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OpenAI says its AI models can help banks and government agencies rewrite software built on outdated programming languages like COBOL. The company is positioning its technology as a tool to automate the translation and updating of legacy codebases that underpin critical financial infrastructure.
OpenAI says its newer models show large improvements writing and migrating code in older languages like COBOL, Fortran and Visual Basic. Using its new MultiLangBench test, GPT-6 Astra scored an average 87.4% pass rate versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol, with COBOL jumping from 10.9% to 72.1%. Separately, GPT-6.1 Sol reportedly reached 86.6% accuracy migrating COBOL to modern languages at low reasoning effort, rising to 97.9% at higher effort.
Nvidia will roll out an updated DLSS 5 model starting with an NBA 2K27 patch on October 16, claiming it doubles rendering performance and increases overall frame rates by up to 40% while cutting 4K VRAM usage by 20%. The company says all future DLSS 5 titles will use this faster model by default, with Hogwarts Legacy gaining support on November 5, Where Winds Meet also receiving it, and classic games getting neural rendering via RTX Remix from October 23.
Nvidia has released new comparison screenshots showing a less aggressive version of DLSS 5 for Hogwarts Legacy, which will ship with the feature on November 5th. The earlier demo had drawn criticism for making a 15-year-old student look like a middle-aged man, but the new images show more subtle facial and environmental changes. Nvidia is also rolling out an October update that shrinks the DLSS 5 model by 24 percent and cuts 4K VRAM usage by 20 percent, debuting first in NBA 2K27 on October 16th.
A Kyndryl survey of 2,000 senior IT decision-makers found that just 10% are applying agentic AI to modernization efforts, even as decades-long attempts to update legacy systems continue to fall short. The survey found only about half of companies modernizing report improved IT operations, less than half see innovation gains, and nearly one in five say the benefits were limited or unclear, with many projects running late and over budget.
A programmer published a personal essay describing growing unease as the industry moves toward 'vibecoding' and AI-assisted architecture design, away from hands-on, detail-oriented coding. The post traces the author's eight-year journey into low-level programming, cycle counting, and writing machine code by hand, and laments that these skills are becoming less valued. The author frames it explicitly as a personal journal entry rather than industry analysis.
New research finds that 178 major fossil fuel companies have already released enough greenhouse gases to continue raising global temperatures for centuries, even if all of them halted emissions immediately. The study attributes this locked-in warming to carbon already emitted and persisting in the atmosphere, rather than to any future activity.
IEEE is launching its inaugural International Leadership Conference on October 3-4 in Budapest, aimed at helping senior technical professionals transition into leadership roles. The event centers on the concept of 'legacy leadership,' which redefines success as mentoring others and transferring knowledge rather than personal technical achievement. Registration for the conference is currently open.
A product commentary argues that consumer financial apps repeatedly default to building generic 'document hub' and 'notifications centre' features to satisfy internal stakeholders and legacy compliance needs. The author says these features start simple but balloon into complex, Google Drive- or Gmail-like systems requiring ongoing maintenance and security work. The piece frames refusing to build such features as one of the most important product decisions a team can make.
Actor and entrepreneur Elizabeth Banks joined Archer Roose, a canned wine company, as an investor and chief creative officer. Alongside founder and CEO Marian Leitner-Waldman, she has taken an active role in reshaping the brand's marketing and public image within the traditional wine industry.
A newly published Show HN project analyzed roughly 1,000 real browser viewport measurements and found that displays marketed as 1080p typically render usable browser content at around 920 pixels of height, once toolbars, address bars, and OS chrome are accounted for. The dataset organizes results by device environment, withholding rankings until each category collects enough samples, and separates out anomalies and legacy tablet data to keep results accurate.
NSF NOIRLab's DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys team has published DR11, a 5.6-trillion-pixel map spanning 75% of the night sky and cataloging roughly 4 billion celestial objects. Built from 263,407 ground-based exposures gathered by 160 scientists, the release expands coverage by 50% over DR9 and restores northern-sky data missing from DR10, and it's freely accessible for public exploration.