Microsoft has launched a new and original alarm app for Android called ‘Mimicker Alarm’ which makes users play a simple game to wake them up.
The new app is a bit different to conventional alarm apps consumers may be familiar with.
When the Mimicker Alarm goes off it won’t stop buzzing until the user finishes playing a game called a “Mimic”.
The description of the app on the Google Play Store tells users that “to dismiss your alarm, you must mimic the action given. We might ask you to snap a selfie, speak a phrase, or even get out of bed!”
Some may find this next part annoying – yet quite useful if you really need to get up. Microsoft says that if a user doesn’t finish the game in time the app will assume they have fallen back asleep and the alarm will start ringing again.
It should be noted that users always have the option to turn the games off – but that defeats the whole point of this app.
Video – Introducing Mimicker Alarm:
The app is a Microsoft Garage Project and was built using Microsoft Project Oxford – a platform of artificial intelligence APIs.
Microsoft said:
“The Emotion API is used to power Express yourself – a game that requires you to mimic the emotion listed, the Speech API is used to listen to your attempt at our tongue twister challenge, and the Computer Vision API is used to analyze colors in a photo for our color capture Mimic,”