Alarm clocks come in many shapes and tones - ranging from the gentle soothing voice of mums, to the jarring noise from clocks that refuse to quit, no matter how many times the snooze button is hit.

And then, there are those modern innovations - like the sensitive alarm clock that emulates sunrise, by brightening the room slowly, to evoke a gentle wake-up-call or the Clocky, which has to be chased around and captured like Potter's 'golden snitch', before it shuts up.

However, despite all these clever inventions, most of us fail to wake up in time and are more often than not, dashing to school, barely awake, with hair disheveled and Pop-Tart in mouth.

Now a Japanese Company has come up with yet another 'clever' invention - one that wakes you up by exercising the brain! The Twist Clock is equipped with two LCD screens - one that displays a math operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division) and the other, an answer. All the owner has to do to quieten the clock, is to come up with the right equation by twisting around the two dials that bear single digit numbers.

While that may sound easy enough, try coming up with even a simple equation like 2+2=4, first thing in the morning, when you can barely open your eyes, let alone exercise your brain! Now if this 'fun' brain activity doesn't get you out of bed bright and early, we don't know what will!

For those of you worried that your parents may rush to buy this wonderful math tool, you can take comfort in the fact that it is currently available only in Japan and hopefully, will take some time before making its way to other parts of the world. Happy Snoozing!

sources:engadget,com,crunchgear.com