Well, the technique could be applied in other areas, but optimizing is still not the same as fixing. The headline implies a solution to a much larger and more difficult problem than the researchers were actually trying to address, so it's effectively clickbait. I for one would not have clicked through if the headline had been accurate.
I'd have to agree with this. Low-level "close to the metal" programming is something I have very little experience with, but based on my understanding, this research has extremely limited scope. The technique relied on what is essentially prior knowledge of the implementation. This doesn't mean it isn't very useful for companies like Adobe...it is. However, it does not look like anyone intended for this to be broadly applicable.
The optimizations themselves are pretty domain-specific, but the techniques used to instrument and modify the target program are - as you yourself point out in another comment - pretty widely applicable. That's where the real innovation lies.
The confusion arises from the apostrophe that implied that IrfanView somehow belongs to Microsoft Windows (it doesn't). I almost made the same mistake while reading quickly.
