Awesome. That'll teach me for just being cynical after just skimming over the front page of the mobile site.

That said, I'm still pretty skeptical about the grandiose claims about the number of words a child hearing per day and IQ. I strongly suspect that hearing large numbers of words before the age of 4 is not causing increases in intelligence. My guess is that it's just a strong correlate to a bunch of harder to measure factors.

Still, the fact that I wouldn't be buying this at the cost of my privacy makes me way more likely to get this thing. Whenever I'm learning a language, I do wonder about how long it takes to hear most of the words you need to get along in daily life, and how often you hear them. Even if it doesn't give you any kind of list (shamefully I still haven't looked at the details), it'd be interesting to just know the raw number.

Hi there, I'm one of the creators of the Starling and I can reassure you that privacy is as sacred to us as it is to you - nothing is recorded. The entire focus is on volume of words. That's not to say quality (diversity, length, conversation) isn't important but research has found them to be very highly correlated. Correlation or causation, encouraging more language and engagement between parents and children in a world of distracting electronic devices can't be a bad thing? That's what our Beta testers have told us (you can listen to the video of testimonials on the site), that they are more engaged and focused on their children and their families are happier as a result. Can't complain about that!