Research In Motion Ltd. RIM.T -6.22% restored BlackBerry service after an hourslong outage across Europe, but left unanswered how its network went down again, less than a year after a three-day global outage.

The timing of the outage Friday came as Apple Inc. AAPL +0.86% rolled out its latest smartphone, the iPhone 5, around the world. Like former market leader Nokia Corp., NOK1V.HE -3.91% RIM is fighting to regain market share lost to newer smartphones like the iPhone and devices powered by Google Inc.'s GOOG +0.79% Android platform.

Technologies Internet news articles and views from SQL, Java, RIM, Blackberry and etc....
Technologies Internet news articles and views from SQL, Java, RIM, Blackberry and etc....
Technologies Internet news articles and views from SQL, Java, RIM, Blackberry and etc....

The Empathy has a stunning design. The handset is angular shaped and black with an OLED touch screen that's transparent when not in use and opaque at other times.

Touching the screen anywhere reveals a tabbed control wheel that lets you access your most commonly used features, like email, SMS, contacts, music and the camera.