Technologies

Google Takes Aim at Duolingo With AI Tools to Help You Learn New Languages

The tech giant is the latest company to adopt AI tools in order to teach foreign languages — but it isn’t the first.

Google is debuting three new AI experiments that are intended to help users learn foreign languages on the go. The tools utilize Google’s Gemini large language model to identify objects and situations in a user’s immediate environment and provide translations that could help users ask for help or spark a conversation.

If you want to give the new experiments a try, you can find them on the Google Labs webpage. Google experiments aren’t applications, which means you don’t have to download anything to get started. You can just click into the experiment you want to try and begin typing in your prompts.

Read more: Best AI Chatbots of 2025

In debuting these new features, Google is going head-to-head with other foreign language-learning services that are also focusing on AI tools. Duolingo’s CEO recently announced that the company «will be going AI-first,» and OpenAI’s ChatGPT has the ability to begin new foreign-language conversations at any time upon request.

Tiny Lesson: Describe a situation

Google’s new Tiny Lesson tool allows users to describe a situation they’re in to learn vocabulary and grammar that can help describe a problem to the locals. Using the provided context, the tool will provide suggestions that aid users in understanding how to ask for help if they haven’t learned specific phrases tailored to their current issue.

Slang Hang: Casual talk

The Slang Hang tool promotes casual conversation over rigid sentence structure and grammatical agreement, teaching users how to drop the formalities and adapt a more colloquial way of speaking a foreign language. Slang Hang simulates conversations between native speakers and lets users discover what any words or phrases in the series of messages mean. The AI model sometimes misidentifies or hallucinates words, so you’ll need to double-check with another source when using this feature.

Word Cam: Detect items in photographs

The third and final new tool, Word Cam, uses Gemini to detect objects in photographs you take — providing you translations for your surroundings in the foreign language you’re learning. This feature helps you describe the world around you, but it’s possible that Gemini may not accurately label every single object in a picture you take. It’s still worth double-checking the translations you’re provided against another source while using Word Cam.

The language-learning experiments were created as a way to «inspire developers using Gemini for building different use cases and experiences,» Google representative Maggie Shiels told CNET.

This particular set of experiments is meant to focus on using the multimodal LLM as a way to promote bite-sized lessons on the go.

Google’s new features aren’t launching for every language — at least, not yet. Tiny Lesson, Slang Hang and Word Cam currently support translations for the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish languages.

Shiels said that Tiny Lesson, Slang Hang and Word Cam — like other Google Labs experiments — are not products and are not meant to be permanent features.

«This is a limited-time tool that will eventually sunset,» she told CNET. «We hope that developers have fun playing around.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Nov. 1

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Nov. 1.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s the big Saturday version, so it could take some time. Read on for the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Ethically sourced, as some egg
Answer: CAGEFREE

9A clue: Residents of Tehran
Answer: IRANIANS

10A clue: Air sign?
Answer: SKYWRITE

11A clue: ___ Faire (medieval-themed festival, informally)
Answer: REN

12A clue: Athlete from Cleveland or the University of Virginia
Answer: CAVALIER

17A clue: Kind of bathing suit
Answer: ONEPIECE

18A clue: Musical whizzes
Answer: MAESTROS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Certain gender identity
Answer: CIS

2D clue: Holy object sought in the first «Indiana Jones» movie
Answer: ARK

3D clue: ___ pride
Answer: GAY

4D clue: Completely surrounds
Answer: ENWRAPS

5D clue: Like a cozy campsite on a cool autumn night, say
Answer: FIRELIT

6D clue: Washington’s Mount ___, the highest peak in the Cascades
Answer: RAINIER

7D clue: Sinus-treating doctor, for short
Answer: ENT

8D clue: Opposite of WNW
Answer: ESE

12D clue: _ _ _mon URL ending
Answer: COM

13D clue: De Armas who starred in 2025’s «Ballerina»
Answer: ANA

14D clue: Shape of flying geese
Answer: VEE

15D clue: Prefix with friendly
Answer: ECO

16D clue: Restaurant booking, informally
Answer: RES

Technologies

Kim Kardashian Denies the Moon Landing and NASA Corrects Her Publicly

It’s one reality TV actor versus another, as Real World alum and acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy tells Kardashian she’s wrong.

NASA says we’ve been to the moon six times. Kim Kardashian says the first time was faked. On a recent episode of The Kardashians, the reality-show star was chatting with actress Sarah Paulson about astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon. That’s when Kardashian revealed she doesn’t believe the 1969 moon landing is real.

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In an interview, Aldrin was asked about the scariest moment of the Apollo 11 mission. Kardashian quotes his reply, «There was no scary moment because it didn’t happen. It could’ve been scary, but it wasn’t because it didn’t happen.»

It’s unclear which interview this was, or what exactly Aldrin was referring to, although it seems like he’s saying a certain frightening moment didn’t come to pass. But Kardashian took the quote to mean the entire moon landing was a hoax that Aldrin chose to reveal via that one quote.

«So I think (the moon landing) didn’t happen,» she said.

NASA acting administrator (and former participant on reality show The Real World) Sean Duffy took exception to the sentiment, replying on X «Yes, Kim Kardashian, we’ve been to the moon before…6 times!»

Yes, @KimKardashian, we’ve been to the Moon before… 6 times!
And even better: @NASAArtemis is going back under the leadership of @POTUS.
We won the last space race and we will win this one too 🇺🇸🚀
🎥: Hulu pic.twitter.com/CkexEEPFSv

— NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy (@SecDuffyNASA) October 30, 2025

The US did in fact land on the moon on July 20, 1969, with Aldrin and fellow astronaut Neil Armstrong both walking on the lunar surface. Armstrong died in 2012. Aldrin is now 95.

In 2002, Aldrin, then 72, punched a conspiracy theorist who tried to get him to swear the moon landings was faked.

«We won the last space race and we will win this one too!» Duffy told Kardashian on X. He later invited her to an upcoming launch at Kennedy Space Center, though she did not immediately accept.

Kardashian did not respond to a request for comment.