GoKawiil
Tech News
A software essay pushes back on the idea that programs were better built in earlier decades, arguing that Windows-era software crashed constantly despite near-universal market dominance. The author, a computer user since 1990, cites recurring crashes and the infamous Blue Screen of Death as evidence that nostalgia for 'the good old days' of software quality is misplaced.
Anthropic, working with Theorem, reports using its Claude models to generate formal mathematical proofs of security properties for more than 100 real-world open-source software libraries at the RISC-V assembly level. The company says this is the first large-scale attempt to apply AI-driven formal verification to production software at that level, and that Claude uncovered previously undetected bugs in the process.
Google's September Pixel Drop brought Android 17 QPR1 to Pixel phones this week, adding minor features alongside a wave of user complaints about new bugs. Reported issues span performance slowdowns, connectivity failures, display glitches, and unexpected UI behavior, though it's unclear how widespread the problems actually are.
A reader survey of 3,649 respondents found that 51.9% had a flawless experience with their Google Pixel phones, despite recent high-profile reports of battery drain, overheating, and bricking issues. About 23.1% reported problems with previous Pixel models, while 8% specifically cited issues with the new Pixel 11 Pro, and 17% of respondents don't own a Pixel at all.
A recent essay examines why most people who encounter software bugs simply complain instead of filing a report, often letting the same bug affect them repeatedly. The author argues that bugs rarely affect just one user, and that developers frequently cannot reproduce issues that arise from unfamiliar configurations or unusual usage patterns.
A software engineer describes a decade-long pattern of noticing hundreds to thousands of software bugs weekly that most colleagues and users simply don't perceive. He explains that companies sometimes hire him specifically to test products because he reliably surfaces defects others miss, ranging from minor glitches to cases where products are effectively broken despite internal claims that everything works fine.