Imagine never needing to update an app or operating system ever again. That's what Darpa wants to give to the world.

The computer system that Darpa is developing is aimed at lasting the next 100 years of technological change – developing itself as it goes.

The idea is that software will no longer need to be updated when other changes are made, like an app updating to work with a new operating system. Instead the software will be adaptive and able to change to suit the resources and environments available to them.

The software will be able to dynamically adapt to changes not only in software but hardware too.

The project is called Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems which has been typically shortened to Brass. It will be a four-year project that has just begun and is currently seeking pitches on ideas.

Darpa describes the project: "The goal of the Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems program (BRASS) is to realise foundational advances in the design and implementation of long-lived, survivable and complex software systems that are robust to changes in the physical and logical resources provided by their ecosystem."

So don't expect this level of tech, which sounds almost artificial intelligence like, to filter down to civilian gadgets for sometime. This will likely be primarily for the military once it is cracked. But once it does it could end up putting a lot of tech support workers out of jobs if it becomes as adaptive as Darpa wants it to be.

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