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Feeling overloaded with BlackBerry news and rumors? We know the feeling. We hear new things almost every day, and it can be tough to keep up with it all. that’s why we’re bringing you BlackBerry News from the Wire every Thursday.

We’ll catch you up on everything ‘Berry that happened over the course of the week. Not only that, but we’ll rank ‘em by importance, so you can more easily skim the items and read the ones of most significance. If you only have time to read one article, for instance, you might want to head down to our 5-star section. It’s All the BlackBerry News Fit to Geek.

Storm 2 in action — but not really
Earlier this week, Kevin at CB had a video with the Storm 2 in action. It was quite exciting, I assure you. He went over all the features, but especially those which differed from the original Storm. Unfortunately, RIM had them take it down — it seems they’re doing that a lot with the Storm 2. The one part Kevin talks up, and the one point I know that most people are interested, is the screen. He claims it’s better than the original, enough so that he could use it as an every day device. Now I’m intrigued. Head over there to read all the juicy tidbits. Too bad the video is gone.

Verizon cuts price of original Storm
It’s probably not a sign of the Storm 2’s imminent release, but it’s probably a measure to get rid of the original stock before the sequel hits. Verizon has cut the price of the Storm to $99. If you’ve got an upgrade now and want the touchscreen goodness, the price is certainly right. A recent software update has made the Storm a bit more palatable, so it’s not a total loss.

One loooong Tour review
Still undecided about picking up the BlackBerry Tour? So am I. I can get an early upgrade now, but my regular upgrade comes right around the speculated release of the Storm 2. If you’re in a similar situation, check out Matthew Miller’s review of the Tour. He’s loving it, and his review has me leaning towards going to the QWERTY path rather than the touchscreen.

Apple, RIM setting themselves apart
For all the talk about Apple besting RIM and vice versa, there’s been a missing storyline here. Thankfully, Tricia Duryee of mocoNews uncovers it: Apple and RIM together are quite a force. Last year they accounted for 3 percent of worldwide handset sales and 35 percent of the operating profits. As if that weren’t enough, the companies are now on pace to better that in 2009. Estimates have them selling 5 percent of the world’s phones and taking a whopping 58 percent of operating profits. So maybe it’s not Apple v RIM…maybe it’s Apple and RIM.

Curve 8520 to hit T-Mo on August 5
We’ve been hearing rumors of an early August release for the BlackBerry Curve 8520, that affordable little bugger with the optical trackpad. Yet we haven’t gotten a firm date. Thanks to Humberto Saabedra at PhoneNews.com, we do. It looks like August 5 is the date. That’s not too far off, and we still have some questions to answer between now and then. As in, what will it cost, and will it really only be available at Wal-Mart? We’ll find out soon enough, I guess.

Dismantling the BlackBerry Tour
Not that we advise anyone do this, but watching videos of cell phone disassembly is always fun. This time it’s the disassembly and reassembly of the BlackBerry Tour. Try it at your own risk, but don’t come crying to us if you can’t get it to work again.

Slacker Radio hits the BlackBerry Storm
Looks like Verizon might have a little business model at hand. They’re handing out the free version of Slacker Radio to all Blackberry Storm users. So how is that a business model? They’re allowing customers to buy tracks via their V CAST Music Store. Not a bad idea. Hear a song, buy it. Then again, they have that integration with the desktop version of Pandora, and I don’t much use that.

BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac available in September. Well, that’s been a long time coming.

Get rid of delivery confirmation emails. These are annoying, for sure, and they occur when emails pass through BIS servers. Here are a few tips, Gmail centric, for getting rid of them.

iLane to hit Bell Mobility. Cooper’s been following iLane, a voice-driven car email solution, and he’s got the latest.

BlueAnt M1 Bluetooth Speakers. Bluetooth may drain the battery, but boy are there a lot of accessories that can use it. Here’s a set of speakers Cooper reviews.

BlackBerry Twitter client Blackbird. The latest in our series of BlackBerry Twitter client reviews. This is the most basic of them yet.

FlyCast 2.0 adds station caching. Streaming radio is all the craze right now, and FlyCast has upped the ante with a (paid) upgrade which allows caching.

How to install BlackBerry Messenger. There’s a new version of BBM which leaked late last week. Here’s how to install it. If you don’t like it or it downright isn’t working, check out how to fix your BBM.

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