Tech:NYC Digest: July 28

July 28, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Friday, July 28, 2023

We’re back with another summer Friday edition of the Tech:NYC Digest, featuring our Friday Five highlights in New York tech this week.

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How AI will help Duolingo become as good as a human tutor (Tech:NYC)

The platform has rocketed around the world to make learning languages compulsive — 60 million monthly active users are learning 40 different languages through its lessons. At the latest edition of our speaker series, co-hosted with Bloomberg and Cornell Tech, CEO Luis von Ahn explained how AI has always been part of the roadmap, but with recent advances in the technology, the app can now more effectively personalize instruction based on a user’s weak spots and reshuffle lessons based on individual progress.

How Revel Went From Electric Mopeds to Building Urban EV Charging Networks (TIME)

Urban EV adoption is staring down a chicken-and-egg problem to accelerate more widespread charging infrastructure. But the Brooklyn-based startup Revel is — literally — charging ahead with ambitious plans to open superhubs in every borough (the company announced the Bronx location this week). “We realized there is a first-mover advantage for a company like Revel,” CEO Frank Reig told TIME. “Not to talk about 2030 like everyone else, [but] to actually build now, and move now, and execute now.”

MTA straphangers select Brass Queens as favorite subway performer in inaugural ballot (amNewYork)

MTA straphangers have selected Brass Queens — which describes itself as a “New Orleans-inspired brass band with all-female horns hailing from Brooklyn” — as their favorite subway performer in the inaugural Riders’ Choice Award on Thursday, securing the band a coveted recording session with Atlantic Records.

Private-sector jobs and new business formation drive city recovery: report (Crain's New York Business)

The city is in a position to regain all of 2020’s lost employment in the next few months, according to data from the New York City Economic Development Corporation. A rise in entrepreneurship has been a significant source of the recovery, with New Yorkers founding 29,000 new businesses last year, including 400 technology startups that employ 10,000 people.

How two former software engineers opened the city’s most original new restaurant (New York Magazine)

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