In what may be the most dramatic example of hardware "embrace and extend" to date, Altera announced at the ARM developer's conference yesterday that it had reached an agreement with Intel to manufacture Altera quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 chips using Intel's latest 14nm technology. Forbes claimed to have an exclusive scoop on the announcement, although Mark LaPedus at Chip Design reported on the agreement with Intel back in February.
Forbes cast the story as one of Intel rushing to catch up in the mobile market. The true nature of the beast, however, is far more nuanced.
Under the terms of this agreement, Intel isn't going to design or sell an ARM chip. Rather, Intel has agreed to use its state-of-the-art 14nm foundries to build chips for Altera. The foundry business is highly competitive -- TSMC and United Microelectronics (UMC) in Taiwan and California-based GlobalFoundries are all full-time foundries. Samsung in South Korea has an enormous foundry division. Intel's tossing its hat into the ring to compete with those foundries and several smaller ones, using its brand-new 14nm fabs in Oregon, Arizona, and Ireland.
In other words, Intel's not competing against ARM -- at least, not with this contract -- it's competing against TSMC, UMC, GlobalFoundries, and Samsung.
Part of Intel's motivation may have more to do with excess plant capacity than a driving need to build Intel-stamped ARM competitors. Jason Mick at Daily Tech explained earlier this month that Intel had to delay its 14nm Broadwell chips to Q1 2014 because of problems shrinking the Haswell/Broadwell die from 22nm to 14nm. Reading between the lines, it looks like the delay left Intel with excess 14nm manufacturing capacity -- at least until next year.
Don't be misled. Intel still wants to eat ARM's lunch, and its efforts to produce a souped-up version of Intel's Atom processor, called Quark, continue unabated. Quark, we're told, will be one-fifth the size of Atom and consume one-tenth as much power. While Intel will initially manufacture Quarks at its own fabs, at some point the system will be licensed out to third parties. Intel's stealing a page from ARM's playbook.
So yes, one day you could see an Intel-based Quark chip manufactured by, oh, TSMC. Just as you could see an Apple A7 chip or Qualcomm Snapdragon or Nvidia Tegra -- all ARM based -- manufactured by Intel.
The nature of the chip business is changing quickly. Let the competition begin.
Quarterly earnings season continues, and this time it's the turn of Sprint with their Q3 2013 results. All-in-all it isn't a great quarter for the carrier, though operating losses may have shrunk, it's the declining subscriber numbers that will potentially sound the most alarm bells. On a positive note for Sprint, and for Apple, it seems iPhone sales are doing OK.
Sprint sold nearly 1.4 million iPhones® during the quarter of which 40 percent were to new customers.
Perhaps the full effect of the iPhone 5s launch is yet to be felt, but the iPhone does at least continue to attract a healthy number of new customers to Sprint. And for Apple, that's 1.4 million units to throw into their own figures.
Did you pick up a new iPhone on Sprint this quarter? How's your experience been with both phone and carrier?
MUHC researchers identify biomarkers that could lead to early diagnosis of colorectal cancer
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Julie Robert julie.robert@muhc.mcgill.ca 514-934-1934 x71381 McGill University Health Centre
This news release is available in French.
MONTREAL, October 30, 2013 Diagnosing colorectal cancer (CRC) is complex; it relies on significant invasive tests and subjective evaluations. This process may soon become much easier thanks to a medical breakthrough by scientists at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). The researchers have identified genetic changes in the colon lining, or mucosa, in colorectal cancer patients that could be used as biomarkers of the disease. That will allow doctors to diagnose patients earlier, more accurately and less invasively. The study, recently published online, in Cancer Prevention Research, has implications for the nearly one million people diagnosed annually worldwide.
"The gold standard of diagnosis is currently colonoscopy," says corresponding author of the study, Dr. Rima Rozen, a geneticist from the Departments of Human Genetics and Pediatrics at The Montreal Children's Hospital of the MUHC and McGill University. "This is an invasive procedure, where the physician looks for abnormal tissue or growths also known as polyps." Additionally, given surging demand for colonoscopies, this research may ultimately offer an alternative option for early diagnosis, paving the way for the reduction in wait time.
According to Dr. Rozen, who is also a researcher of the Medical Genetics and Genomics Axis at the RI-MUHC, having genetic biomarkers of CRC will enhance the diagnostic procedure. "This new method could help to avoid false negative findings, which can occur in 10 to 15 per cent of endoscopic procedures," she says. "The key is using the right genes. I believe the ones we have identified are good candidates."
