8 million in financing.

The newly launched gadget is called Dex And looks like a high -tech magnifying glass with a camera lens on one side and a touchscreen on the other. When children use the device to take photos of objects, the AI uses image recognition technology to identify the object and translates the word into the selected language. It also contains interactive story lessons and games.

While children-targeted language learning apps such as Duolingo children exist, Dex claims that it requires a more fascinating approach that emphasizes that practical experiences, so that children can immerse themselves in the language.

“We try to teach authentic language in the real world in a way that is interactive,” CAO told WAN. “The children not only listen or do what is told them, but rather they think, create, communicate, run around and just be curious about things, and obtaining the necessary language related to those concepts and objects.”

Dex is designed for children from 3 to 8 years old and currently supports Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. It also offers support for 34 dialects, including Egyptian Arabic, Taiwanese Mandarin and Mexican Spanish.

In addition to object recognition, DEX has a library of interactive stories that encourage children to actively participate in the story. While the story unfolds, children are asked to respond, such as greeting characters in the language they learn.

The device comes with a special app for parents to see a detailed overview of the progress of their child, including the vocabulary words they have learned, the stories they have dealt with and the number of consecutive days they used Dex.

Moreover, Dex is currently developing a function with which children can ask AI-Chatbot questions and have free conversations. This function is already available for some testers, but the company admits that it is not ready for a wider rollout. Parents can also be careful with introducing AI chatbots to their children.

During our DEX test we were worried about the possibility that a child learned who learned inappropriate words. CAO assured us that “rigid safety prompts” are included when the large language model is used about vision, reasoning and text-to-speech.

He said: “We have an always-on-safety agent who evaluates conversations in real-time and filters conversations with a safe stop word list. The agent will suppress the conversation if one of the stop words is mentioned, including but not limited to that related to sexuality, religion, politics, etc. Parents will soon be able to add to personalized stop words.”

Moreover, it said that the AI was trained using vocabulary standards that are comparable to those in Britannica children and encyclopedias of other children.

In our tests, the AI successfully ignored subjects with regard to nudity. However, it recognized and translated the term ‘gun’, something that parents should take into account when purchasing the device.

In response to our findings, CAO told us: “I am not worried in terms of regulations, but I do think that this provides care, especially under [some] Parents. “He added that these worries forced the company to quickly introduce an option in institutions to filter out specific words, such as weapons, cigarettes, vapes pens, fireworks, marijuana and beer bottles.

Dex also has a zero data retention policy. Although this means that there is no risk that sensitive or personal images are stored, a disadvantage can be that parents are left in the dark about the type of content that their children may capture.

DEX also actively works on obtaining COPPA certification, so that it meets the online privacy protection law for children.

The company insured financing of ClayVC, EmbeddingVC, Parable and Upscalex. Remarkable angel investors are Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann, compiled co-founder Eduardo Vivas, Lillian Weng, the former head of safety in OpenAI, and Richard Wong (ex-Coursera).

The device costs $ 250, which feels steep for a product designed for children. However, Dex positions itself as a more affordable alternative to hiring a tutor, which can charge up to $ 80 per hour, or following a language of the Language Immersion, which can cost several hundred to even thousands of dollars.

Dex says that hundreds of families have already bought the device.