For the BlackBerry Storm faithful who are updating their devices outside of Verizon's official channels, there's good news: Version 4.7.0.148 is now available. Also, reports suggest that the Storm 2 may be available as soon as next month.The latest firmware build for the Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Storm has hit the interwebs. This version, 4.7.0.148 is available here. There is no word yet on exactly what it does and/or improves over 4.7.0.141. Update at your own risk!

Now, on to that juicy Storm 2 rumor. Reports have suggested that the recently-pictured Storm 2 will become available earlier than originally though. The original date was September, but now many believe it will become available within a month.

I agree with CrackBerry.com's Kevin Michaluk in that this is highly unlikely. He writes, "Our best info right now slates pre-production of the next generation Storm (which RIM internally refers to by the codename BlackBerry 'Odin') to begin early next month and from there an official release is usually a couple months out (VZW's technical acceptance process usually takes 2-3 weeks on a device, so even if they approved it off the first pre-production run we'd still be looking at July)." He's dead right.

On top of that, there are other BlackBerries in the pipeline that big red was expected to release first.

I also don't think Verizon would be willing to release the Storm 2 so soon after the original. It would tick off a lot of users (me included), who would feel slighted. Given that BlackBerry users are high-revenue generators for Verizon, I'd think the network operator would prefer to keep them happy.

The biggest improvement of the Storm 2 over the original are the addition of Wi-Fi, and improved typing capabilities.