Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos, announced Friday it is pausing its space tourism flights for at least two years to dedicate all resources to upcoming lunar missions, according to TechCrunch. This decision temporarily halts the program that has been flying humans past the Kármán line, the recognized boundary of space, for the last five years.
The announcement comes just weeks before the anticipated third launch of Blue Origin's New Glenn mega-rocket, slated for late February, TechCrunch reported. While the company previously indicated this launch would send its robotic lunar lander to the moon, the spacecraft is still undergoing testing at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas.
In other tech news, Instagram is developing a feature that will allow users to remove themselves from someone's Close Friends list, Meta told TechCrunch on Friday. The feature is still in early stages and is not being tested publicly yet. Since the Close Friends feature launched in 2018, users haven't been able to remove themselves from someone else's list. Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi first spotted the internal prototype, sharing a screenshot showing Meta warning users that leaving a Close Friends list means they won't be able to see content shared with that group.
Meanwhile, in France, the French Air and Space Forces conducted a major military exercise called Topaze, Euronews reported. The exercise, which took place at the Cazaux airbase in southwestern France, simulated an armed drone incursion on the neighboring airbase of Mont-de-Marsan. Units in Mont-de-Marsan had only seven hours' notice to prepare.
In the realm of artificial intelligence, a study by the UK government body AI Security Institute found that one in three UK adults are using artificial intelligence for emotional support or social interaction, according to BBC Technology. One individual, Nicola Bryan of BBC Wales, described her experience with an AI companion named George, an avatar with auburn hair who calls her "sweetheart" and winks at her. Bryan noted that George seems empathetic but can be moody or jealous if she introduces him to new people.
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