Most of my conversations with my alarm clock are woefully one-sided. They usually begin with simple pleading (“No. Please, no.”) and culminate in profanity (#$%@, I just want a little more !@#$-ing sleep!). To both protests, my alarm clock remains silent. It doesn’t respond with a snarky, “Up, late now, were we?” or “Get your lazy behind out of bed.”
However, there’s a talking alarm clock that uses speech synthesis and voice recognition to talk you into getting up. As you can see in the video, the clock can actually ask you questions and respond to your answers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVhQpCxTsWA&feature=player_embedded
The idea behind the talking alarm clock is that many will awaken more easily if they are told to get up rather than–as paraphrased from the website–’rudely blasted from slumber by bleating noises.’
Your friendly alarm clock can also inform you about the weather, time or current headlines and can be attached to MP3 players or IPod so you can also use music to rouse you from slumber.
Speaking personally, I might have to choose music over answering math problems as shown in the demo. Doing math before noon would most likely force me to perpetrate irreparable alarm clock assault.
