Fiction Useless Inventions
The Plant Pot That Reads Bedtime Stories
A glazed ceramic pot with a tiny built-in speaker that reads your houseplant a soothing story every evening, so you no longer have to feel guilty about never talking to it.
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Fiction Useless Inventions
The Jigsaw That Comes With a Piece Already Missing
A handsome 1,000-piece puzzle that saves you years of suspense by leaving one piece out at the factory, so you know from the very start that you will never finish it.
Fiction Useless Inventions
The Very Patient Parking Sensor
A calm, non-judgemental parking sensor that never distracts you with nervous beeping while you reverse, and waits politely until after you have touched the wall to mention it.
Fact-based How It Started
The First Jigsaw Puzzle Was a Map for Teaching Geography
Long before there were puzzles of kittens and lighthouses, a London mapmaker glued a map of Europe onto a thin wooden board and cut it up so that children could learn where every country went.
Fiction Useless Inventions
The Snooze Negotiator
An alarm clock that will happily give you nine more minutes, but only after you have submitted a short written case explaining why you deserve them.
Fiction Useless Inventions
The Heritage Tangling Case
A handsome leather pouch for your old wired headphones that, with the help of a tiny motor, ties them into a proper knot overnight, just like they used to do by themselves.
Fiction Useless Inventions
The Diplomatic Thermostat
An office thermostat that gives every person who touches it exactly the temperature they asked for, on its little screen, while the actual room stays precisely where it was.
Fact-based How It Started
Bubble Wrap Began as a Wallpaper Nobody Wanted
Two inventors sealed a pair of plastic shower curtains together in 1957 hoping to make stylish textured wallpaper, and it took them years and a computer to find out what they had really made.
Fact-based Nature Did It First
A Gecko's Toes Showed Scientists How to Stick Without Glue
A gecko can hang from a glass ceiling on perfectly dry feet, and once scientists looked at the whole foot rather than just its tiny hairs, they built a pad that grips like one.
Fiction Useless Inventions
The Seat-Saving Sofa Cushion
It learns the exact shape of the person who sits there most, and when anyone else settles into that spot, it inflates, very politely, until they move.