I want my wake up alarm to play latest news headlines. Any software recommendations for this?

Not to be obvious, but why don’t you just get a clock radio and set the alarm for the top of the hour, and then tune it to whatever local news station you have? Most to headline news at that time. Or find out whatever time your local news station does news and set at that time.

Yeah, maybe I’m just old, like @Rarebear, but I set my clock radio to my local NPR station and when I wake up I hear Morning Edition, the NPR morning news show. Some things don’t really need to be anywhere near as complicated as you might make them. And depending on your local NPR station, it is very possible that when you want to wake up, they will be broadcasting BBC radio. Check it out. It could very well be just a matter of you digging the clock radio that you already have out from under or behind wherever it is and just using it. Relatively low tech, I know, but it if works, it works. Why make things more complicated than they need to be?

@Rarebear and @lilycoyote – I own a clock radio already. I’ve tried this but the problem is I don’t always wake up at “the top of the hour.” I take a lot of odd naps – sometimes they are 20 minutes long, sometimes 1.5 hours etc (example, it is 6:15 am right now, I went to sleep at 1 am). I need an alarm that is customized to my lifestyle vs the other way round. Also, for whatever reason, my alarm clock doesn’t get the best radio signal in my room and though waking up to static might prove effective, it’s not really pleasant.

Additionally there’s the portability issue. I always take my laptop everywhere with me, but not my alarm clock.

@PnL Then my advice is to get an ipod or something, and podcast your news. Then you plug your ipod into your radio (like an ihome or something like that) and then it’ll turn on then. It’s not headlines, but it’ll be close. But then again, if you’re traveling, then you might not want to take that with you. Oh well, sorry.

There are online alarm clock websites that might provide something similar.

I use online alarm called http://sleep.fm and it wakes me at anytime to weather reports and some other pieces of information. It looks as many users of this site have requested they add news.

Further if you have iPhone you might find what your looking for the shoutcast alarm clock radio app. Shoutcast is Internet radio and that alarm app wakes you to 100s of different stations. Though what you are requesting is to wake and hear it whenever you want; regular radio station is not going to provide this. You need something more like that sleepfm site i mentioned… yet only if they added news.

good luck with your search
chaser