Thanks to quickly dwindling stock of the ultra-portable, the latest rumor is that Apple is preparing to launch a smaller 11.6-inch MacBook Air.

Current models, which are 13.3-inches and come in two models, have been reported out of stock almost everywhere, and Apple has not given a concrete timeframe for new stock.

Best Buy and Amazon have said that Apple will not ship them any new stock until at least the 12th.

Apple historically updates hardware, like their iMacs, in October.

Sources claim the new 11.6-inch model will run on an Intel Core i-series, and could weigh under 2.7 pounds.

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Verizon has said this week that they will be launching six LTE smartphones at the CES event in January.

LTE (Long Term Evolution) is the 4G data network used by Verizon and AT&T.

Verizon announced that their LTE network would begin rolling out to 38 major cities later this year.

So far, rival Sprint has their WiMax 4G network available and T-Mobile has their HSPA+ network rolled out. AT&T expects to launch LTE next year.

Verizon is also making USB adapters with access to the LTE network available soon, giving netbook and other users full-time access to the network.

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Citing sources close to the bank, Reuters is reporting that Morgan Stanley is preparing an initial public offering (IPO) for popular video streaming service Hulu.

Hulu is looking to raise between $200 and $300 million from investors with the offering.

The service could file a prospectus with the SEC by the end of the year.

An IPO is just one of a few options Hulu has actively considered. Another is attracting new media companies to contribute programming or raising more money from existing investors.

The decision is likely to be made in November, add the sources.

Hulu is backed by NBCU, Fox and Disney, three of the four major broadcasters in the U.S.

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According to a new report from tech blog Gdgt, Apple's iPhone 4 may soon be back in the news negatively, following "antennagate" with the newly-dubbed "glassgate."

The site says that the glass that is used on the front and back of the iPhone 4 is very susceptible to "serious cosmetic damages", especially on the backside of the device when using a slip-on cases.

Additionally, dirt and other debris from your pocket ends up in that space, reads the site.

Eventually, the backside will completely shatter as the scratches lead to large cracks.

The site likens the effect to a cracked windshield on an automobile.

While it has not been widely addressed in the media, the report says Apple engineers are currently working on a "quiet lockdown," testing a plethora of cases to see how deep the issue is.

The site finally suggests that development of the iPhone 5 may be held up while the company fixes the glass problem on the 4.

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Mozilla has released its Firefox 4 beta for Android and Maemo devices, adding a number of new significant features.

Among those features are pinch-to-zoom, the "Awesome Screen" and syncing. Pinch-to-zoom is supported on all multi-touch-capable devices.

The new syncing capabilities allows for all browsing history, passwords, bookmarks, form-fill data and open tabs to be instantly synced from your desktop version of the browser to the mobile one.

Mozilla's "Awesome Screen" will give you instant access to recent history, bookmarks, and tabs with one-click on your mobile device.

Says the company: "Firefox 4 Beta for mobile is significant step forward in sharing a personalized, seamless and encrypted Web experience across devices. Developers have the power to use the latest Web technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript to to build fast, powerful and beautiful mobile apps and add-ons that can reach millions of devices."

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Yesterday we reported that Adobe's stock jumped as high as 17 percent on reports in the media that Microsoft has identified it as an acquisition target. The New York Times reported that Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer met with Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in San Francisco recently to talk about Apple's dominance in smartphones.

According to the report, which cited employees and consultants familiar with the situation, the two discussed several options to deal with the situation, one of which would see Microsoft acquiring Adobe.

Today, the stock has fallen back to Earth, dropping 6 percent on skepticism about the proposed deal.

A number of prominent analysts have stated the merger will do little to solve Microsoft's immediate short-term goals.

"There is no doubt Microsoft has some secular concerns that must be addressed, namely around 1) lack of share in tablets, 2) lack of a compelling mobile offering and 3) lack of critical mass in online," says Walter Pritchard of Citigroup. An acquisition of Adobe would not address any of those.

