https://techxplore.com/rss-feed/software-news/ en-us The latest news on the software, software development, software sciences and computer science. A user who is frustrated with changes a social media company made to their favorite messaging platform, like the introduction of an annoying AI chatbot, can't do much to address the situation short of leaving the platform. Now, MIT researchers are offering an alternative path. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-socialwiki-users-reshape-social-apps.html Software Thu, 29 Oct 2026 09:20:09 EDT news712483561 Smart contracts are computer programs that run on blockchains and carry out agreements automatically, like a vending machine that releases a product once payment is made. Today they power cryptocurrency payments, online lending and exchange services, digital collectibles and more, often holding large sums of money directly. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-bug-ai-flaws-smart.html Software Mon, 26 Oct 2026 10:20:19 EDT news712227121 In the future, quantum computers could solve complex problems where today's computers fall short, for example, in the development of new materials or supply-chain planning. To date, however, the systems have been prone to errors and their use is mainly limited to research labs. Moreover, software development standards are still lacking. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-blueprint-future-quantum-software.html Software Thu, 22 Oct 2026 12:20:21 EDT news711889802 An integrated design framework developed in Korea can analyze "ship survivability"—a naval vessel's ability to avoid enemy attack, withstand damage when hit, restore key functions after damage and continue its mission. The key achievement is the integration of survivability analyses that had previously been performed using separate software tools into a single software environment. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-software-warships-recover.html Software Tue, 20 Oct 2026 07:20:02 EDT news711698174 A car is a computer on wheels. It communicates with the car manufacturer's cloud services, the driver's phone and charging stations, and when children stream movies in the back seat, data travels over the internet. All these connections can become entry points for hackers into the car. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-car-weakest.html Software Mon, 19 Oct 2026 11:00:28 EDT news711626101 Some artificial intelligence agents can modify the programs and instructions governing their own work, with the goal of improving performance. These changes, however, can introduce errors, while testing unsuccessful modifications consumes resources. Researchers at the University of Virginia, Microsoft Research and Tsinghua University recently developed forecasting software that helps AI agents anticipate the consequences of proposed edits before testing the modified software. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-ai-agents-errors-software.html Software Fri, 16 Oct 2026 10:00:01 EDT news711362105 Researchers at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) framework that automates the creation of complex decision-making software, cutting development time from months of specialized engineering to about an hour. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-ai-custom-decision-software-hour.html Software Fri, 09 Oct 2026 12:20:01 EDT news710759855 Autonomous-driving systems must process large volumes of sensor data and generate vehicle-control commands within strict time limits. As vehicles increasingly become software-defined, their development often involves multiple software platforms with different characteristics. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-10-cloud-based-platform-delays-complex.html Software Sat, 03 Oct 2026 08:00:24 EDT news710164688 Addiction, violence, aggression, social withdrawal: Video games have been in the crosshairs for a litany of negative impacts. Researchers at Macquarie University, however, are working on the premise that video games can have positive impacts, too—that just as pilots use simulators to learn and hone their flight skills, people could use video games to develop their moral skills. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-video-games-people.html Software Tue, 29 Sep 2026 19:40:01 EDT news709902442 Microsoft on Friday unveiled a new vision for integrating Word, Excel and PowerPoint into its AI-powered assistant Copilot, in an effort to make AI the entry point for its productivity software. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-microsoft-word-excel-deeply-copilot.html Software Sat, 26 Sep 2026 06:00:04 EDT news709618697 Multiple AI companies have recently disclosed that their own AI agents broke into real organizations without being directed to, in a worrying trend that suggests AI safety is taking a back seat as companies race to develop leading AI models. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-tech-companies-responsible-ai.html Software Fri, 25 Sep 2026 09:40:09 EDT news709546395 Before users can interact with computer software, its source code must be converted into executable binaries and software packages, a task handled by specialized tools known as build systems. Build systems are a fundamental component of modern software development. They have evolved into complex distributed systems that manage dependencies, optimize resources and ensure correctness across large-scale projects. Studies have shown that build maintenance can consume up to 27% of a developer's time in large projects. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-mkcheck2-highly-efficient-accurate-approach.html Software Fri, 25 Sep 2026 07:20:01 EDT news709538942 Researchers from the IMDEA Materials Institute and the Technical University of Madrid have developed a mathematical model that corrects the overestimated crack area obtained in computational simulations of phase-field fracture problems. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-mathematical-method-area-overestimation-phase.html Software Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:22:19 EDT news709298480 A psychology study that once took five or six weeks to build can now be created in less than an hour. Jacob Oliveira, a Ph.D. student in the School of Psychology, developed the new tool by aiming to solve his own research challenge. Now his solution has grown into a venture shaped in part by Waterloo's culture of experimentation and entrepreneurship. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-code-platform-customize.html Software Sat, 19 Sep 2026 08:00:06 EDT news708868470 Open source software underpins much of the modern digital world, from mobile phones and automobiles to cloud computing and artificial intelligence. Now, the rapid adoption of AI is creating new opportunities to improve that software while placing growing pressure on the people responsible for maintaining and securing it, according to a new TechBrief from the Association for Computing Machinery's Technology Policy Council (TPC). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-ai-reshaping-source-software-straining.html Software Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:40:01 EDT news708761450 AI is advancing rapidly. One of the major shifts in the field is that, instead of single chatbots performing individual tasks, teams of autonomous agents work together by communicating with each other, sharing tools and accessing shared knowledge libraries. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-ai-agents-math-problems.html Software Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:20:04 EDT news708747695 As a child, you likely saw a few Disney movies depicting inanimate objects, such as clocks, cups and toys, as interactive companions to humans—an act of pure magic, seemingly. But scientists at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) are now doing something similar: transforming stationary items into self-aware tools that perceive and respond to human motion to complete a task. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-software-reimagines-everyday-aware-devices.html Software Mon, 14 Sep 2026 12:00:07 EDT news708604981 Networks are everywhere. They connect computers across the internet, carry electricity through power grids and represent transport routes for moving people and goods. Yet many problems that appear to have nothing to do with networks can also be represented and solved as networks. Examples include matching passengers with drivers in a ride-hailing app or distributing computing tasks across servers. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-randomness-vast-network-problems.html Software Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:40:03 EDT news708345421 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), UAE technology company K2 and autonomous systems specialist Alp Autonomy have won the world's first multi-car autonomous race held in Europe after their joint entry, Team Kinetiz, took first place at Italy's Imola Circuit on Sept. 5. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-driverless-cars-wheel-europe.html Software Thu, 10 Sep 2026 16:40:09 EDT news708276661 Turbulence can make a flight unpleasant or, in severe cases, dangerous. A turbulence avoidance tool created by researchers at the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) is making flights safer by providing pilots with information that can help them avoid turbulence in real time. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-takeoff-smoother-skies-turbulence-tool.html Software Thu, 10 Sep 2026 16:00:09 EDT news708272941 New research suggests that generative artificial intelligence (AI) could weaken not only employment opportunities for junior software developers but also the pathway through which they develop into senior professionals. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-ai-junior-coding-tasks-weaken.html Software Thu, 10 Sep 2026 13:40:01 EDT news708263881 A guiding principle for many software engineers—"What you see is what you get" —means creating programs where the content you're editing looks the same as the final product. But when you're using generative AI (genAI) systems to 3D-print, say, a mug, you'll likely get a cup that can't hold your coffee. Why is that? https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-software-tool-users-ai-generated.html Software Wed, 09 Sep 2026 15:20:04 EDT news708185941 When a website loads quickly or an operating system runs smoothly, you can thank caching—a widely used computing process for fast data access that works by storing frequently used pieces of data in a computer's memory. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-09-year-strategy-ai-era-centers.html Software Wed, 09 Sep 2026 14:40:09 EDT news708183421 Rockstar Games on Thursday launched, for the first time on Netflix, a preview of its hotly anticipated next installment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, which will be released in November after a monthslong delay and recent leaks. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-guns-drugs-car-gta-preview.html Software Fri, 28 Aug 2026 06:00:01 EDT news707109019 Some video game fans are flabbergasted at Sony's decision, announced at Germany's Gamescom trade show, to discontinue disc sales starting in 2028—leading to calls for a boycott. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-era-players-lament-decline-disc.html Software Fri, 28 Aug 2026 04:50:01 EDT news707108994 A face-recognition system that can identify people even if they are wearing a face mask covering their nose and mouth is discussed in the International Journal of Computational Vision and Robotics. The new system uses biometrics from around the eyes and forehead. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-masked-eyes-forehead.html Software Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:20:03 EDT news707051101 Model checking helps automatically verify whether hardware and software systems satisfy specified requirements. It has become an important formal verification technique, but two major challenges remain: state-space explosion, which limits the size of systems that can be checked, and long verification times. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-conquer-approach-advances-reliability-scalable.html Software Wed, 26 Aug 2026 14:40:09 EDT news706972921 Imagine finding a very old family photograph that has faded over time. Parts of the image are missing, the faces are blurry, and years spent inside a cardboard album have erased many details. Restoring such an image traditionally would require painstaking manual work or specialized software trained on thousands of examples. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-stage-ai-rebuilds-blurred-facial.html Software Thu, 20 Aug 2026 10:00:13 EDT news706438616 URL scanning services are now a common component of modern security workflows. They help detect phishing websites or malware early and warn users before they visit a URL. However, the practice of some of these services—publishing scanned URLs—can inadvertently expose sensitive user data. CISPA researcher Ali Mustafa, together with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy and Ca' Foscari University of Venice, conducted the first systematic investigation of the risks arising from this practice. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-factor-privacy-url-scanning.html Software Fri, 07 Aug 2026 12:40:09 EDT news705323885 Many software tools, including compilers, optimizers and synthesizers, have a common task at their core. They must transform long, complicated programs into simplified equivalents. These scaled-down programs run faster and on a wider range of hardware but must deliver the same results as their original versions. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-optimizing-software-professor-egg-downsizes.html Software Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:40:24 EDT news705234721