Dr. Rozen and her colleagues first identified five possible abnormal marker genes in a colon cancer mouse model. They then confirmed that these candidate biomarker genes were also abnormal in tissue obtained from colon cancer patients. "Not only did this show that our mouse model mimics the human disease," says Dr. Rozen. "But more importantly, it identified genes that could be used for colorectal cancer diagnosis."
Interestingly, the abnormal patterns of these genes were detected in otherwise normal colon cells that were not near the tumor site. "CRC develops in different stages," says Dr. Rozen. "This finding suggests that it may be possible to take tissue samples in more accessible regions of the gastrointestinal tract or, ideally, in blood or stool, and look for biomarkers as an early indicator of disease."
###
About colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer also known as bowel or colon cancer refers to the abnormal cell growth in the colon (intestine) and rectum. The abnormal cells can develop into benign (non-cancerous) tumours called polyps. Although not all polyps develop into colorectal cancer, colorectal cancer almost always develops from a polyp. Over time, genes in the polyp mutate and cells within them become malignant (cancerous). Colorectal cancer is the most common cancer in developed countries.
About the study:
The study, Genes with aberrant expression in murine preneoplastic intestine show epigenetic and expression changes in normal mucosa of colon cancer patients, was co-authored by Daniel Leclerc, Nancy Lvesque, Yuanhang Cao, Liyuan Deng, Qing Wu, and Rima Rozen of the RI-MUHC, Montreal and Jasmine Powell and Carmen Sapienza of the Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia.
This research was made possible thanks to funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Related links:
For more information please contact:
Julie Robert
Public Affairs and Strategic Planning
McGill University Health Centre
t: 514-843-1560
e: julie.robert@muhc.mcgill.ca
facebook.com/cusm.muhc | http://www.muhc.ca
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MUHC researchers identify biomarkers that could lead to early diagnosis of colorectal cancer
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
30-Oct-2013
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]
Share
Contact: Julie Robert julie.robert@muhc.mcgill.ca 514-934-1934 x71381 McGill University Health Centre
This news release is available in French.
MONTREAL, October 30, 2013 Diagnosing colorectal cancer (CRC) is complex; it relies on significant invasive tests and subjective evaluations. This process may soon become much easier thanks to a medical breakthrough by scientists at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC). The researchers have identified genetic changes in the colon lining, or mucosa, in colorectal cancer patients that could be used as biomarkers of the disease. That will allow doctors to diagnose patients earlier, more accurately and less invasively. The study, recently published online, in Cancer Prevention Research, has implications for the nearly one million people diagnosed annually worldwide.
"The gold standard of diagnosis is currently colonoscopy," says corresponding author of the study, Dr. Rima Rozen, a geneticist from the Departments of Human Genetics and Pediatrics at The Montreal Children's Hospital of the MUHC and McGill University. "This is an invasive procedure, where the physician looks for abnormal tissue or growths also known as polyps." Additionally, given surging demand for colonoscopies, this research may ultimately offer an alternative option for early diagnosis, paving the way for the reduction in wait time.
According to Dr. Rozen, who is also a researcher of the Medical Genetics and Genomics Axis at the RI-MUHC, having genetic biomarkers of CRC will enhance the diagnostic procedure. "This new method could help to avoid false negative findings, which can occur in 10 to 15 per cent of endoscopic procedures," she says. "The key is using the right genes. I believe the ones we have identified are good candidates."
Dr. Rozen and her colleagues first identified five possible abnormal marker genes in a colon cancer mouse model. They then confirmed that these candidate biomarker genes were also abnormal in tissue obtained from colon cancer patients. "Not only did this show that our mouse model mimics the human disease," says Dr. Rozen. "But more importantly, it identified genes that could be used for colorectal cancer diagnosis."
Interestingly, the abnormal patterns of these genes were detected in otherwise normal colon cells that were not near the tumor site. "CRC develops in different stages," says Dr. Rozen. "This finding suggests that it may be possible to take tissue samples in more accessible regions of the gastrointestinal tract or, ideally, in blood or stool, and look for biomarkers as an early indicator of disease."
###
About colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer also known as bowel or colon cancer refers to the abnormal cell growth in the colon (intestine) and rectum. The abnormal cells can develop into benign (non-cancerous) tumours called polyps. Although not all polyps develop into colorectal cancer, colorectal cancer almost always develops from a polyp. Over time, genes in the polyp mutate and cells within them become malignant (cancerous). Colorectal cancer is the most common cancer in developed countries.
