As announced earlier this week, Apple today began selling the new iPad in twelve new countries: Brunei, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Malaysia, Panama, South Korea, Saint Maarten, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Earlier this week, we noted that Apple had offered royalty-free licensing of its proposed design for next-generation "nano-SIM" cards for use in devices connecting to cellular networks, on the condition that its design be selected and that other rights holders offer similar licenses to encourage adoption. Prototype of Apple's proposed nano-SIM design inside outline of a mini-SIM card (Source: The Verge ) But as reported by FOSS Patents , the European Telecommunications Standards Institutes (ETSI) has postponed any vote on selecting a standard as the various companies proposing designs continue to squabble over the issue. According to the report, the participating companies have failed to reach an agreement and decided not to hold the envisioned vote

Last week, we noted that Apple was still pushing to have its "nano-SIM" design adopted as the official next-generation standard to further reduce the size of the removable cards that include subscriber information and activation capabilities for mobile phones and other devices connecting to cellular networks. While the company has received the backing of a number of European carriers in its effort to roll out the new standard, other hardware companies are putting out their own proposals.

Last week, we reported on long return lines at Apple's 5th Avenue retail store filled with Chinese iPad resellers. Resellers try to buy up as many iPads as possible on launch day to quickly turn around and sell them for a profit. According to our report many of these resellers were returning their iPads with some individuals returning up to 30 devices at one time

TechCrunch reports that Apple has begun rejecting iOS apps for the use of a unique device identifier known as the UDID. The site notes that several developers have reported rejections for the use of the UDID in the past week, and Apple is said to be ramping up the enforcement of this policy over the next few weeks.

iOS developer David Smith has been posting iOS version stats for his Universal app Audiobooks [ Direct Link ]. Smith gets about 100,000 weekly downloads to both his paid and free versions and believes it is a statistically meaningful data set. With the launch of iOS 5.1 on March 7th, 2012, Smith has been tracking the adoption rate which he suspected would be faster than in the past due to the availability of over the air (OTA) iOS updates.

BusinessInsider reports some strange activity on Apple's stock today. Trading was halted due to an abrupt drop of over 9%

Reuters profiles Samsung Electronics and their design process in the setting of Apple's ongoing legal battle accusing Samsung of "slavishly copying" Apple's products. Samsung Mobile's vice president for design Lee Minhyouk takes Apple's charges personally and denies the allegations: "I've made thousands of sketches and hundreds of prototype products (for the Galaxy)

The popular 1998 role-playing game Baldur's Gate is seeing a PC remake called Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition by Overhaul Games. The company has since announced that the new version will also be available for iPad and be available in the summer of 2012. IGN has already had some hands on time with an early build.

New Zealand line photo by @SiobhanKeoghNZ As a reminder for our international readers, the new iPad will be on sale in 25 more countries starting tomorrow, Friday March 23. In fact, it's currently on sale in New Zealand, where it's already tomorrow .