tech:

taffy

Duolingo Raises $15 Million

[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Duolingo, a free language learning service co-founded by one of the inventors of CAPTCHA, has raised a $15M Series B round. The financing was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from existing investor Union Square Ventures.  Harry Weller from NEA is joining the company’s board.

Since its public launch in June 2012, Duolingo’s user community has grown to more than 250,000 active language learners, says the company. Duolingo’s expanded offerings now include English, Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese. Italian and Chinese will be offered later this year, and an iPhone app is in the works as well.

Dr. Luis von Ahn: We’ll use the funds to continue improving Duolingo and to add way more languages :)

Dr. Luis von Ahn, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, co-founded Duolingo with his PhD student Severin Hacker in 2011. Dr. von Ahn is also co-inventor of the popular CAPTCHA and founder of the ESP Game (now Google Image Labeler, acquired by Google in 2004) and reCAPTCHA (acquired by Google in 2009).

Duolingo is an online social platform that teaches users a new language while they simultaneously translate content across the Web.

Just in

Apple sued in a landmark iPhone monopoly lawsuit — CNN

The US Justice Department and more than a dozen states filed a blockbuster antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, accusing the giant company of illegally monopolizing the smartphone market, writes Brian Fung, Hannah Rabinowitz and Evan Perez.

Google is bringing satellite messaging to Android 15 — The Verge

Google’s second developer preview for Android 15 has arrived, bringing long-awaited support for satellite connectivity alongside several improvements to contactless payments, multi-language recognition, volume consistency, and interaction with PDFs via apps, writes Jess Weatherbed. 

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is paid more than the heads of Meta, Pinterest, and Snap — combined — QZ

Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman has been blasted by Redditors and in media reports over his recently-revealed, super-sized pay package of $193 million in 2023, writes Laura Bratton. 

British AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman joins Microsoft — BBC

Microsoft has announced British Artificial Intelligence pioneer Mustafa Suleyman will lead its newly-formed division, Microsoft AI, according to the BBC report. 

UnitedHealth Group has paid more than $2 billion to providers following cyberattack — CNBC

UnitedHealth Group said Monday that it’s paid out more than $2 billion to help health-care providers who have been affected by the cyberattack on subsidiary Change Healthcare, writes Ashley Capoot.