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Smart software fixes bugs by 'borrowing' from other apps

The days of waiting anxiously for bug fixes (assuming they come at all) might soon be over. MIT developers have built a system, CodePhage, that automatically patches flaws by borrowing features from other apps. The tool scans apps to see how they perform security checks, and imports any superior techniques it finds -- whether or not they're written in the same programming language. It doesn't need access to the source code to see what makes something tick, and it'll even check that any fixes are working the way you'd expect. While this is still early and likely wouldn't address every glitch, the hope is that you'll get software which perpetually improves itself. You wouldn't have to worry about security exploits so long as they've been fixed in at least one other program.

[Image credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT]