Twitter #Flock is a real cuckoo clock that chirps your mentions
Twitter has developed a smart cuckoo clock which informs you of new followers, retweets and replies, as well as keeping time.
Forget all talk of smart watches -- Twitter has gone one step further and developed #Flock, a smart cuckoo clock that keeps time the old-fashioned way, as well as informing you of new followers, retweets and replies.
The clock is a series of wooden houses containing a family of birds who tweet new Twitter alerts at you while you're roosting at home in your nest. The whole concept is far more charming than checking a boring old notifications bar on your phone, I think you'll agree.
It's not the first time someone has attempted to produce a Twitter cuckoo clock, but previously the social network has not been involved in the development process. If you want to take a closer look at #Flock, its development and the ideas behind it, hit play on the video below.
Twitter UK has been working with quirky London design consultancy Berg to create the chirping timepiece, which works on a relatively simple arm mechanism connected to Berg's Cloud developer kit. The aim of the kit is to make it easier to connect everyday objects to the Internet.
Berg's team has used it previously to create the utterly adorable Little Printer -- a device which gathers news, calendar entries and gossip about your friends from your smart phone to print out miniature newspapers, to-do lists and puzzles for you.
Being the good egg it is, Twitter is giving its new tickers away for free, but if you're hoping to get your hands on one, you'll likely end up disappointed. Only limited numbers are being produced and will be presented by the social network to "very special people". I suspect that despite my mum telling me regularly how very special I am, I probably won't be among the lucky recipients.
Unsurprisingly, Twitter has its own definition of what constitutes 'special', describing companies and people who "push creative boundaries". Much like the beneficiaries of Google Glass, I'd expect to see a smattering of celebrities and high-profile brands among those gifted with the clocks.
Would you like a #Flock clock of your very own? Do you think they should be made more widely available? Let me know what you think by fluttering down to the comments or gliding across to our Facebook page. You never know, if enough of you chirrup up a storm, maybe demand will be sufficient for the production run to be extended!
Image credit: Berg