In today's technological world we leave electronic traces wherever we go, whether shopping online or on the high street, at work or at play. That data is the raw material for a new industry of number crunchers trying to explain and influence human behaviour, as Stephen Baker explains in his new book The Numerati.

In the book, Baker meets the maths whizzes at the bleeding edge of this new way of doing business, politics, and even matchmaking.

You might be surprised at some of the things Baker's "numerati" want to know and can already find out about you. Read on for some examples taken from the book, and click here to read our full review.

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PCLinuxOS (also known as PCLOS) is an installable Live CD distribution based on the Mandriva Linux operating system. While PCLinuxOS tries to be a very elegant Linux desktop, on the other hand its main aim is to be easy to use by everyone who dares to try a Linux distribution. Looking back in time (a few years), PCLinuxOS project was started as a set of RPM packages created to improve Mandriva Linux distros (Mandrake was called at that time) and Texstar is responsible for the PCLinuxOS Linux distribution, which was created in 2003 as a fork of the Mandrake Linux 9.2.

Today, the PCLinuxOS project is proud to have three more "brothers": MiniMe (a minimal Live CD/HDD install with a basic KDE desktop environment), Junior (a self booting Live CD with advanced hardware detection) and Big Daddy (aka PCLinuxOS Full Edition). But wait, PCLinuxOS has more relatives (because of a nice script, which comes with the system, that can remaster the whole distribution). Here is a list with some of them:

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Internet worm exploits Windows vulnerability
Posted by Elinor Mills

A worm dubbed Win32/Conficker.A is making the rounds on Windows machines, exploiting a security hole that Microsoft released a patch for in October, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

The number of attacks have increased over the past couple of days, exploiting a critical vulnerability that was addressed by security update MS08-067.

The malware mostly was spreading inside corporations, but also hit several hundred home PCs, Microsoft said in a posting on the Microsoft Malware Protection Center Blog.

"It opens a random port between port 1024 and 10000 and acts like a Web server. It propagates to random computers on the network by exploiting MS08-067. Once the remote computer is exploited, that computer will download a copy of the worm via HTTP using the random port opened by the worm. The worm often uses a .JPG extension when copied over and then it is saved to the local system folder as a random named dll," the posting said.

"It is also interesting to note that the worm patches the vulnerable API in memory so the machine will not be vulnerable anymore. It is not that the malware authors care so much about the computer as they want to make sure that other malware will not take it over too," Microsoft said.

Most of the infections are in U.S. PCs, but there have been reports from Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, Turkey, China, Mexico, Canada, Argentina, and Chile. The worm avoids infecting Ukrainian computers, for some reason, Microsoft said.

Several bots, under the generic name Backdoor:Win32/IRCbot.BH, also are exploiting the security hole. They drop a backdoor Trojan that connects to an IRC server to receive commands.

n response to popular concerns with online credit card fraud, Visa Europe has announced a newly designed credit card, complete with a keypad and digital number display, according to the Daily Mail.

While the credit card is of the usual size and features a credit card number and magnetic strip for use with conventional card readers, it does not have a security code number in the traditional sense. Instead, cardholders will enter their PIN into the keypad, which will then generate a random number on the display. This random number will serve as the cardholder's one-time security code, which can then be entered to make online purchases.

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Intel claims it has improved the efficiency of a method for powering devices wirelessly. Intel's "Wireless Energy Resonant Link" (WREL), technology was demonstrated by transmitting electricity wirelessly to a lamp on stage and lighting a 60 watt bulb, which consumes more power than an average laptop computer.

This innovation is hoped to be embedded into tables and work surfaces so that as soon as a device is placed on the surface, it will be able to draw power. The technology uses magnetic fields to transmit up to 60 watts of power to a distance of up to two to three feet while only losing around 25% of the power during transmission.

A major concern of any wireless power technology is its possible effects on users. Fortunately during the demonstration the electricity was broadcast without electrocuting anyone who passed between the transmitter and the receiver. Intel’s lead researcher Josh Smith explained that, "The trick with wireless power is not that you can do it; it is that you can do it safely and efficiently." Magnetic fields, used by Intel’s WREL technology do not affect the human body (at least as far as we currently know), unlike electric fields, which might give the user a zap.

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The YouTube Presidency

By Jose Antonio Vargas
The White House has gone YouTube.

Today, President-elect Obama will record the weekly Democratic address not just on radio but also on video -- a first. The address, typically four minutes long, will be turned into a YouTube video and posted on Obama's transition site, Change.gov, once the radio address is made public on Saturday morning.

The address will be taped at the transition office in Chicago today.

"This is just one of many ways that he will communicate directly with the American people and make the White House and the political process more transparent," spokeswoman Jen Psaki told us last night.

In addition to regularly videotaping the radio address, officials at the transition office say the Obama White House will also conduct online Q&As and video interviews. The goal, officials say, is to put a face on government. In the following weeks, for example, senior members of the transition team, various policy experts and choices for the Cabinet, among others, will record videos for Change.gov.

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