RUMOR: VODAFONE TO BUY RIM

Shares of Research In Motion stock are popping for the second day in a row on rumors that the company may be looking for a buyer. RIM’s stock was up as much as 14% on Wednesday morning as mysteriously sourced rumors suggested U.K. carrier Vodafone is considering an acquisition. Investors see RIM quickly running out of cash — the vendor burned through more than half of its $2.9 billion in cash during the second fiscal quarter alone — and analysts still aren’t convinced management can right the ship. Some still see promise in RIM’s upcoming QNX lineup however, and the company could certainly hold tremendous value for a potential buyer. Market rumors last week suggested that RIM was pulling the plug on the BlackBerry PlayBook and its tablet efforts in general, but RIM broke character and quickly put the rumors to bed. With the company’s stock on the rise, we doubt RIM will dispel this new round of rumors even if they prove to be inaccurate.

WHITE iPHONE MAKES APPEARANCE IN AT&T SYSTEM

Hot on the heels of cameos in various Vodafone Germany and Best Buy systems, the mythical white iPhone 4 is showing up somewhere else. Turns out any AT&T subscriber can now log in to their account and see both 16GB and 32GB versions of the phone listed in the model picker, which could definitely suggest that these guys are getting ready to finally make them available along with everyone else. Then again, we've also heard that the white iPhone 4 never even left some of AT&T's inventory systems in the first place, so this might mean very little -- but for now, we're going with the "where there's smoke, there's fire" angle. Verizon, your turn.

RUMOR: WHITE iPHONE COMING?

A purported screen capture of a Vodafone inventory system has been leaked showing the elusive white iPhone. Verizon Wireless,a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone, announced the iPhone 4 just last week and it included an image of a white iPhone on its website in the process. While the inclusion of the white iPhone was an accident and the image was subsequently taken down, the very fact that Verizon’s Web team was working with images of the white iPhone was viewed by many as a promising sign.

VERIZON WIRELESS RELEASES Q3 REPORT

Verizon Wireless, the joint venture of Vodafone and Verizon, has released its Q3 report.  They reported 997,000 net additions for the quarter, bringing the total customer base to 93.2 million, and a minuscule churn of 1.07%.  Total revenue increased by 6% over Q3 2009.  Also of note; data revenue increased 5.2% over Q3 2009; cash expense per customer dropped from $27.59 to $26.88; 183 billion text messages, 3.8 billion picture messages were sent and customers completed 22 million music/video downloads. [BGR]