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NEW DELHI: Age-related degeneration of vision has been a common problem, which so far has no cure. However, an ongoing stem cell study at AIIMS might just provide a solution. For about six months now, Dr Rajender Prasad Centre for Opthalmic Sciences at AIIMS has been studying the effect of stem cells in patients who suffer from degenerative vision disorders — the patients taken in the Phase I of study can’t see beyond 3 metre and according to the WHO classification are termed ‘blind’. The study is being conducted on patients who have age-related vision loss or are affected by...

ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- The first drug shown to significantly improve the vision of patients threatened by a major cause of blindness in the elderly won federal approval Friday. The drug, called Lucentis, treats the wet form of age-related macular degeneration, a disorder where blood vessels behind the retina leak blood and fluid, worsening vision and often causing blindness. An estimated 90 percent of the 1.4 million Americans who have lost their eyesight due to the disorder have the wet form. Lucentis, made by Genentech, Inc., a South San Francisco, Calif., biotechnology company, inhibits the growth of blood vessels when...

IBM servers use chips by AMD Sunnyvale company gets boost in battle with rival Intel Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer August 2, 2006 ------------------------------------- IBM Corp. unveiled a line of business computers using Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron microprocessor on Tuesday, giving another boost to the chipmaker in its rivalry with Intel Corp. Tom Bradicich , chief technology officer of IBM's systems and technology group, said the Armonk, N.Y., company has embarked on a major expansion of its relationship with AMD by introducing Opteron-based servers. The roll-out of five computer systems and blade computers follows the announcement in May by...

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Intel officially closed the books on the Pentium era on Thursday with the Core 2 Duo, its most important product launch in 13 years. "This is not just an incremental change, this is a revolutionary leap," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said at a launch event here, held in a heavily air-conditioned tent. The last time the company held such an event at its headquarters was when it introduced the Pentium processor in 1993, a similarly important milestone in its history. Back then, the PC market was a fraction of its current size, Otellini said. Pentium quickly became one...

Intel is set to launch its chart-topping Core 2 Duo chips later this week, but AMD seems determined to try to steal the spotlight. Monday it dramatically slashed prices on its processors to better compete with Intel's new chips, and announced it was buying ATI. Today it held a demo of its 4x4 platform for PC enthusiasts, which is meant to deliver performance that will rival and perhaps surpass that of the Core 2 Duos. The demo was eye catching. The 4x4 system, equipped with two dual-core Athlon 64 FX chips, clearly outpaced an identically configured PC with one dual-core...

This morning, the home office of AMD demonstrated a 4x4 enthusiast system, affectionately referred to as the “Quad Father”, running a variety of different multi-threaded applications. Among the demonstrations given, Half Life 2 was run while playing MP3 audio and MPEG4 video running in the background. AMD, in an attempt to appeal to the entire enthusiast market (not just the high-end enthusiast market) , promised dual CPU bundles for less than a $1,000. AMD says they are targeting what they call the Mega-tasking enthusiast, those of us who use their machines for everything, all the time. Hopefully this little nugget...

Excerpt - SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is close to buying ATI Technologies Inc. for $5.4 billion, a long-rumored deal that would open a new front in AMD's rivalry with Intel Corp. An AMD spokeswoman said late Sunday night that the company would hold a conference call at 8 a.m. Eastern Monday, but declined to disclose the subject. AMD is in the late stages of negotiations to buy ATI in a mostly cash deal, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. The deal could be announced as early as Monday morning. Sunnyvale,...

Update: Monarch has contacted us and we will be updating this information with another post in a bit. Monarch explains they will have a lot of inventory on AM2 and 939 AMD processors for next week. The rumors of the AMD price cuts have been batted around everywhere and we have verified that they are coming, but Monarch Computer is the first retailer we have seen put the prices in writing on this page. Keep in mind these prices reflect Combo Deal purchasing that will be shipped next week, and is not yet available on single AMD processor purchases. Undoubtedly...

This is a public service announcement, there will be no price cuts on October 23rd, 2006DailyTech previously reported AMD was planning a major CPU price cut a couple days after Intel ships Core 2 Duo Conroe processors. Those expecting AMD to announce another price cut in time for the holiday season will be disappointed. DailyTech has received an updated price list for October 23rd, 2006 that shows AMD has no plans to reduce prices on its Athlon 64 and Sempron desktop product lineups anytime soon. Pricing on Athlon 64, Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64 X2 EE and...

Two weeks from now, Intel will release its all-new Core 2 Duo processor. The technical details were made available to the public in March 2006, and first benchmarks made clear that Intel is not joking: Core 2 Duo shall become the undisputed leader in performance and performance per Watt. It's time to separate facts from rumors. Intel does not talk about changes to the processor architecture; it talks about a complete redesign. The engineers took elements from the current Pentium D NetBurst architecture and added ingredients that made the Pentium M and Core Duo mobile processors successful, and voilá: The...

Intel aims to reclaim market dominance with new chip Jun 26 4:37 PM US/Eastern US computer chip maker Intel began shipping a speedy, power-efficient processor it claimed would turn the tables on arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). "We're back to a position we are used to having, undeniable leadership in the area of performance," Intel Vice President Tom Kilroy told a briefing of analysts and the press in San Francisco. "It's an exciting day. Our end customers were waiting for this." Kilroy touted its freshly released Xeon 5100 series chips as the "fastest dual-processor ramp" in Intel's history. The chips,...

Chicago (IL) - If AMD has its way, then Intel's performance-per-watt leadership claim may be short lived: The first quad-core Opterons, due in 2007 will consume the same power as today's dual-core processors, while AMD expects Intel to increase the power envelope when adding more cores. Intel will be dominating the headlines in tech publications early next week with the debut of a new architecture ("Core") that is believed to not only increase the firm's competitiveness with AMD's processors but also bring a visible advantage in performance and power consumption. And while we are patiently waiting for Intel's designated savior...

AMD Confirms a New Fab in New York StateCosting $3.5 billion, the new fab is set to open in 2010 Earlier this month, DailyTech brought you details about AMD's plans to open a fabrication facility in the state of New York. Although details at the time was sketchy and most of the information was unconfirmed, AMD's chairman Hector Ruiz this week announced that AMD will indeed be opening a facility in New York's Luther Forest Technology Park in Saratoga County. AMD is expected to be spending upwards of $3.5 billion by the time the plant is finished. The plant is...

UF finding could lead to approaches to treat macular degeneration GAINESVILLE, Fla. - University of Florida scientists conducting experiments with mice have found evidence that the body naturally replenishes small amounts of cells in the eye essential for healthy vision. The finding may shatter the belief that a cell layer vital for eyesight called the retinal pigment epithelium, or RPE, is a nonrenewable resource, say researchers writing in a recent issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. RPE plays a vital role in our visual health by forming the outer barrier of the retina and supporting the function of cells...

EETimes has reported that an Intel price war has been planned. Armed with a bandoleer full of Dual Core Smithfield and Presler based chips for ammunition. The company has taken another road to challenge their rival, AMD.“We expect another profit warning from Intel, guiding Q2 sales to $7.9 billion versus a consensus of $8.4 billion,” Diesen said in a note to clients. “After Intel stuffed the channels with chips in February and March, the floor fell out in April, and [PC processor] sales dropped 52 percent year-on-year,” he added.Also stating;"Intel has obviously given up on making any money on their...

SAN JOSE, Calif. — In a major shift in strategy, Dell Computer Corp. on Thursday (May 18) said that it would roll out new servers, based on microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The disclosure, revealed in Dell’s first-quarter results, indicated that the PC giant would introduce new servers based on AMD’s Opteron line of 64-bit processors by year’s end. The news represents a boost for AMD (Sunnyvale, Calif.), but it is also a major blow for Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.). Since its inception, Dell has primarily used x86-based microprocessors from one vendor: Intel. Dell will continue to use...

Dell Inc. said Thursday it will begin using chips from Advanced Micro Devices rather than its rival Intel Corp., as the computer maker posted a first quarter drop in net income. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell had an exclusive agreement with Santa Clara-based Intel, but said in its second-quarter earnings press release that it will switch to Sunnyvale-based Advanced Micro Devices chips in some of its products by the end of the year. Dell, which had lowered its forecast last week, posted net income of $762 million, or 33 cents a share, compared with $934 million, or 37 cents a...

Advanced Micro Devices wants to pull off the market and replace a series of about 3,000 Opteron x52s and x54s chips which have a high-temperature induced bug which may lead to "inconsistent results" when running floating point (FP) code. The company announced on Friday that single-core Opteron 152, 154, 252, 254, 852 and 854 processors manufactured in late 2005 or early 2006. It seems that the issue was caused by a "test escape" and isn't a manufacturing or design problem. Basically, the fault manifests itself when the processors are running floating point-intensive code sequences and the CPU as well as...

Rambus (RMBS:Nasdaq - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) won a major court victory Monday when a jury found that South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor infringed on the company's patents. A federal court jury in San Jose, Calif., found that Hynix, the world's No. 2 computer memory maker, infringed on all 10 patents at issue, and awarded Rambus $307 million, according to Pacific American Securities analyst Michael Cohen, who has been attending the trial for the past month.

AMD is working on a way to make a multi-core processor appear to the host operating system as a single-core chip, it has been claimed. If true, the move turns on its head the drive to develop multi-threaded apps the better to take advantage of multiple cores. The technology is aimed at the next architecture after K8, according to a purported company mole cited by French-language site x86 Secret. It's well known that two CPUs - whether two separate processors or two cores on the same die - don't generate, clock for clock, double the performance of a single CPU....