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It's the middle of August, so technophiles are naturally starved for a good rumor that doesn't involve the phrase "the iPhone on Verizon." Wednesday's contribution to the rumor mill is that HTC is building a tablet that will run Google's Chrome OS.

Download Squad reports that HTC, Google, and Verizon will partner up for the device, which will conveniently be available on Black Friday of this year.

An HTC spokesman had no details to offer up. "HTC has not announced a tablet and does not comment on rumors and speculation," he said in an e-mail.

The phantom tablet will apparently be based on Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform and include a 1280-by-720 multitouch display, 2GB of RAM, at least a 32GB SSD, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3G connectivity, GPS, a webcam, and a multi-card reader that could provide expandable storage, Download Squad said.

Google announced plans for an Internet-based, Chrome operating system in November 2009. Executives said at the time that the first devices running Chrome OS would be netbooks, and they would go on sale in time for the 2010 holiday season.

At Computex this year, Google vice president of product management Sundar Pichai reportedlytold the audience that Chrome OS would launch by the fourth quarter.

On Wednesday, meanwhile, Google executives told a Gamescom audience in Germany that the company plans to launch its Chrome App Store in October.