About the study:
The study, Genes with aberrant expression in murine preneoplastic intestine show epigenetic and expression changes in normal mucosa of colon cancer patients, was co-authored by Daniel Leclerc, Nancy Lvesque, Yuanhang Cao, Liyuan Deng, Qing Wu, and Rima Rozen of the RI-MUHC, Montreal and Jasmine Powell and Carmen Sapienza of the Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia.
This research was made possible thanks to funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Related links:
For more information please contact:
Julie Robert
Public Affairs and Strategic Planning
McGill University Health Centre
t: 514-843-1560
e: julie.robert@muhc.mcgill.ca
facebook.com/cusm.muhc | http://www.muhc.ca
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| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
The Kardashian/Jenner clan knows how to celebrate in style. With Kendall Jenner's 18th birthday less than a week away (her actual birthday is Nov. 3), the whole motley crue spent the afternoon of Oct. 29 at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, Calif. to celebrate the model's big day.
The family rented out the entire park, and took full advantage of the thrill-inducing rides, including several roller coasters -- and sharing the experience, naturally, via Keek and Instagram videos. Kendall and her sister Kylie, 16, also rode a wild ride called SlingShot, which catapults seated passengers into the air with bungee cords.
Kris Jenner posts a selfie with Bruce, Brody, and Brandon Jenner at Kendall Jenner's 18th birthday celebration at Magic Mountain on Oct. 29. Credit: Courtesy of Kris Jenner
After Kris Jenner attended Bruce Jenner's birthday party on Oct. 27, the separated couple once again amicably bonded to enjoy Kendall's special night. The momager posted a selfie with Bruce, Brody, and Brandon Jenner, captioning it, "Great night at Magic Mountain! @sprandoni @brodyjenner Bruce #happybirthdaykendall."
The couple announced the end of their 22-year marriage on the Oct. 21 cover of Us Weekly, but since then have seemed chummier than ever, attending numerous family functions together.
Also in attendance at Kendall's bash was the newly-engaged Kim Kardashian. The mom of 4-month-old North West posted a Keek video while riding a roller coaster in the park. No word on whether her fiancé Kanye West partook in the festivities. His Yeezus Tour finished two Los Angeles shows on Oct. 28 and continues on Halloween in Vancouver.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Computer-maker Lenovo has hired tech-savvy actor Ashton Kutcher to help design and pitch its latest line of tablets, dubbing the Hollywood star a "product engineer" who can bring his ideas along with his image.
It's the latest tech foray for the "Two and a Half Men" performer who recently starred in a biopic about innovative giant Steve Jobs and has invested venture capital in more than a dozen Silicon Valley startups.
The deal was announced Tuesday at a Lenovo live-streamed event in Los Angeles. Lenovo's first video advertisements for the new Yoga Tablet feature Kutcher acting as a product tester in his boxers, a spacesuit and aboard an airplane.
Kutcher also has appeared in advertisements in recent years for snack chips and cameras.
Amazon Cloud Player Desktop App Now Available for Mac A Simple, Smart, Fast Way to Enjoy Your Entire Music Library from Your Desktop – Online or Offline
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 29, 2013-- (NASDAQ:AMZN)- Following the successful release of Amazon Cloud Player for PC earlier this year, Amazon.com, Inc. today announced the availability of Amazon Cloud Player for Mac. The new app provides Mac users with a seamless way to manage their entire music library – whether saved on their computer or in the cloud – and shop from the Amazon MP3 Store with a catalog of more than 25 million songs.
Amazon Cloud Player for Mac features include:
One-place for all your music: Play your Amazon and iTunes music all from one place, even when offline. A music library that is always up-to-date: Cloud Player automatically detects and adds new music to your library even if you bought it from iTunes or ripped a CD. The app does all the work for you. An integrated MP3 Store: You can shop from the Amazon MP3 catalog of more than 25 million songs and discover new music with personalized recommendations, all without having to leave the app. AutoRip: Buy an AutoRip CD or vinyl record from Amazon and a free MP3 version of the album will be added to your Cloud Player for Mac library. Built for speed: Forget bloated players with extra features you don't need or use. Cloud Player for Mac is lean, mean and made for your music. It'll get you from launch to play in seconds. Music management made simple: Download your MP3 purchases automatically or with one click. Export your music to other music players. Create and manage playlists using simple drag-and-drop. Instant search & play: Find music easily and quickly. Type anywhere to search for an artist, album or song and play directly from the search results. Rich artist content: See artist photos, bios, tweets, and gorgeous, large album art. Anywhere access: Music purchased using Amazon Cloud Player for Mac is securely backed up in the cloud for free and made instantly available on any Kindle Fire, Android phone or tablet, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Samsung TV, Roku, Sonos, PC or web browser. "Amazon Cloud Player offers customers the easiest way to enjoy their music across all their devices," said Steve Boom, Vice President of Digital Music for Amazon. "Our customers have told us they love our PC desktop app, and we are excited to bring the same great experience to our Mac customers."
Amazon Cloud Player for Mac is available today for free at amazon.com/getcloudplayer.
This week in Molecular Biology and Evolution: A step ahead of influenza, honeybee sex
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
29-Oct-2013
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Contact: Joe Caspemeyer MBEpress@gmail.com 480-258-8972 Molecular Biology and Evolution (Oxford University Press)
Staying a step ahead of influenza
Every fall, the latest batch of flu vaccines attempts to keep society a step ahead of the evolution of the flu virus. Heroic worldwide surveillance efforts have avoided a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic, but as shown in the recent H1N1 outbreak, viruses can still outwit even the best public health efforts.
During the H1N1 outbreak, antiviral drugs offered the only hope against emergent flu strains. Two drug classes: adamantanes (FDA approved in 1966) and neuraminidase inhibitors (oseltamivir, FDA approved in 1999) represent two classes of drugs that target viral an ion channel and a cell surface antigen, respectively, hereby preventing or treating infection.
In an ambitious study, the authors attempt to trace drug resistance against all strains of the flu by using an extensive influenza virus database containing all known genetic sequence information (70,000 complete nucleotide sequences) for influenza strains. Using a phylogenetic approach, authors Vanessa Garcia and Stphane Aris-Brosou examined the evolutionary history of antiviral drug resistance. "Although the approaches employed in our study are not novel in themselves, the scale of the analyses is unprecedented and allowed us to track in public databases the dynamics of all known mutations involved in drug resistance", reported the senior author.
How does the virus outwit two leading antiviral therapies? Widespread use of these drugs has led to the emergence of drug resistance. Most disconcerting, recent "dual resistance" viruses dodge both drugs, leaving us defenseless against the virus. While adamantane resistance mutations appeared readily, it took 15-38 years after FDA approval to emerge, but emerged 3 times, whereas, the less spontaneous oseltamivir mutations took at most 7 years, serving as a public health cautionary tail. The authors support the judicious use of antiviral drugs as a last line of defense against influenza to avoid the spread of dual resistance, which is already circulating in H1N1 viruses in humans. "Our results also suggest that most of the mutations leading to influenza drug resistance are on the wane, so that recent efforts in controlling drug use are paying off, but we should remain vigilant," commented Stphane Aris-Brosou.
Everything you wanted to know about honeybee sex
There is an exquisite genetic control behind a honeybee's fate in the hive---from the lowly drone to the almighty queen---which literally, represents the bees knees for evolutionary scientists exploring how multiple mutations, or alleles, of a single gene called the complementary sex determiner (csd) can have a profound influence on honeybee society.
Unlike people, there are no X and Y sex chromosomes for bees. Rather, sex is determined by a single gene csd and its allelic composition and whether or not a queen bee choses to fertilize her eggs. Female bees (queens or workers) come from fertilized eggs, receiving always two different (heterozygote) copies of csd. Fertile males always come from unfertilized eggs, receiving only one copy of csd. Two identical (homozygote) copies of csd in fertilized eggs is always lethal; these individuals are being killed at the early larval stage by worker bees as they would develop into diploid males which do not contribute to colony fitness.
Lechner, et al., have now examined the exquisite molecular control behind the sex determination, finely identifying and tracing back a comprehensive number of csd alleles to create a richer understanding of the variability of the csd gene over evolutionary time. They looked at a data set of 244 csd sequences from queens, worker bees and drones, and showed that the total number of csd alleles found in bees ranges from at least 53 (locally) to 87 (worldwide), which is much higher than previously reported (20). Using an evolutionary model, they also extrapolated the presence of total 116-145 csd alleles worldwide, a great example of the enormous sequence variability within csd. They were able to finely decipher the minimum number of mutations leading to heterozygous csd, identify faster evolving hot spots within the csd gene, and how these may contribute to variability.
"Comprehensive insights into the sequence variability of the sex determining gene csd in honeybees elucidate the evolutionary processes that lead to the enormous number of csd-alleles found worldwide," said Hasselmann
Finally, they traced the data back over evolutionary time and found that a novel csd function affecting sex determination arises about every 400,000 years. The study provides one of the most comprehensive views of the enormous genetic diversity and the evolutionary forces shaping sex determination in bees, as well as how changes in csd affect honey bee colony fitness.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
This week in Molecular Biology and Evolution: A step ahead of influenza, honeybee sex
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
29-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Joe Caspemeyer MBEpress@gmail.com 480-258-8972 Molecular Biology and Evolution (Oxford University Press)
Staying a step ahead of influenza
Every fall, the latest batch of flu vaccines attempts to keep society a step ahead of the evolution of the flu virus. Heroic worldwide surveillance efforts have avoided a repeat of the 1918 flu pandemic, but as shown in the recent H1N1 outbreak, viruses can still outwit even the best public health efforts.
During the H1N1 outbreak, antiviral drugs offered the only hope against emergent flu strains. Two drug classes: adamantanes (FDA approved in 1966) and neuraminidase inhibitors (oseltamivir, FDA approved in 1999) represent two classes of drugs that target viral an ion channel and a cell surface antigen, respectively, hereby preventing or treating infection.
In an ambitious study, the authors attempt to trace drug resistance against all strains of the flu by using an extensive influenza virus database containing all known genetic sequence information (70,000 complete nucleotide sequences) for influenza strains. Using a phylogenetic approach, authors Vanessa Garcia and Stphane Aris-Brosou examined the evolutionary history of antiviral drug resistance. "Although the approaches employed in our study are not novel in themselves, the scale of the analyses is unprecedented and allowed us to track in public databases the dynamics of all known mutations involved in drug resistance", reported the senior author.
How does the virus outwit two leading antiviral therapies? Widespread use of these drugs has led to the emergence of drug resistance. Most disconcerting, recent "dual resistance" viruses dodge both drugs, leaving us defenseless against the virus. While adamantane resistance mutations appeared readily, it took 15-38 years after FDA approval to emerge, but emerged 3 times, whereas, the less spontaneous oseltamivir mutations took at most 7 years, serving as a public health cautionary tail. The authors support the judicious use of antiviral drugs as a last line of defense against influenza to avoid the spread of dual resistance, which is already circulating in H1N1 viruses in humans. "Our results also suggest that most of the mutations leading to influenza drug resistance are on the wane, so that recent efforts in controlling drug use are paying off, but we should remain vigilant," commented Stphane Aris-Brosou.
Everything you wanted to know about honeybee sex
There is an exquisite genetic control behind a honeybee's fate in the hive---from the lowly drone to the almighty queen---which literally, represents the bees knees for evolutionary scientists exploring how multiple mutations, or alleles, of a single gene called the complementary sex determiner (csd) can have a profound influence on honeybee society.
Unlike people, there are no X and Y sex chromosomes for bees. Rather, sex is determined by a single gene csd and its allelic composition and whether or not a queen bee choses to fertilize her eggs. Female bees (queens or workers) come from fertilized eggs, receiving always two different (heterozygote) copies of csd. Fertile males always come from unfertilized eggs, receiving only one copy of csd. Two identical (homozygote) copies of csd in fertilized eggs is always lethal; these individuals are being killed at the early larval stage by worker bees as they would develop into diploid males which do not contribute to colony fitness.
Lechner, et al., have now examined the exquisite molecular control behind the sex determination, finely identifying and tracing back a comprehensive number of csd alleles to create a richer understanding of the variability of the csd gene over evolutionary time. They looked at a data set of 244 csd sequences from queens, worker bees and drones, and showed that the total number of csd alleles found in bees ranges from at least 53 (locally) to 87 (worldwide), which is much higher than previously reported (20). Using an evolutionary model, they also extrapolated the presence of total 116-145 csd alleles worldwide, a great example of the enormous sequence variability within csd. They were able to finely decipher the minimum number of mutations leading to heterozygous csd, identify faster evolving hot spots within the csd gene, and how these may contribute to variability.
"Comprehensive insights into the sequence variability of the sex determining gene csd in honeybees elucidate the evolutionary processes that lead to the enormous number of csd-alleles found worldwide," said Hasselmann
Finally, they traced the data back over evolutionary time and found that a novel csd function affecting sex determination arises about every 400,000 years. The study provides one of the most comprehensive views of the enormous genetic diversity and the evolutionary forces shaping sex determination in bees, as well as how changes in csd affect honey bee colony fitness.
###
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