CLARIFICATION 5:55 p.m. – The story below references a Dell ad placed in UptownLife magazine. The online version of that ad, which has since been removed, appeared to include both an image from Dell and text. A Dell spokesman, Bob Kaufman, said that Dell was only confirming the “Adamo by Dell” image and not the text, which is quoted in this post.

Brett Wright, the co-founder of Uptown Media, the parent company of Uptownlife.net, has declined to comment on the Dell ad or why the text was removed.

All the speculation about Dell’s coming Adamo computer appears somewhat comical once you learn that the company’s confirmation of the product has been sitting in plain sight.

Last week, I spotted what looked like a blog post from the luxury magazine UptownLife, discussing a future laptop from Dell possibly thinner than Apple’s MacBook Air.

“Rumor has it that Dell is coming out with a computer called Adamo that will rival the MacBook Air,” the blog post read. “At press time, the company was keeping the product tightly under wraps, but PC users rejoice – word on the street is that something cool is coming your way.”

After my Bits post about Adamo appeared, UptownLife pulled its post down, and Dell refused to discuss the exact nature of the product with reporters. This left most publications guessing about Adamo, saying it could be anything from a thin laptop to perhaps another netbook or a music player.

But it struck me as curious that UptownLife would remove its post – that is, unless the post was actually a Dell advertisement in disguise.

On Tuesday, the Dell spokesman, Mr. Kaufman, confirmed that the Adamo blurb art was in fact a Dell ad. So, it’s Dell that has been talking about a product that will “rival the MacBook Air” all along. The UptownLife Web site just made things tricky by lumping blog posts and ads together without making any distinction between the two. (As the clarification notes, Dell is now only confirming the Adamo by Dell image and not the text discussing the rival to the MacBook Air.)

“We did this to wake up the personal computing category and create some buzz,” Mr. Kaufman said.

It’s expected that Dell will reveal its super-thin laptop at the Consumer Electronics trade show next month in Las Vegas. Then it will be up to Dell to live up to the buzz it has created.