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It's now over a month since influential Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was detained by China's government. In what New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg called a "bittersweet honor," Ai Weiwei's latest art exhibition opened today in NYC. The 12-piece outdoor public sculpture, entitled Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, is supplemented by a special Tumblr blog, Twitter account, Facebook Page and official website.

Nobody has heard from Ai Weiwei since his detention on April 3rd, also the date of his most recent tweet (Weiwei is a prolific Twitter user). We hope this brave artist is safe and will be released as soon as possible.

There's increasing concern in China and worldwide about the detention of leading Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei. Reports first surfaced on Sunday U.S. that Weiwei had been detained by China authorities, while at the Beijing Airport on his way to Hong Kong. Weiwei is a prolific Twitter user, but his account hasn't been updated since Sunday (it's also translated into english). CNN reported today that China's ruling Communist party "unleashed a blistering attack" on both Weiwei and the West for criticizing the apparent arrest.

Many of China's own citizens are voicing their concern on China's leading Twitter-like service, Sina Weibo. To do this, users must creatively route around active censorship on Weibo.

Earlier tonight, the Paley Center hosted a discussion about social media and digital activism with celebrated artist, architectural designer, activist and blogger Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and ReadWriteWeb's editor and founder Richard MacManus. The discussion touched upon a large variety of topics related to social media and digital activism in China, including translating Twitter into Chinese and Google's exit from the Chinese market.

The big news of the week was Google's efforts to remove censorship from its search results in China - read on for our coverage and analysis of this news. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.

Note: We've refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format.

On March 15, at the prestigious Paley Center in New York City, a conversation will take place between Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, and yours truly, Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb founder and editor in chief. The moderator will be Orville Schell, the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.

The topic of the event is the emergence of digital activism for fostering positive social change. The onsite event is invitation only, but it will be live streamed exclusively on ReadWriteWeb on Monday, March 15, at 6:30 PM EST (-5 GMT), from the Paley Center for Media, New York City.