>> Google shuts down Lively. Guns N' Roses hits MySpace and we have a look at the new Blackberry Storm. For real this time. It's Thursday, November 20, I'm Natali Del Conte and it's time to get Loaded.
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>> For all you CrackBerry addicts out there who were tempted to crossover to the iPhone, the Blackberry Storm has arrived. As I'm sure most of you are aware, it's Research in Motion's first touchscreen phone for its highly loved messaging service. We got a hold of the phone a few days ago, and you might be surprised and delighted at some of the features. Take a look. I'm very excited about my new BlackBerry Storm and I may not give it back. This is Alisha [assumed spelling] and she's gonna tell me all about it.
>> Well, the BlackBerry Storm is the first touchscreen BlackBerry device exclusive from Verizon Wireless, has all your standard BlackBerry features: messaging, SMS, and you have your browser on it. But the great thing about the BlackBerry Storm is it's touchscreen. You can just go ahead and navigate from your different menu items, but in order to actually take an action, you're gonna have to press and feel the click from the device.
>> So, I noticed the interface is a lot like the Bold, what are some of the other features it has?
>> Landscape keyboard, you will just simply turn the keyboard this way, and it will show you with, it will show you a full QWERTY keyboard versus when you have it in portrait mode where it will have similar to a Pearl. It will have your short type keyboard. You can either go ahead and type into the browser, or if you've already had some things in your history, you can just go ahead and select those.
>> And finally, tell me about design because, you know, phones these days, they have to have sex appeal.
>> The design is very easy. It fits in my purse, it fits in my pocket. I can just -- I can pretty much fit it anywhere and it is rather thin, so it's not bulky. It's just great. And then honestly, it's not even that heavy. So, it's a great size to use.
>> Well, thank you for showing me the phone and lending it to me, I'm not sure you're gonna get it back. I've been playing with this phone for two days now and while the touch press screen is pretty cool, it does take a bit to get used to and the interface is a bit sluggish compared to the iPhone. The screen is beautiful though and this model is capable of worldwide roaming. The phone will retail for $199 exclusively, for now, for Verizon Wireless. Speaking of BlackBerry, Google has updated Google Sync for BlackBerry just in time for the Storm. It now syncs your contacts from Gmail in addition to your calendar. In other Gmail News, you can now add a theme to your mail page to make it just a little prettier. There have been plug-ins that have been able to do this before, but this is the first time that Google is actually in on the fun. To change up your Gmail, find the theme tab in your settings. And if you are not one for fancy email themes, your Gmail will still get a little bit prettier. Google has shifted the colors and pixels around slightly to make it crisper and cleaner. Google has also shut down Lively, their Second Life-type program. It just launched in July, but according to Google it was not a big winner. Shocking, I know. The iPhone will in fact be coming to Walmart, but not before Christmas. The iPhone will be sold in select Walmart locations starting December 28. AT&T will support activations in Walmart and Sam's Club Stores as long as customers agree to a two-year contract. Yahoo is experimenting with Search. The company launched Glue Search, a search page that includes results from Wikipedia, Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Answers, blogs and YouTube videos. Yahoo has been testing this in India and apparently it was so successful that they decided to roll it out to US users. For now this is supplemental to Yahoo search. The company says that they do not plan to replace their default search engine with Glue. HP unveiled the first multi-touch Tablet this week. The company has been dipping their feet into touch technology with the HP TouchSmart Pro and the TouchSmart all-in-one kitchen PC. This model, the TouchSmart tx2 will feature 12-inch screen, stylus, dual-layered DVD burner, a multi-card reader, a 250-gig hard drive and 4-gigs of memory. Earlier this month, HP opened its TouchSmart application guidelines to third party developers, so we can hope some cool apps are on the way. I am truly enamored with the TouchSmart line. I played with one a few weeks ago and posted a short review on my YouTube page. I'm excited to see more of this coming out of HP. Walt Disney will release 5 upcoming movies on IMAX. The first will be the 3D movie, A Christmas Carol, with Jim Carey at the end of next year. IMAX has been rolling out digital projection technology to large screen theaters. The company hopes to have 50 of their estimated 320 theaters converted to digital by the end of the year. For the opening weekend of DreamWorks' Madagascar, Escape to Africa, IMAX revenue was nearly double that of standard theaters. You can now check your finances over text message if you use Mint. The personal finance site added SMS support this week. The way it works is you send short codes such as B-A-L for balance to 636363. Mint will send back the balance in your account as an SMS. Although balances in your Mint account tend to be about two days behind. This is still potentially useful if you're close to impulse-buying the LG Prada II. This way you'll know whether or not you have the cash before you pull out your check card. After 17 years, the wait is over for fans of Guns N' Roses. The band released its new album on MySpace last night. The album is called, "Chinese Democracy," and is now available for you to listen to on MySpace by streaming. You can't download or buy the album just yet though. For that, you will have to wait until Sunday. Well, let's face it the album has been out on BitTorrent for weeks. Most people who told me that Google's new voice command iPhone search application works just great for them. Well, it hasn't work for me. It must be this lisp that I try so hard to conceal from you all or maybe I'm just part-British. A U.K. newspaper is reporting that the app does not quite recognize British accents. It mistook the word iPhone for sex and Einstein for kitchen sink. When I tried pizza, it took me to Wikipedia. That's at least close. Those are all your headlines for today, but before I sign off, I wanna wish a happy birthday to Chris, Sam, Steve, Rick, Ryan and his son, Drew, Jean, Horacio and Kevin. That wraps up your week of getting loaded, but if you've missed any episode this week, please be sure to catch up at loaded.cnettv.com. I will see you on Monday, I'm Natali Del Conte with CNET TV and you've just been Loaded.
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