TLDR 2022-04-08

Twitter is rolling out a feature that lets users remove themselves from conversations. The 'Unmention' feature is currently only available for some users through Twitter's web interface. Twitter has other features to keep mentions civil, such as its anti-harassment Safety Mode that automatically blocks mean-spirited users. The new Unmention feature will allow users to have more direct control over unwanted mentions.

Google Lens now lets users ask questions about photos. Multisearch allows users to start searches with an image and then add text to modify the search. While the tool can perform many types of searches, its best results are for shopping queries. Google Lens multisearch is now available in beta for users in the US on Android and iOS.

Solar panels emit infrared radiation at night. The photons going out into the night sky cool down the solar cell. This temperature difference can be used to generate electricity using a device called a thermoelectric generator. While the method won't generate a huge amount of electricity, it still has many applications. Being able to generate small amounts of electricity at night could reduce the need for batteries and the costs they incur.

First Light Fusion is celebrating its first confirmed fusion reaction. The company's approach to fusion involves firing a projectile from a railgun at a falling target in a process designed to generate pressure levels high enough to create shockwaves that cause small deuterium fuel pellets to implode and start fusion reactions. The technique was inspired by the pistol shrimp, which can snap its claws so fast that the water around them is vaporized, creating shockwaves and bubble cavities that heat to tens of thousands of degrees. First Light is working towards creating a pilot plant in the 2030s. Many more details about the technology, including a video showing the reactor design, are available in the article.

In this article, Protocol interviews developers to find out what part of the developer experience is hardest for companies to get right. Companies are often lacking in tools, documentation, and communication. Not getting these things right slows down development. The best companies work to create environments that help developers build products.

Zaplib is a library for speeding up web applications using Rust and WebAssembly. It allows developers to write high-performance code in Rust alongside existing JavaScript code. Zaplib is designed to be incrementally adoptable, so components can be ported over to Rust one at a time. Demos are available in the docs.

Fast, a startup that launched in 2020, laid off all of its workforce on April 5. This article discusses what happened, Fast's hiring process, warning signs within the company, and the current situation with Fast. It gives some advice on how to avoid joining similar companies. Most startups are losing money, so it is important to pay attention to the path to profitability, not just growth numbers.

Researchers have created a database that contains 123,984 magnetic resonance imaging scans taken from 101,457 individuals. The scans were collected from over 100 previous studies and cover every stage of life. They reveal new milestones and confirm developments that have only been previously hypothesized about. The database is designed so that new data can be easily added. A link to the database is available in the article.