Microsoft's new alarm app wakes you with games and challenges

Microsoft introduced a new alarm clock app to the Play Store on Thursday that aims to rouse even the VanWinklest of sleepers. The Mimicker Alarm, as it's called, presents the user with three "games" that must be won before the alarm will turn off. These challenges -- designed to show off Microsoft's Project Oxford machine learning API -- include having the user emote facial expressions, find items of specific colors or speak tongue-twisting pass phrases.

"We're a lot nicer than other alarms," Allison Light, a Project Oxford program manager. "You start with dismiss or snooze. If you snooze, the default is five minutes to delay the game. If you dismiss, we mute the alarm – but then you have 30 seconds to complete this challenge. And if you don't complete that game in time, we assume you've fallen back asleep and then the alarm will start ringing again. You only need to complete one game to shut off the alarm. You can choose the sounds and which games you want to play."

All of which sound like super fun activities as you groggily stumble around your dimly lit house at some ungodly hour of the morning looking for something green to show your phone while grinning like an idiot and muttering "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" Seems a lot easier to just develop some responsibility and get out of bed on the first try like an adult.