Research In Motion has refused to confirm or deny rumours that it is developing a touch-screen version of its BlackBerry mobile organiser.

"The official line from BlackBerry is that 'RIM does not comment on rumour or speculation,'" a spokeswoman told vnunet.com.

The debate was sparked by the Boy Genius website, which published an alleged picture of the device and gave details of the supposed specifications.

"It most certainly will have a 3G radio and we are not talking about the European bands," the website said. "This isn't your momma's 3G, this is going to be HSDPA."

Other details included a 600MHz processor and a backup/restore function to transfer files to a memory card.

"We are trying to lock down a solid release date at this point, but if we had to guess we won't see it this year," the Boy Genius site said. "Most likely early 2008."