According to a Monday report from the Wall Street Journal, a pocket-size Internet device is currently under development at Dell. The touchscreen gadget, based on Google's Android operating system, would likely be Dell's offering against the Apple iPod Touch.

Sans any mobile phone capabilities, the device will fall in the new category of the so-called mobile internet devices (MID) - which supposedly are the 'middle path' between a smartphone and a tablet PC.

While Dell is rumored to have been working on the new device for a year, its latest venture into the multimedia hardware arena became plain when, in May this year, the company appointed Ain McKendrick as its Senior Director of MID. McKendrick was previously the Senior Director of the Dell-acquired company Zing, which was involved in designing software for various media players.

Going by Wall Street Journal's unnamed sources in-the-know, Dell - which like some other computer makers, including Hewlett-Packard, already sells its laptops via cell phone operators - is considering the sale of its new Internet device through a cell phone carrier.

Dell's new device, which, according to sources, is similar in looks to the iPod Touch - but a wee bit bigger -, would possibly hit the markets as early as 2009 second-half!