New mobile service providers 8ta has announced the availability of BlackBerry Prepaid Blackberry Internet Services (BIS) vouchers.

The new prepaid BIS vouchers from 8ta will give you access to Blackberry Internet Services and free Airtime for the period of 6 months for only R600 once off.

BlackBerry Internet Services is a easy to use and low cost solutions for those wanting access to internet, email and social networking, making it ideal for the youth of today that needs to constantly connected. With the new prepaid BIS vouchers parents can be rest assured that their children will not run out of airtime while surfing the net and there is no need to take out a contract, ensuring no bill shocks at the end of each month.

The prepaid BlackBerry Internet Services vouchers from 8ta is valid for 6 months and will give you R600 worth of airtime, free BIS subscription valued at R59pm, 500mb of free YouTube streaming, and the ability to get 50 free sms message each day when you send 5 sms messages. You will also earn free minutes after the first 3 seconds of each received call.

The BlackBerry prepaid BIS vouchers is obtainable from any 8ta flagship stores, Telkom Direct stores, Edcon and Altech Autopage, and can be used in conjuction with a Prepaid tariff and any other active bundle, be it SMS, data or other. Once the voucher expire you’ll have the option to migrate to another Prepaid tariff plan and to keep your existing BIS.

It’s no secret that FNB, First National Bank, is at the forefront of innovation at banking in South Africa, and actions are pointing at another first for South African banking from them.

FNB was the first bank that embraced social media, and since then has seen great success with its twitter consultant account, RBJacobs (FNB Guy), that helps FNB customers with quick solutions to problems they are experiencing as well as providing them with advice when they need it.

The last couple of weeks allot of FNB customers started asking about dedicated smartphone apps for the internet banking service, even though FNB gives customers access to mobile banking through their fnb.mobi site and through a USSD service, the company seems to have listened to their customers’ request and yesterday on twitter started asking around at what mobile platforms users would like apps for.

Shortly after users responded, FNB changed their profile picture by adding Apple, Android and BlackBerry logos to it, making it even more obvious that they will be launching smartphone apps. The FNB twitter account also mentioned that they will be announcing something today and questions answered by the account hinted that it may relate to dedicated smartphone apps for internet banking. This morning RBJacobs confirmed that today today they will be talking about the FNB App launch, confirming all the rumours.

Would you make use of a dedicated FNB smartphone app to do you internet banking? If so what platform would you prefer?

The battle of the tablets are heavily underway with the Apple iPad leading the race being first to the market selling more than 3 million units in the first 80 days of being available, however Samsung and RIM are not just going to let Apple rule the tablet market, both these manufacturer introduced tablets of their own, the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the BlackBerry Playbook.

Here are some comparisons between the BlackBerry Playbook, Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab:

The tablet market suddenly just got a whole lot interesting with the introduction of the BlackBerry Playbook. Although there are still some features that RIM failed to announce, it is pretty clear that with all that power under the hood the Playbook may just be as good as the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab, if not better.

Which one of the above tablets would you prefer?

Up until now the only real tablet set to take on the Apple iPad was the Samsung Galaxy Tab, but now RIM is set to change that with the introduction of their very own tablet called the BlackBerry Playbook.

The BlackBerry Playbook is an ultra portable tablet with a 7″ LCD display capable of 1024 x 600 screen resolution. The Playbook offers games, media, apps and everything the real Internet offers including support for Flash 10.1 and HTML 5.

The Playbook runs the new BlackBerry Tablet OS with on-screen keyboard and true multitasking capabillities powered by a dual-core processor. Apart from all the power under the hood the BlackBerry Playbook also has 2 HD cameras, a 5MP back-facing and 3MP front-facing camera, enabling you to make video conference calls with rich stereo sound.

The BlackBerry Playbook looks as if it is more aimed at the business market than the comercial market which its integration with other BlackBerry devices. All in all the BlackBerry Playbook does look like a good contender for the Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy Tab.

What do you think about the BlackBerry Playbook?

When it comes to paid mobile applications, South Africans are normally way at the back of the queue when it comes to getting access to them, resulting in most people normally registering accounts with US addresses or downloading modified firmware to get access to these premium applications. Good news for South African BlackBerry users is that with the release of the new BlackBerryApp World 2.0 you will now be apple to buy premium paid applications.

The new BlackBerry App World introduces new ways for South Africans to buy premium paid apps through all major credit cards like Master Card, Visa and American Express. In addition to credit card payments, users also have to option to pay for their apps through PayPal.

Apart from the payment methods, BlackBerry has also added tabbed list sections, allowing users to simply swipe across the screen to view the latest application, top free application, top paid applications, top themes and recently updated applications.

The BlackBerry App World 2.0 also features a build in QR code scanner to enable users to gain quick access to application download pages by simply scanning codes on the web or magazines.

To get your hand on the new BlackBerry App World 2.0 visit mobile.blackberry.com or www.blackberry.com/appworld if you have not yet received the update prompt.