Anyone reading this blog has already spend the last 24 hours immersed in a universe of news and analysis on Apple's new cancer-curing, famine-ending giant iPhone that can't make phone calls tablet computer. I have nothing to add and agree with everyone.

But in case you missed them, here are two YouTube videos that are worth watching (Warning: second video contains the occasional swear word. It also contains Adolf Hitler).

Out beyond ideas right and wrong, there is a field. I will meet you there.
- Rumi, Persian poet

Out beyond tablets and touchscreens, there is a wonderful place. Please, take me there.
- Tom, guy

The technology thinker, blogger, videographer and polymath of the digital age, Robert Scoble, made a video of a demo of the funkiest new technology I have seen in a while. Sure, it doesn't cure cancer or restore hope to Haitians like Apple's upcoming product. But not every gadget is plucked directly from a mystical pool of divine water by the Lady of the Lake, so don't get your hopes up. In the meantime, to tide you over until Nerd Christmas begins in about 7 hours, this is pretty cool.

A new competition framework for the telecom market will be launched by the TRA today. Beep Beep's David George-Cosh is there for the release, and you can expect stories later today.

We should all have high hopes for what comes out of todays launch, and there are a couple of interesting things about this whole situation that are worth mentioning.  

Earlier this month, we published a pretty interesting story about Etisalat introducing a service that would permit Indian expatriates to send money home using their mobile phone.

The service was to be launched sometime this month, according to Essa al Haddad, the group chief marketing officer for Etisalat.

Well, the month is almost over, so I called Etisalat for an update. Tens of thousands of Indian expatriates were likely holding their breath in anticipation for the services launch.

What I found it that the company's mobile remittance service will be delayed for two more weeks as officials tie up loose ends and get everything ready for launch, an Etisalat spokesman told me.

So, currency exchange houses will have a short reprieve on losing in on their lucrative US$10 billion (Dh36.7bn) remittance business.

As well they should. It doesn't take a genius to realise that sending money over a mobile device is infinitely more efficient that going personally to UAE Exchange and handing over your cold, hard cash. Wouldn't it be better to just top up your mobile balance, punch in a few numbers and - voila! - instant money transfer?

Indeed, that future will be here in a couple of weeks. Watch this space for more when the mobile remittance service launches.

Are mobile operators getting into the iPhone app game? You can bet there's an app like that. 

Yes, it appears that Etisalat is taking the iPhone app world quite seriously with a new free application targeting golf enthusiasts who will be taking in the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship next week.

I haven't seen it available on the iTunes App Store yet, but I'm sure that users will be able to get real time data, player profiles and course information, just like the company promises in its press release.

The operator has already got one iPhone app in the can, a Yellow Pages app that aids with finding addresses and phone numbers. Unfortunately, the only reviews for the current version of the app suggest that it crashes quite a bit, so caveat emptor.

The key thing here is that it is quite rare for telecom companies to develop iPhone apps, leaving the bulk of work to the software developers of the world. But operators are increasingly becoming more involved in the content side of the business and this announcement is definitely a sign of things to come.

A quick check on iTunes reveals that Etisalat appears to be the only Middle Eastern operator making iPhone apps, but that could soon change. We'll have more on this story at a later date.

And yes, an apology for the cheesiness of the first line there. I couldn't help myself.

More details from Etisalat after the jump. 

Abu Dhabi's push to become a real player in the microchip industry, led by the government-owned Advanced Technology Investment Company (Atic), has has taken it to Seoul. Today, Atic formed a partnership with the Korean Semiconductor Industry Association. And there was much rejoicing.

It is hard not to admire the story of South Korea's incredible rise from abject poverty one one of the world's most prosperous and advanced economies. Aside from semiconductors, which they make better than pretty much anyone, those plucky Koreans export a ton of amazingly complex things, from enormous buildings to nuclear power plants.

There's no doubt that Abu Dhabi's push into advanced industries like semiconductors, aerospace and renewable energy is inspired by small Asian nations like Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, whose citizens now live the good life (perhaps not quite the Abu Dhabi good life) despite almost no real natural resources. And it is good to see partnerships like this, which explicitly recognise that inspiration.

Read on for the full announcement:

We've been living in the future now for at least a decade, and while the iPhone is a pretty amazing Star Trek communicator, crucial technological leaps promised to us by our popular culture - amazing holograms, the jet pack and hoverboard, decent voice recognition, virtual reality - have pretty much singularly failed to deliver.

And yes, while life is great, I still feel a pang of bitterness when stuck in traffic, cursing the lack of a flying car. I still resent the fact that trees are chopped down with chainsaws, when light sabers would clearly do a better, more energy efficient job. And don't even get me started on what the lack of an everlasting gobstopper does to me sense of self worth.

Luckily, Abu Dhabi has gone out and developed a driverless electric pod that will whisk you from place to place, guided by the wisdom of the cloud rather than the madness of man.

Earlier this week, it appeared that Etisalat was one of the operators in the running to buy a stake in Nigeria's state-owned telecommunications company, Nigerian Telecommunication Limited (Nitel).

But now, according to a report in the Nigerian newspaper BusinessDay, the involvement of the UAE's largest telecommunications company may not be happening after all.

The newspaper is claiming that there is a number of operators involved in the bidding for Nitel that may be opting to leave the sale process since the government has not been as transparent as once hoped.

"How do you describe the entrance of a new bidder to a transaction that has almost drawn to a close...I would not be surprised if this is one of the reasons why Etisalat pulled out because its representatives did not attend the pre-bid conference last week", the newspaper quoted one unnamed source who was close to the bidding companies.

Adding to the bidders' frustration is the claim that Nitel is refusing to led anyone inspect their facilities and that there appears to not be any audited account of the company's financials, the newspaper said.

As the newspaper succinctly puts it: "This, bidders told BusinessDay, will likely affect participation because they have no information about what they are buying."

We've put in a call to Etisalat to get some sort of update in their Nigerian plans and will update this story in the coming days.

Shuaa Capital, the UAE's largest investment bank, released its 2010 vision plan today, chockful of handy financial information in a tidy PDF file.

In the report, the company detailed its outlook for the UAE's telecommunications sector, briefly analysing how Etisalat and du performed in 2009 and offered its estimates for how both companies should fare in the future.

It also notably offered a quick, top 10 list of predictions it expects to happen in the UAE telecom sector. While it may not have the same pizazz as a late night television show, it is still an interesting read.

Check out Shuaa's predictions and some thoughts on them after the jump.

UDPATED: See below

For all the possibilities that a service like Twitter offers to an enterprising journalist, advertiser or PR type, most "professional" usage here in the UAE has been ham-fisted at best, spammy at worst.

That is slowly changing, and tonight in Dubai is an event that is probably the sharpest and slickest use of Twitter by PR people that we have seen so far.

Spot On PR, who are clearly trying to make a name for themselves as the socially cluey PR agency for the UAE, are behind the OKI AWE exhibition tonight at JamJar gallery.

Here's five reasons why this event shows some proper Twitter clueyness: