DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN: Cerego has been around in Japan since 2000, when it was used primarily to help individuals and companies acquire English skills. (The company has raised $28 million to date, and its 1.1 million users have used it for combined 3.7 million hours.) Now the team is betting that the learning algorithms, based on applied research on semantic memory and cognition, will also work for other forms of "pair-associative learning"--like learning the names of countries or recognizing the faces of Silicon Valley hotshots. On Tuesday, the company rolled out its public beta, which allows users to play about 50 demo quizzes and upload their own content. Later, the company will unveil APIs to allow developers access to its backend technology for games and learning apps. Executive chairman Andrew Smith Lewis shared that he's in talks to introduce this platform in MOOCs, where it will be used as a supplement to help students get the basic facts right. The platform reminds us a little bit of Memrise, or BrainRush, both of which focus on fact fluency.
