I doubt machine vision is good enough to even classify known species.

There is recent work along these lines for birds specifically, e.g., [1]. It's not anywhere near human accuracy and I think it's only a couple hundred species but it does kind of work.

[1] http://www1.icsi.berkeley.edu/~farrell/birdlets/iccv11-camer...

I feel like the article was quite accurate--a slightly sensational title, but "Texting-by-Voice" is qualified right there in the title.

Given the timing of this app, it's comparison to Siri seems to be quite relevant.

Not when their common thread is a single feature, voice.

Like red trucks? Here's a red bicycle.

It's the innate understanding of the market viewed from a teenage perspective--they already count Microsoft out.

Woah, slow down here. Optimizing for grades is NOT a bad or stupid strategy, especially when you're young. By doing well academically, you put yourself in a position to do well in the future. Sure, pursue your interests and shoot for real accomplishments--so that when you're applying to college with those real accomplishments you don't need to explain why you didn't get good grades. It's just putting yourself in the best possible position to be rewarded for your work.

Don't short change yourself. Do your best in school, but be pragmatic and work hard outside of it too.