tech:

taffy

Raytheon Snags $7.8M DARPA Contract To Make Software Last 100 Years

Raytheon BBN Technologies, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raytheon, is developing methods to make mobile applications viable for up to 100 years; despite changes in hardware, operating system upgrades and supporting services. The U.S. Air Force is sponsoring the four-year, $7.8 million contract under the Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

“Mobile apps are pervasive in the military, but frequent operating system upgrades, new devices and changing missions and environments require manual software engineering that is expensive and causes unacceptable delays,” said Partha Pal, principal scientist at Raytheon BBN. “We are developing techniques to eliminate these interruptions by identifying the way these changes affect application functionality and modifying the software.”

To provide software usefulness for many years, the Raytheon-led team, which also includes Securboration, Oregon State University, Vanderbilt University and Syracuse University, plans to:

  • Develop a set of static and dynamic discovery techniques to identify the ways in which changes in the application’s ecosystem can affect the software’s functionality;
  • Develop a set of transformation technologies that modify the software as needed to adapt to these changes;
  • Create a software framework to demonstrate and evaluate software evolution in response to ecosystem changes.

These advances could lead to long-lived software systems that satisfy critical customer needs over generations of devices and emerging missions, according to a statement by Raytheon.

[Image courtesy: Raytheon]

Just in

Apple sued in a landmark iPhone monopoly lawsuit — CNN

The US Justice Department and more than a dozen states filed a blockbuster antitrust lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, accusing the giant company of illegally monopolizing the smartphone market, writes Brian Fung, Hannah Rabinowitz and Evan Perez.

Google is bringing satellite messaging to Android 15 — The Verge

Google’s second developer preview for Android 15 has arrived, bringing long-awaited support for satellite connectivity alongside several improvements to contactless payments, multi-language recognition, volume consistency, and interaction with PDFs via apps, writes Jess Weatherbed. 

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman is paid more than the heads of Meta, Pinterest, and Snap — combined — QZ

Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman has been blasted by Redditors and in media reports over his recently-revealed, super-sized pay package of $193 million in 2023, writes Laura Bratton. 

British AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman joins Microsoft — BBC

Microsoft has announced British Artificial Intelligence pioneer Mustafa Suleyman will lead its newly-formed division, Microsoft AI, according to the BBC report. 

UnitedHealth Group has paid more than $2 billion to providers following cyberattack — CNBC

UnitedHealth Group said Monday that it’s paid out more than $2 billion to help health-care providers who have been affected by the cyberattack on subsidiary Change Healthcare, writes Ashley Capoot.