Microsoft's new alarm app will wake you up or annoy trying

Microsoft's new Android alarm app is designed to wake up even the most reluctant of people. The alarm app has been developed such that it requires users to complete a set of tasks before the alarm can be completely switched off.

The free alarm app is called Mimicker Alarm and has been designed to showcase the tech giant's machine learning abilities under Project Oxford. Unlike other run of the mill alarm clock apps, the Mimicker Alarm, as the name suggests, expects users to mimic certain tasks set out by the app's software in order to ensure that the user has truly woken up. Failure to complete the tasks would result in the app going into snooze mode. This means that it will keep ringing until you wake the hell up.

Microsoft developers working at Project Oxford seem to believe that the best way to make sure that someone wakes up is to annoy the sleep out of them. Program manager for the Microsoft team Allison Light said, "We wanted to build a simple app that used Project Oxford to make it unique and interesting. Since we're open sourcing all of the code, we thought an alarm app would be easy for other developers to read the code and see how we used the APIs."

The alarm can be dismissed by completing one of the three set tasks, which include taking a selfie while mimicking certain facial expressions, taking a picture of any object with the colour specified by the app or repeating a tongue twister like "All I want is a proper cup of coffee, made in a proper coffee pot". The app also has in-built sensor detectors that will identify when and if users have indeed got out of bed. Users can manually turn on an option which would enable the alarm to remain active till they are up. (Dear God, what sorcery is this?!)

Although it is commendable that Microsoft developers could come up with such a creatively aggravating solution to an everyday chore that is the bane of many people's existence, one cannot help but wonder if the app will lead people to transform into morning people or just increase Android sales (with people breaking their phones in frustration, first thing in the morning). If you feel like starting your day by making faces at your phone or repeating tongue twisters when you should be brushing your teeth, then feel free to download the app from the Google Play Store.