Technology
YC grad’s AI-powered English trainer Fluently raises $2M in seed round
There are many resources for learning English, but not so many for near-English speakers who still need to improve their fluency. This description applies to Stan Beliaev and Yurii Rebryk, and it was this that inspired them to create Smoothly.
Using AI, Fluently acts as a coach that provides users feedback and tips about their spoken English. This makes it much like ELSA and its AI speech tutor, in addition to online and offline one-on-one coaching solutions, but with the difference that Fluently builds its feedback based on listening to conversations.
Users can use Fluently to record and transcribe their conversations in real time, for instance when using Zoom at work. However, it’s also possible to practice with an AI trainer – “Ryan” for every day chats or “Kyle” for mock interviews, which are sometimes a priority for foreign candidates trying to land a job that requires advanced English speaking skills, as is increasingly the case.
The duo, scratching their heads, estimates that there are 84 million foreign employees in English-speaking environments. It’s hard to say how a lot of them would love to be more easily understood, nevertheless it’s probably a big enough area of interest, a growing, and a much less crowded space than ESL as a complete.
This potential market helped Fluently capture for Y Combinator Winter 2024and even before Demo Day to shut a $2 million seed round with participation Pioneer Fund, Venture Partners SIDand individual angels.
It didn’t hurt that Fluently leans heavily into the technical side of edtech, either. Of the distributed team of 4, three are engineers, Rebryk told TechCrunch. With a combined background in machine learning, he and his former college roommate have the type of backgrounds that excite today’s enterprise capitalists, with stints at Amazon, Google, and Nvidia.
It may come as a surprise that none of them are teachers, let alone pedagogical experts. But making a product that they themselves need gives them a bonus. For example, they know that people who find themselves already fairly fluent are more interested in an answer that may be used in the background and draws their attention only to the problems that need solving.
Another point is that Fluently desires to be a one-stop solution for higher speaking skills. Instead of accent, its goal is comprehensibility, and this includes improving pronunciation, grammar and pace, in addition to expanding vocabulary. Paraphrasing advice like Grammarly or Ludwig offers for writing could possibly be one other addition, Rebryk said.
In its current beta form, Fluently continues to be clearly in its early stages of development and isn’t crash-proof. However, for users who don’t mind sharing their bank card details to check out a free trial, it already gives a robust sense of what it might probably achieve. For example, I learned to pronounce “computer” higher, which may be very useful while you work in the technology industry. For at the very least some, it might be well worth the $25 monthly that Fluently plans to charge.
There’s also a side Fluently could take from Duolingo, in terms of helping users correct mistakes and track progress in a gamified way. That’s normally key to helping people follow their goals, and motivation to learn a language tends to ebb and flow. But reasonably than learning holistically, it wants to make use of technology to deal with a user’s specific struggles in moving from near-fluent to completely fluent.
One of the problems with personalization may be privacy, especially if an app is running in the background and has access to the microphone. For this reason, Fluently insists on informing users during onboarding that their privacy is guaranteed and audio is stored locally, encrypted and data shielded from third-party providers. In the latter case, the startup notes that “data sent to third-party AI providers for transcription is anonymized and is not used for training.”
Rebryk said that is partly possible due to the recent launch of Apple Silicon. This brings up one other limitation of the beta version: it is simply available on macOS. However, Fluently is already constructing a waiting list of users, which it would announce when the Chrome extension is prepared.
With that in mind, the seed round will help Fluently hire one other team member and have money to spend on marketing when the time is true, Rebryk said. “When you have a small team, you prioritize what to do first,” he said with a smile.
Technology
US medical device giant Artivion says hackers stole files during a cybersecurity incident
Artivion, a medical device company that produces implantable tissue for heart and vascular transplants, says its services have been “disrupted” resulting from a cybersecurity incident.
In 8-K filing In an interview with the SEC on Monday, Georgia-based Artivion, formerly CryoLife, said it became aware of a “cybersecurity incident” that involved the “compromise and encryption” of information on November 21. This suggests that the corporate was attacked by ransomware, but Artivion has not yet confirmed the character of the incident and didn’t immediately reply to TechCrunch’s questions. No major ransomware group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Artivion said it took some systems offline in response to the cyberattack, which the corporate said caused “disruptions to certain ordering and shipping processes.”
Artivion, which reported third-quarter revenue of $95.8 million, said it didn’t expect the incident to have a material impact on the corporate’s funds.
Manufacturer of single-board computers Raspberry Pi is updating its cute little computer keyboard device with higher specs. Named Raspberry Pi500This successor to the Raspberry Pi 400 is just as powerful as the present Raspberry Pi flagship, the Raspberry Pi 5. It is on the market for purchase now from Raspberry Pi resellers.
The Raspberry Pi 500 is the simplest method to start with the Raspberry Pi because it’s not as intimidating because the Raspberry Pi 5. When you take a look at the Raspberry Pi 500, you do not see any chipsets or PCBs (printed circuit boards). The Raspberry Pi is totally hidden in the familiar housing, the keyboard.
The idea with the Raspberry Pi 500 is you could connect a mouse and a display and you are able to go. If, for instance, you’ve got a relative who uses a very outdated computer with an outdated version of Windows, the Raspberry Pi 500 can easily replace the old PC tower for many computing tasks.
More importantly, this device brings us back to the roots of the Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi computers were originally intended for educational applications. Over time, technology enthusiasts and industrial customers began using single-board computers all over the place. (For example, when you’ve ever been to London Heathrow Airport, all of the departures and arrivals boards are there powered by Raspberry Pi.)
Raspberry Pi 500 draws inspiration from the roots of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a non-profit organization. It’s the right first computer for college. In some ways, it’s a lot better than a Chromebook or iPad because it’s low cost and highly customizable, which inspires creative pondering.
The Raspberry Pi 500 comes with a 32GB SD card that comes pre-installed with Raspberry Pi OS, a Debian-based Linux distribution. It costs $90, which is a slight ($20) price increase over the Raspberry Pi 400.
Only UK and US keyboard variants will probably be available at launch. But versions with French, German, Italian, Japanese, Nordic and Spanish keyboard layouts will probably be available soon. And when you’re in search of a bundle that features all the things you would like, Raspberry Pi also offers a $120 desktop kit that features the Raspberry Pi 500, a mouse, a 27W USB-C power adapter, and a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable.
In other news, Raspberry Pi has announced one other recent thing: the Raspberry Pi monitor. It is a 15.6-inch 1080p monitor that’s priced at $100. Since there are quite a few 1080p portable monitors available on the market, this launch is not as noteworthy because the Pi 500. However, for die-hard Pi fans, there’s now also a Raspberry Pi-branded monitor option available.
According to Apple, Apple desires to make its Vision Pro mixed reality device more attractive for gamers and game developers latest report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
The Vision Pro was presented more as a productivity and media consumption device than a tool geared toward gamers, due partly to its reliance on visual and hand controls moderately than a separate controller.
However, Apple may need gamers if it desires to expand the Vision Pro’s audience, especially since Gurman reports that lower than half one million units have been sold to this point. As such, the corporate has reportedly been in talks with Sony about adding support for PlayStation VR2 handheld controllers, and has also talked to developers about whether they may support the controllers of their games.
Offering more precise control, Apple may also make other forms of software available in Vision Pro, reminiscent of Final Cut Pro or Adobe Photoshop.
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