'Dead of night': Dems accuse GOP of cowardice over late-night votes on Trump's 'big, beautiful' budget bill
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Post Malone apart of new SKIMS campaign
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Dex is an AI-powered camera device that helps children learn new languages
Three parents—Reni Cao, Xiao Zhang, and Susan Rosenthal—were worried about their children's screen time, so they left their tech jobs to create a product that encourages children to engage with the real world while also helping them learn a new language. Their move has paid off, as the company recently raised $4.8 million in funding. The newly launched gadget is called Dex and resembles a high-tech magnifying glass with a camera lens on one side and a touchscreen on the other. When kids use the device to take pictures of objects, the AI utilizes image recognition technology to identify the object and translates the word into the selected language. It also features interactive story lessons and games. While kid-focused language learning apps like Duolingo Kids exist, Dex argues that it takes a more engaging approach that emphasizes hands-on experiences, allowing children to immerse themselves in the language. 'We're trying to teach authentic language in the real world in a way that's interactive,' Cao told TechCrunch. 'The kids are not only listening or doing what they are told to do, but rather, they are actually thinking, creating, interacting, running around, and just being curious about things, and acquire the necessary language associated with those concepts and objects.' Dex is designed for kids ages 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 features a library of interactive stories that encourage children to actively participate in the narrative. As the story unfolds, kids are prompted to respond, such as greeting characters in the language they are learning. The device comes with a dedicated app for parents to see a detailed overview of their child's progress, including the vocabulary words they've learned, the stories they've engaged with, and the number of consecutive days they've used Dex. Additionally, Dex is currently developing a feature that allows kids to ask an AI chatbot questions and engage in free-form conversations. This feature is already available to some testers, but the company admits it isn't ready for a wider rollout. Parents might also be cautious about introducing AI chatbots to their children. During our testing of Dex, we had concerns about the possibility of a child learning inappropriate words. Cao assured us that 'rigid safety prompts' are included whenever the large language model is used across vision, reasoning, and text-to-speech. He said, 'We have an always-on safety agent that evaluates conversations in real-time and filters conversations with a safe stop word list. The agent will suppress conversation if any of the stop words are mentioned, including but not limited to those related to sexuality, religion, politics, etc. Parents will soon be able to further add to personalized stop word lists.' Plus, it said that the AI is trained using vocabulary standards similar to those found in Britannica Kids and other children's encyclopedias. In our testing, the AI successfully ignored topics related to nudity. However, it did recognize and accurately translate the term 'gun,' something parents should consider when purchasing the device. In response to our findings, Cao told us, 'Regulation-wise, I'm not worried, but I do think this presents a concern, especially among [some] parents.' He added that these concerns have pushed the company to soon introduce an option in settings to filter out specific words, such as guns, cigarettes, vape pens, fireworks, marijuana, and beer bottles. Dex also has a zero data retention policy. While this means there's no risk of sensitive or personal images being stored, one downside could be that parents are left in the dark about the type of content their kids may be capturing. Dex is also actively working towards obtaining COPPA certification, which would make it compliant with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The company secured funding from ClayVC, EmbeddingVC, Parable, and UpscaleX. Notable angel investors include Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann, Curated co-founder Eduardo Vivas, Lillian Weng, who is the former head of safety at OpenAI, and Richard Wong (ex-Coursera). The device is priced at $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 attending a language immersion school, which can cost several hundred to even thousands of dollars. Dex says that hundreds of families have already purchased the device.
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Trump wants Fed's Lisa Cook out over mortgage fraud claims
President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning demanded the resignation of Federal Reserve official Lisa Cook in his latest attack against the central bank. The call for Cook's resignation came less than a day after Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte disclosed an Aug. 15 letter sent to Attorney General Pam Bondi pushing the Department of Justice to probe Cook's mortgages. Pulte suggested Cook committed mortgage fraud. "Cook must resign, now!!!" he said in a short social media post linking to a Bloomberg News story about her. The White House, Department of Justice, and FHFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Federal Reserve declined to comment. Trump has embarked on an extraordinary campaign to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower the cost of borrowing. He's expressed enormous fury at Fed Chair Jerome Powell in particular for holding steady on interest rates all year. Trump allies like Pulte have joined Trump in prodding the central bank to cut interest rates. In Pulte's case, his pro-Trump advocacy has prompted some criticism from Republican senators who say he should focus on his main task of overseeing the mammoth residential mortgage market. Trump recently had an opportunity to imprint his stamp on the central bank after the early resignation of former Fed Governor Adriana Kugler. That allowed him to name White House aide Stephen Miran to the slot, at least temporarily. Another opening in the Board of Governors would pave the way for the president to install a second pick who's friendlier to his push for lower interest rates. Cook was nominated by former President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate in a May 2022 party-line vote. She is the first Black woman to serve on the Fed's Board of Governors, a 12-member group that takes frequent votes on monetary policy and helps regulate the financial sector. Her current term expires in 2038. Pulte's letter described mortgage documents it had obtained about Cook, alleging she had "falsified bank documents and property records to obtain more favorable loan terms." Over the course of a month in 2021, Cook obtained primary residence mortgages on two properties in Michigan and Georgia and declared both to be her main residence. She later listed the Georgia property for rent in 2022, which led Pulte to urge Bondi to investigate if Cook didn't disclose rental income as part of her Fed financial disclosures. Cook isn't alone in attracting scrutiny from the Trump administration over allegations of mortgage fraud. Prominent Democratic figures like Sen. Adam Schiff of California are in the same crosshairs as well. Sign in to access your portfolio
