9 November 2011 Last updated at 17:33 ET

US authorities have charged seven people with spreading software to hijack millions of computers worldwide.

Six of them are Estonians, who have been arrested, while the seventh, a Russian, is still at large.

They are alleged to have spread software across four million computers in 100 countries that redirected users towards online adverts.

The defendants were allegedly paid about $14m (£9m) by advertisers for the clicks the advertising pages received.

About 500,000 of the affected computers were in the US.

Of those, 130 were at the space agency Nasa, which first discovered the malicious software.

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said it was the first case of its kind because the suspects had set up their own servers to secretly reroute traffic to sites where they would get a cut of the advertising revenue.

People trying to visit sites such as Amazon, Netflix and ESPN were instead sent to the defendants' adverts, according to the authorities.

9 November 2011 Last updated at 11:06 ET

Software developer Adobe Systems is halting development of its Flash Player plug-in for mobile devices.

The multimedia software is used to run movies, games and other applications.

Adobe says it now believes the alternative HTML 5 technology offers the "best solution" because it is "universally supported".

The Flash plug-in works on Android devices and Blackberry's Playbook tablet, but Apple barred it from iPhones and iPads.

"We will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations (chipset, browser, OS version, etc) following the upcoming release of Flash Player 11.1 for Android and Blackberry Playbook," a statement published on Adobe's blog says.

"We will of course continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates for existing device configurations."

Adobe adds that it will still support third party Flash developers who use its Air product to package their software for various app stores.

Criticised

In April 2010 Apple's late former chief executive, Steve Jobs, attacked Flash's mobile plug-in for being unreliable, a security threat and a drain on battery life.

Adobe responded shortly after saying the plug-in would "continue to be the dominant tool" for media on the internet.

However, reviewers criticised its performance on other devices, and in September Microsoft also announced it would not support the product on the tablet interface of its upcoming Windows 8 browser.

"It was a battery hog and cumbersome - those are two negative things to have on a mobile device," said Colin Gillis, senior tech analyst at BGC Partners.

"Steve Jobs helped shift the whole industry to HTML 5, and 40 million iPads later it turned out that Flash wasn't a selling point as many supposed."

Job cuts

The news comes a day after Adobe revealed plans to axe 750 posts as part of an effort to place more focus on digital media and digital marketing.

The cuts are being made in Europe and North America and represent more than 7% of the company's workforce.

The news was timed to coincide with its annual analysts' meeting.

"It will affect their revenues, but not by a huge amount. The Flash player for mobile is a product that is either given away for free or given away to device makers for a small royalty," said Chris Green, technology analyst at Davies Murphy Group Europe.

"The real money is for the server technology. Adobe charges thousands of dollars per licence. However, since so much of our internet use is now on mobile devices, it does questions the long-term viability of Flash full stop."

Shares in Adobe fell close to 12% on Wall Street in morning trade.

9 November 2011 Last updated at 11:17 ET

A survey of Welsh businesses and consumers suggests a majority of both support the nation getting its own domain name.

The move would offer website owners the chance to end their address with .wales and .cymru, instead of .uk.

Internet regulator ICANN will allow countries and other organisations to apply for the new names from January.

Supporters say it could help with branding, but critics warn it may increase the opportunity for fraud.

The poll was commissioned by the not-for-profit domain registry service Nominet. It suggests 69% of consumers backed the move and 59% of Welsh businesses and other bodies.

The poll used a sample of 1,003 individuals - 21% of whom were Welsh speakers - and 250 senior decision makers in Welsh organisations

However the survey suggested splits over which name to take.

"On the consumer side there was a slightly higher preference for .cymru," Nominet's director of business development, Glenn Hayward, told the BBC.

"Among businesses there was a much stronger preference for .wales to help them market themselves outside of the country."

Costs

Nominet suggests one solution would be for the both name to be registered. Website addresses ending in either suffix could then direct users to the same place.

However, ICANN is charging $185,000 (£116,045) per application and is refusing to let Wales be a special case.

The Welsh business minister, Edwina Hart, said last week that she is not considering paying for either application.

Nominet is in discussions to cover the costs and says it would set up a local office if its efforts succeed.

A spokesman said: "The findings demonstrate that there is a need to balance economic and linguistic considerations in making the decision between .cymru or .wales, and this on behalf of both those who speak Welsh and English".

