Iran appears to be preparing for a space launch as negotiations continue in Vienna over its tattered nuclear deal with world powers, according to an expert and satellite images.

The likely blast off at Iran's Imam Khomeini Spaceport comes as Iranian state media has offered a list of upcoming planned satellite launches in the works for the Islamic Republic's civilian space program, which has been beset by a series of failed launches. Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard runs its own parallel program that successfully put a satellite into orbit last year.

Three ocean drones were launched from Rhode Island Thursday and will travel along the Gulf Stream, collecting data in tough winter conditions that would be challenging for traditional ships with crews.

Saildrone, headquartered in Alameda, California, makes autonomous surface vehicles powered by the wind and sun to measure climate quality data and do mapping in remote oceans for scientists worldwide. The company launched the drones from Newport, Rhode Island, on a mission to sail the strong ocean currents in the North Atlantic for six months.

Google said Wednesday its most popular search terms in 2021 include "Squid Game," Alec Baldwin and the cryptocurrency Dogecoin.

Instagram on Tuesday launched a feature that urges teenagers to take breaks from the photo-sharing platform and announced other tools aimed at protecting young users from harmful content on the Facebook-owned service.

The previously announced "Take A Break" feature encourages teens to stop scrolling if they have been on the social media platform for a while, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a blog post. It rolled out to the U.S., United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and Australia on Tuesday and would reach the rest of the world early next year, he said.

Facebook's parent company Meta said Wednesday it has expanded its ban on postings linked to Myanmar's military to include all pages, groups, and accounts representing military-controlled businesses. It had already banned advertising from such businesses in February.

The February action, which also banned military and military-controlled state and media entities from Facebook and Instagram, followed the army's seizure of power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

A Japanese billionaire and his producer rocketed to space Wednesday as the first self-paying space tourists in more than a decade.

Fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa and producer Yozo Hirano, who plans to film his mission, blasted off for the International Space Station in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.

A call is out on Telegram for people opposing Covid restrictions to share private addresses of German "local MPs, politicians and other personalities" who they believe are "seeking to destroy" them through pandemic curbs.

Tech giant Apple has announced it is suing Israel's NSO Group, seeking to block the world's most infamous hacker-for-hire company from breaking into Apple's products, like the iPhone.

Apple said in a complaint filed in federal court in California that NSO Group employees are "amoral 21st century mercenaries who have created highly sophisticated cyber-surveillance machinery that invites routine and flagrant abuse." Apple said NSO Group's spyware, called Pegasus, had been used to attack a small number of Apple customers worldwide.

A cyberattack on Sunday disrupted access to Iran's privately owned Mahan Air, state TV reported, marking the latest in a series of cyberattacks on Iranian infrastructure that has put the country on edge.

Apple is letting some iPhone users fix their own phones, a sharp turnaround for a company that has long prohibited anyone but company-approved technicians from fiddling with its proprietary parts and software.

The company said Wednesday that it will enable users of two of the newest iPhone models and eventually some Mac computers to get access to genuine Apple parts and tools for consumer repairs.