For a long time, the joy of a useless fact has been rooted in its timelessness—a quirky bit of trivia that's as true today as it was fifty years ago. But we started asking ourselves a question: what if a useless fact could also be timely? What if it could connect you to the strange and wonderful things happening in the world right now?

Today, we’re incredibly excited to answer that question. Introducing our biggest feature update yet: Real-Time Useless Facts!

A New Flavor of Useless

You’ll now see a new button in the app, sparkling with potential. When you click it, you won't get a classic piece of trivia. Instead, our app will generate a fun fact derived from a news article published in the last 24 hours.

One moment you might get a fact about the obscure history of a material used in a new NASA probe, and the next, a surprising detail about a location where a rare fossil was just discovered. It’s a new way to enjoy useless knowledge that’s fresh, dynamic, and wonderfully unpredictable.

The Journey: How We Taught an AI to Be Useless

This feature was one of our most exciting technical challenges to date. The journey started with a simple pipeline: gather daily news from trusted sources like the BBC, Science Daily, and the wonderfully quirky Atlas Obscura.

But the real magic is in what happens next. We built what we like to call an "AI Curator." This system reads through the day's news, but it's not looking for the main headlines. Instead, we've trained it with a very specific instruction: "Find a surprising, tangentially related, and delightfully useless piece of trivia."

It took a lot of tweaking! Our early versions kept giving us the same types of facts. We had to teach the AI how to be more creative and varied, ensuring that every click has the potential for a completely new discovery. It’s this blend of real-world events and AI-powered curiosity that brings the feature to life.

What's Next? Putting You in the Driver's Seat

This is just the beginning. The launch of our Real-Time Facts engine opens the door for a more interactive and personalized experience. Here’s a sneak peek at what we’re planning next:

1. The "Choose Your Topic" Path: Soon, instead of just one button, you'll be presented with a few intriguing topics pulled from the day's news. You'll get to choose the path of your curiosity, making the final fact feel like a personal discovery.
2. The "Fact Explorer": We want to turn every fact from a dead end into the start of a new journey. Imagine getting a fact and then seeing a few related "exploration tags" that let you dive deeper down a rabbit hole of interconnected trivia.

Our goal is to make the Useless App not just a source of facts, but a playground for your curiosity.

We’re incredibly proud of this new feature and can’t wait for you to try it. Click the new button, see what the world has to offer today, and as always, let us know what you think!

Stay curious,

– The Useless Facts Team