There are quite a lot of ways to wake up when you have to, from zounds of alarm clocks to iPod docks, radios, CD players, buzzers and pretty much anything. Again, remember the alarm clocks that run across the room as they start their evil performance early in the morning, the bomb-like ones you can only stop if you cut the right (random) wire or that absolutely despicable alarm clock that asked you to match small pieces of plastic in various shapes in the (again random) specific-shape hole? Almost all these can be deactivated with fairly little effort.

But the newest (and silly enough) alarm clock coming from Japan (had any doubts, by the way?) wants so much more from you: to wake up and shoot a laser gun so that you hit the target several times.

Now, of course some of you might think that shooting a laser gun randomly in a room, towards a small target could have some chances to get the job done. But, random shots from someone who is asleep is clearly not too good a definition for "accuracy": most likely you should at least look at the target as you shoot and hope your hand won't fail you.

Now, this rather funny clock may not be the best solution if you have roommates because they'll probably wake up and beat you until you can shoot straight. You can even choose between two levels of shooting skill: while the normal mode will stop the alarm after you've shot the right spot on the target once, the (Die) hard mode needs no less than 5 good shots to make the noise stop.

Unlike other similarly-interactive alarm clocks, this particular one can also be used as a shooting game, as it sports dual modes: you can test either your shooting speed or capability to react and shoot your gun on a given command. Or you can simply play some sort of modern super-warrior: sleep with the laser gun under your pillow (that's the cliché, sorry) and as the alarm clock goes off, grab your gun, jump out of the bed and start shooting like mad towards your "trespassing enemy." And Bruce Willis will envy you.

This alarm clock retails for around $40 at Bandai and there is no word yet on whether it will spread across the world.


We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .