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AMD announces the Radeon HD 8900M notebook graphics card series with the 8970M-- reportedly the fastest GPU for desktop-replacement laptops yet, featuring an adaptation of AMD's Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture.

For those in the know, big tech spec numbers include 1280 stream processors, 80 TMUs, 128 Z/Stencil ROPs and 32 Colour ROPs. The GPU clocks at 850MHz (with a boost speed of 900MHz) while the card packs 2GB GDDR5 RAM running at 4.8GHz over a 256-bit interface.

AMD claims the card's single precision compute power reaches up to 2304 GFlops, making it rank higher than the competition at the usual benchmark tests (3DMark, Crysis 3, Bioshock Infinite).

The announcement also names the first machine carrying the 8970M-- the MSI GX70 laptop, the successor to the GX60. As well as the GPU, the GX70 features a 17.3-inch display, an unnamed Richland-based AMD A10 processor, Killer networking and a SteelSeries keyboard.

Go AMD Introduces the World's Fastest Notebook Graphics Card

HP tried to pull out of the October 2011 $11.1 billion Autonomy acquisition just weeks before the deal was sealed, a shareholder class-action lawsuit claims-- one suing HP execs past and present for no less than $1bn in damages.

Clearly, it is never over until the fat lady sings...

In part based on a January 2013 Wall Street Journal report, the suit accuses 8 defendants (including HP CEO Meg Whitman, then-CEO Leo Apotheker, former HP chairman Ray Lane, Autonomy founder Mike Lynch, and HP banking aides Barclays Capital and Perella Weinberg Partners) of "cursory due diligence on a polluted and vastly overvalued asset." In other words, paying too much for way too little.

Then again one surely recalls the November 2012 $8.8bn writedown on the value of Autonomy, one HP blamed on "serious accounting improprieties" (read cooked books) before acquisition. The writedown wiped $3.1bn off HP's ledgers, causing shares to plummet.

Microsoft plans to buy the Nook Media Barnes & Noble eBook joint venture, TechCruch reports-- and is willing to cough up $1 billion for the pleasure.

Through the acquisition Microsoft will get the Nook Media digital operation (eBooks) and the Nook eReaders and tablets hardware unit, leaving the college book division to B&N.

According to TechCrunch Nook Media also plans to discontinue making Android-based tablets by end fiscal 2014, part of a transition towards an entirely app-based "3rd party partner" device retail model.

Originally part of B&N, the Nook business split from the retailer on April 2012 following a Microsoft investment worth $300m (or 16.8% of the joint venture) made in order to get Nook content on then nascent Windows 8 devices. Nook apps are currently also available on every major platform, including Android and iOS.

While Sony occasionally dabbles in eReaders (such as the PRS-T2), its latest e-ink device does not actually aim at bookworms-- instead it goes students wanting a "digital paper" notebook replacement.

Currently in prototype form, the yet unnamed tablet features a 13.3-inch 1200x1600 e-ink touchscreen roughly the size of regular A4 paper (minus margins). It also includes a stylus, making it ideal for note taking and PDF annotation.

Inside the 6.8mm thick frame are 4GB of on-board storage (expandable via microSD slot), wifi radio and a battery Sony claims powers up to 3 weeks of regular use, making a device weighting all of 385g.

Sony plans to commercialise the tablet sometime in fiscal 2013, following late-2013 trials in a trio of Japanese universities.

Go Sony Digital Paper Solutions