Following a three-day outage that disrupted the flow of data and services for millions of BlackBerry customers around the world, services are finally starting to come back online. Research In Motion posted an update on its website announcing that "BlackBerry services are operating well globally," though it's still not clear when RIM's backend infrastructure will be firing on all cylinders.

Research In Motion has put itself in a bit of a pickle with its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. RIM launched the device before it was fully cooked and it jumped into the mobile fray missing critical features like native email, calendar, and contacts support. In our review of RIM's tablet, we concluded that "unless and until RIM finishes fleshing out the PlayBook, there's no reason to buy it." Turns out we weren't the only ones who felt that way.

Research In Motion (RIM) is currently trying to hammer out a deal with Hulu that would let BlackBerry PlayBook users gain paid access to the streaming service. Following the PlayBook's launch last week, users were surprised to find that they could load and watch Hulu content on their tablet, but the excitement was short lived. Hulu blocked the BlackBerry browser within 48 hours, just has it has done with all tablets and smartphones.

Research In Motion's BlackBerry PlayBook has been the recipient of some mixed reviews, including a fair number of negative write-ups slamming the slate for its lack of native email and contacts support (we'll post our own evaluation soon; in the meantime, be sure to check out our first impressions and photo gallery here). Despite the lukewarm reception, BlackBerry PlayBook sales have so far exceeded analysts' expectations.