As a frequent opinionator on all things mobile, in this blog and the pages of The National, it is my duty to the reading public to declare my long, beautiful relationship with the iPhone has come to an end. You taught me about the mobile internet, iPhone, and for that I will never forget you. But we've both changed, and it is time to go our separate ways.

Due to Apple's looming digital tyranny, on which I have railed against on many platforms, I am now the owner of a Google Nexus One.

A Dubai company will open stem cell research centers in the UAE, jumping into one of the most promising (and controversial), areas of modern medical technology. As Beep Beep's David George-Cosh reports, the centers will focus on treatments using adult stem cells, not the embryonic cells that have raised alarm bells among religous groups around the world.

Effective Measure, the analytics / audience measurement company that are trying to become the standard for web traffic ratings in the Middle East, has secured $4 million in venture capital from Rho Ventures, a big American VC firm.

I'll be among the many descending on Beirut in late March for Arabnet, the Arab web industry conference. If you'll be there, and are on Twitter, and are the type of person who likes to show some love via Avatar modification, you can add an Arabnet twibbon here.

The acquisition of Zain's African assets seems to be cruising along pretty nicely, with India's Bharti Airtel pretty close to lining up $9 billion of mid-term debt finance, the Wall Street Journal reports. It seems that Bharti's previous efforts to buy South Africa's MTN means that much of the paperwork and preparations for a deal of this size have already been done.

The US government is closing in on those responsible for the Chinese hacking attack on Google and other foreign companies doing business in China, the Financial Times says in a great piece of reporting. It is a properly juicy story and well worth a read. 

- In The National: a update on Dubizzle, the Craigslist of the UAE. The site is booming, and doing extra well in Abu Dhabi, which is served by a depressingly low number of targeted, city-specific  websites. Attention smart entrepreneurs: start an awesome portal for Abu Dhabi, covering restaurants, gig guides, cost of living, gossip, hyperlocal news, etc. Seriously, you will print money.

- Also in The National - Facebook has its first official advertising agent for the Middle East. Props to Egypt's Connect Ads for scoring what I imagine is a pretty good deal. 

- Gulf News has two great stories today, and I mean that with none of the sarcasm that often accompanies mentions of the UAE's biggest newspaper. Etisalat is employing workers for its Ajman call centre that have no contract with the company, a situation an interior ministry official tells the paper is "an illegal practice."

- And more importantly - in fact, of an importance that cannot be understated - FLYING. ARABIC-SPEAKING. HUMANOID. ROBOT

- The Nokia N900 is a monster, but a good monster, says 360 East's Ahmad Humeid. I've yet to play with one - I think I have become persona non grata to Nokia's people here, and haven't yet met someone who owns one. But it certainly seems like an industrial strength piece of hardware.

- Saudi Arabian iPhone owners using Etisalat's Saudi subsidiary, Mobily, will soon be able to legally "tether" their phones to a laptop, turning the iPhone into a mobile broadband modem. As we have reported before, mobile broadband is a huge deal for Mobily, and it is cool to see an Etisalat business taking the space so seriously. We can only hope is seeps over into the UAE.

It has been talked about for some time, but appears to have finally happened. The UAE's various emirate-level schemes to back entrepreneurs have linked up and gone national.

We're been reporting on this process for a while - most recently here - and it is certainly good news. The National Network for Small and Medium Enterprises will be unveiled in Sharjah next Wednesday, with the federal Minister of Economy and the Ruler of Sharjah both taking part in the launch.

Today in Gulf News, Mishaal al Gergawi - who, as I argued in The National this weekend, has emerged as Dubai's most prominent critical thinker - calls for something that will have many entrepreneurs nodding their heads:

Section off a large government-owned development and offer its offices and shops, in shell and core state, to entrepreneurs and artists for a minimal all-in Dh5,000 licence fee, effectively deregulating entrepreneurship.

The logic is solid, and furthers a line of thinking on the future of Dubai that has been quietly emerging over the last year.

One of the weirdest and most annoying features of Apple's new iPad is that it does not accept that same kind of SIM cards that are used by every other mobile device on the planet. Instead, it takes a "micro-SIM," which is about half the size of a regular SIM card and currently in use by....nobody.

What this means, in short, is that if you want to connect your iPad to a mobile network for mobile broadband, you'll need to ask your friendly local operator for a new micro-SIM that they have made especially for the iPad. This gives networks huge power over their customers, because they can tie any terms and conditions and contract lengths they want to that micro-SIM.

More importantly though - who will actually have these new kinds of SIM cards available for their customers? It is a big question, so I did a bit of asking around here in the UAE.