More than a half million iPads were delivered the first week Apple put them up for sale, but in the last few days three universities and one country have put the kibosh on them.

Cornell University, George Washington University and Princeton University banned the iPad from use on their campuses. As Nicholas Deleon relays in a post at CrunchGear, the device is not compatible with some of the security components of the wireless systems at Princeton and George Washington, and Cornell is worried about iPad users hogging bandwidth. It's probably not a permanent ban at these universities, but organizations with large networks need a little time to accommodate vast numbers of new devices.

Meanwhile, Israel said on Thursday that no iPads would be allowed to enter the country from the United States. According to the Financial Times, a spokesman for Israel's communications ministry said the iPad's Wi-Fi system was incompatible with the country's wireless standard. The spokesman also reportedly said that European countries, which use the same standard, could take a similar position.  

A couple days earlier, Apple had announced that it was postponing the iPad's international launch until the end of May because demand in the United States was higher than it expected.

All was not lost for the iPad's image last week, though. It turns out the little gadget can be used to run a small country. When the prime minister of Norway was stranded in New York because of the volcanic cloud that stopped air traffic in Europe, he remained in charge via his iPad, CNN reported.

For more:
- read Nicholas Deleon's post at CrunchGear
- read this Financial Times article
- read this CNN article

Related Articles:
The iPad: Bigger than the Beatles?
Mobile phone users say they'd use iPad for work
iPad could have enterprise value (but not how you think)
Apple iPad should speed up enterprise consumerization trend