Europe's Rosetta comet-chaser phones home

Rosetta, Europe's comet-chasing spacecraft, has woken from its sleep. A signal confirming its alert status was recognized by controllers in Darmstadt, Germany, at 18:17 GMT. Rosetta has spent the past 31 months in hibernation to preserve power as it arced beyond the orbit of Jupiter on a path that should take it to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August. Engineers will at the present poise the probe's trajectory and prepare its instruments for the daring encounter.

One of the highlights of the task will be the attempt to put a small robotic lander, Philae, on the exterior of the 4.5km-wide comet. This will happen in November. There were nail-biting moments in the Darmstadt control room as its flight engineers waited for the signal to come through. Three quarters of the way during the hour-long window of occasion, they got what they were waiting for. The signal restricted no spacecraft telemetry, but its mere receipt from 800 million km away confirmed to controllers that Rosetta's automated systems were operating as expected.

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In-App Purchases by Kids: Apple Will Refund $32.5 Million to clients

Apple Inc will repay clients at least $32.5 million to settle venerable complaints that the technology company billed U.S. consumers for charges incurred by children buying mobile apps without their parents’ consent. 

Under the conditions of the settlement, announced on Wednesday by the national Trade Commission, Apple also will be necessary to change its billing practices to ensure it has obtained consent from consumers before charging for items sold in mobile apps.

Apple's App Store offers many games for kids, a large number of which permit in-app purchases to be made. These purchases can include virtual objects or currency, and characteristically allow faster progression in the game.

In an interior memo to workers, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained that the company decided to settle rather than risk a long and distracting legal battle, because the FTC’s proposals aligned with the company’s own intended changes.

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China overtakes US as world’s biggest goods dealer

China has claimed that it is very likely that it overtook the US as the world's top trading nation, a title the US has held for decades. According to the most recent data, China's total trade grew at an annual rate of 7.6% to $4.16tn last year. The US is yet to release its full-year information, but its trade for the first 11 months of 2013 totalled $3.5tn. 

China became the world's largest goods exporter in 2009. Its imports have also risen amid development in its economy. It is very likely that China has overtaken the US to become the world's biggest trading country, said Zhengs Yuesheng, a spokesman for China's customs administration. Mr. Biswas added that the gap among the two countries was likely to become even wider in the present year. For the full year, China's exports rose at an annual rate of 7.9% in 2013, while imports grew 7.3%.

Samsung unveils Amazing Bendable TV

Samsung has shown off the Bendable TV - an 85in prototype that allows the curvature of its screen to be managed by remote control.

The LED set was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. LG has also announced a smaller 77in flexible TV of its own that is based on OLED technology.

The tech would allow the sets' owners to determine how bent the screens should be taking into account how many group were watching them and how far away they were sitting. The screens would have the added advantage of being able to be left flat adjacent to the wall when not in use.

Samsung supposed such a design delivered the most immersive viewing experience probable. Conversely, a display of the equipment went awry when it invited Michael Bay, director of the Transformers movies, on stage at its press conference.

CES 2014: Samsung aims to connect devices

 Samsung has announced a system to connect together a household's various gadgets, appliances, and utility controls. It said one way the Smart Home service could be used would be to turn off a home's lights and TV if the owner said going out into a smart watch app. Samsung supposed the service would originally be limited to its own products and planned to support third parties devices in time.

Samsung said its new service would initially offer three features such as device control, home view and customer service. The firm said its Smart Home app would primarily run on selected Samsung TVs, smart phones, tablets and its Galaxy Gear smart watch. In the past they had special technologies for different appliances and they didn't all join up. It shows like they've tidied that up quite nicely now.