Furthermore, the deal would cost Microsoft $19-20 billion, and would face anti-trust regulators.

The analysts have not ruled out a partnership between the companies, however.

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Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has decried the use of pirated software by Chinese firms. "One of the things that has improved a lot around the world is business piracy, and yet when we look at China today business piracy is more extreme than consumer piracy," he told a business forum in Madrid.

"We are working hard with the support of the Chinese government to improve the situation but it is a real problem," he added. According to the Business Software Alliance (BSA), approximately 79 percent of Chinese firms are running pirated software on their computers, while it estimates the value of pirated software in the country at $7.58 billion.

Microsoft generates less revenue in China than it does in India or South Korea, despite China's GDP being twice that of the other two economies combined. Chief executives of several major software firms, including Microsoft, met with lawmakers and officials from the Obama administration to push them to step up pressure on China to crack down on piracy.

Microsoft recently won a decision in a Shanghai court against an insurance company in China that was running 450 copies of illegitimate Microsoft software.

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Acer plans to adopt dual operating systems on its dual-core netbooks, according to a report from DigiTimes. The Taiwanese firm is planning to load both Microsoft Windows and Google's Android operating system to its netbooks so users can decide which to boot.

Including Android offers users a rapid boot and the ability to quickly and easily handle common tasks such as browsing the Internet or checking e-mail. Including Windows will allow users to run larger more resource hungry applications for more complex tasks.

Acer recently unveiled its new Aspire One AOD255 netbook which includes an Intel Atom N550 dual core processor.

Acet Taiwan president Scott Lin said the company expects to ship 40 million notebooks in 2010, along with 10 million netbooks. Lin said that figures from Gartner showed that netbooks will not be replaced by tablet PCs, and that global netbook shipments would reach 36 million units in 2010 and 50 million in 2014.

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will not carry out a suspension of several BlackBerry services in a row over national security issues. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority issued a statement earlier on Friday announcing that Blackberry services were not compliant with the regulator's framework.

"The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has confirmed that Blackberry services are now compliant with the UAE's telecommunications regulatory framework.

Therefore, the TRA has confirmed today that all Blackberry services in the UAE will continue to operate as normal and no suspension of service will occur on October 11, 2010.

The TRA would like to acknowledge the positive engagement and collaboration of Research In Motion (RIM) in reaching this regulatory compliant outcome."

The UAE had threatened to suspend BlackBerry Messenger, e-mail and web browser services from October 11 onward because the government could not get the same level of access to the encrypted content as others such as the United States and Russia could.

Suadi Arabia and India had also made similar threats for the same reason. Information sent between BlackBerry devices in the UAE was encrypted and handled by servers located outside of the country. RIM had said that the location of the servers made no difference to the ability to decrypt the data flow on its devices.

In Saudi Arabia, the company came to an agreement to share the unique pin number and code for each Blackberry registered there, which would allow authorities investigating criminal activity to read encrypted text. It is likely a similar deal was agreed with the UAE.

"Either they will continue services as usual or RIM has given them access to one or two elements of security such as the encryption key, or limited access in extreme circumstances," said Shardul Shrimani, telecoms analyst at IHS Global Insight.

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Spotify, which has long announced its ambitions to expand to the United States, may be getting quashed by Apple in its efforts, if a Cnet article is to be believed.

The music streaming service has had issues gaining the support of the Big 4 record labels, and Cnet says Apple may be a big part of why.

Because Spotify would be free in the U.S., Apple has been telling the labels that the service would "undermine" the current digital music industry in the nation.

Of course, that industry is dominated by Apple's iTunes Store, which controls over 80 percent of all sales.

The company has also made it clear to the labels that they don't believe that Spotify's model could ever generate significant profits.

Spotify is currently available in seven European countries, but has missed two announced target dates for launch in the U.S. There have been no reported agreements with major labels either, as of yet.

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