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With mobile tech, Siemens helps torture a new generation, this time in Bahrain. Siemens was instrumental in bringing the Nazis to power and keeping them there as they murdered millions of Jews, along with Gypsies, trade unionists, leftists, homosexuals and others. Serving as one of its engines of genocide, Siemens provided the German Reich with, among other things, slave labor factories located next to concentration camps. Apparently, Siemens thinks that it has been good enough for long enough and that this Internet thing has made a sense of history a thing of the past.

Bloomberg reports that Siemens AG and its joint venture, Nokia Siemens Networks, has made it possible for Bahraini secret police to intercept and generate transcripts of text messages and other mobile communications made by protesters in that country's troubled version of the Arab Spring.

Google has awarded $1.25 million apiece to the Nelson Mandela Foundation's Memory Programme and the Desmond Tutu Peace Center. The money is earmarked for the preservation, digitization and sharing of thousands and thousands of documents tracing the transition of the Republic of South Africa from apartheid to democracy.

Mandela's organization will be preserving and digitizing the archive of a man who served as the democracy movement's most public face, a long-term prisoner on the notorious Robben Island and later the first black president of the country.

Between the socially disorienting echo of apartheid, high crime rates and HIV/AIDS, South Africa is struggling under a lot of extra weight. The group that too often bears the brunt of it is kids. South Africa has a much higher number of orphans than it should. Adult guidance of kids is sometimes in short supply. To make up in part for that, Infinite Family has stepped up.

Infinite Family connects mentors anywhere in the world with South African teens in need of adult guidance, advice and support. These "net buddies" connect via weekly video conferences.

The European startup incubator Seedcamp announced today the launch of Seedcamp Johannesburg, the organization's first event in Africa. A Mini Seedcamp will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa on August 11, and applications for the program are now open.

Entrepreneurs from both Europe and Africa can apply to the Mini Seedcamp.

Can mobile phones be an effective tool in the fight against AIDS? A new group of organizations believe they can.

Last week, in conjunction with the PopTech! conference, the Praekelt Foundation and partner organizations announced a new effort that will use the power of mobile messaging to help fight HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis in South Africa. Project Masiluleke will utilize the power of the mobile phones as a low-cost way to deliver health-related information and prompt call-ins to call centers for those affected by these health care crises.