Bangalore: A pocket-sized Internet device using Google's Android is being developed by Dell, an operating system which can take on Apple's iPod Touch. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the device would be available by early second half of 2009.

Sources say that the device looks like Apple's iPod Touch, but is slightly larger in size. Like the iPod Touch, the device is not expected to include a cell phone. Considered as a part of a new category of gadgets called mobile Internet devices( MIDs), the devices are designed to fit into the market of mobile phone, laptop and net book computer.

Dell started this project about a year ago. Reports say that the company would sell the device through a cell phone carrier. Dell and Hewlett-Packard sell their net books through cell phone operators.

Rumors have been around about Dell making a Smartphone and testing the Android software for the Smartphone and possible for its net books. With these developments in, it would be difficult to develop a portable Internet device using the same operating system without the phone. As what Apple did with the iPod Touch.