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The U.S. State Department is putting its money where its mouth is, according to the Daily Mail. It is funding the development of an application that will allow pro-democracy activists to delete all incriminating evidence on their cell phones with a single click while sending out an alert to their fellow activists.

The "panic button" will send out a text message to everyone in the user's address book, then erase both that address book and the phone's call history. This will be an important tool, given how thoroughly governments comb through dissident's communications technology as a matter of course these days.

WikiLeaks has been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Norwegian politician behind the proposal.

The nomination of WikiLeaks was put forward by parliamentarian Snorre Valen, saying that the site was "one of the most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency."

"By disclosing information about corruption, human rights abuses and war crimes, WikiLeaks is a natural contender for the Nobel Peace Prize," Valen said.

Facebook and Twitter don't have the power to change the world, says notable author Malcolm Gladwell, whose book "The Tipping Point" detailed how little things can make a big difference. He made this controversial, counter-intuitive argument via an article published in The New Yorker titled "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not be Tweeted."

As you may imagine, the Internet is already abuzz with its reactions.

MobileActive08, a conference about using mobile technology for social action, was held this week in Johannesburg, South Africa. The conference was a 3 day event and covered topics such as: mobile internet usage by low income youth, how mobile advancements are creating new opportunities for news reporting, and ideas around using mobile technology to assist the informal sector and micro enterprises.

In this post I highlight some of the presentations, workshops and outcomes from MobileActive08.