However, a rival bidder, dotCYM, says giving Nominet control would amount to selling off the country's identity.

Benefits

The London Economics Wales consultancy carried out the poll as part of a wider study.

"A Welsh domain name can play a positive supporting role in activities aimed at raising the brand profile of Wales and encouraging exports and inward investment," the report says.

"It can also provide a constant stream of low level but free advertising."

However the study also warns that such publicity comes at a price.

It says businesses and other brand owners will need to take defensive measures to prevent third parties operating sites with their name. They will also face additional marketing costs to publicise their new addresses.

9 November 2011 Last updated at 20:43 ET By Leo Kelion Technology reporter

British computer chip designer ARM has unveiled its latest graphics processing unit (GPU) for mobile devices.

The Mali-T658 offers up to ten times the performance of its predecessor.

It paves the way for faster games and other more complex software on smartphones and tablet computers.

ARM hopes to expand its share of a rapidly-growing market. Demand for its mobile GPU designs lags behind that for its central processing units (CPUs).

The most high-profile use of its GPU to date is in Samsung's award winning Galaxy 2 handsets. They use chips based on the T658's older brother, the Mali-400 MP.

A review in Septmber by the influential website AnandTech rated the 400 MP the fastest GPU available in a smartphone. It has since been overtaken by a rival's design used in the latest iPhone.

ARM says manufacturers are likely to have its new design in use in around two years.

"It all comes down to user experience," said Jem Davies at ARM's Media Processing Division.

"Faster graphics performance with snappier, more responsive user interfaces, more immersive game play and a whole range of new applications which are being enabled by the capabilities of GPU computing."

Calculations

GPU cores offer specialised processing capabilities that bolster the power of the main CPU.

A GPU's key function is to take all the polygon co-ordinates described by a piece of graphics software and work out how to draw, colour and shade them. It then uses this information to determine what colour each pixel of the screen should be as the image changes dozens of times every second.

The more powerful the GPU, the more detail is possible. Top of the range games can require millions of polygons on screen at the same time to create 3D-like environments.

To maximise performance, manufacturers can link several GPUs together.

ARM's previous design allowed up to four cores to be connected.

The Mali-T658 doubles the maximum to eight, with each core offering double the arithmetic capability of its forerunner.

"It's all about power," said Mr Davies.

"The idea is that when the full performance is required, you power up all of those cores. But having a multi-core architecture means that when the performance needs are lower, we can power some of those cores down."

This allows ARM to play to one of its strengths - its reputation for lower energy consumption.

Console quality graphics

The firm claims the new technology will offer battery-powered mobile handsets roughly the same graphics performance as Sony's Playstation 3 console.

However, its rival Imagination Technologies has made similar assertions about its upcoming PowerVR designs. Like ARM, the firm is headquartered in the UK. Its current architecture is used by Apple in its iPhone and iPad products.

California-based NVIDIA and Qualcomm also talk up their GeForce and Adreno technologies.

But whatever the firms' claims, customer expectations are hard to beat.

"You have cinema, you have high definition, you have hugely complex CGI movies on HD screens in your lounge," said Ian Smythe, director of marketing at ARM's Media Processing division.

"You expect this high quality experience from every screen that you look at. And so the user experience has to be of that sort of quality.

"Reproducing a CGI movie - which is generated on a server farm where it takes a day to render a frame with 50,000 processors - being able to reproduce that in a mobile experience is clearly a challenge."

Speech recognition

GPUs are particularly good at what are termed "parallisable" tasks - processes that can be broken down into several parts and run simultaneously because the outcome of any one calculation does not determine the input of another.

This is particularly suited for applications offering augmented reality, allowing users to overlay graphical information over live images of whatever their devices' cameras are facing.

Other potential uses include image processing, pattern matching and speech recognition.

Competition among the GPU designers is helping drive computing power to new heights, making possible processes unthinkable on previous generations of handsets.

However, developers need to code their software to take advantage of the graphics processors if they are to make the most of the accelerated performance on offer.

That is a challenge when different devices use different designs.

"At the moment many of the speech recognition applications that are out there are solely relying on the CPU," said Mr Davies.

"Very few are taking advantage of the acceleration of the GPU - and that's clearly an area of growth for us."