The encouragement (or requirement) of diversity sometimes gets labeled reverse racism, under the assumption that encourgaing diversity is only about somehow making up for past injustices by discriminating against today's white men who may never have themselves committed such injustices.

I'm not trying to step into the touchy issue of Supreme Court politics (nor am I arguing that quotas are always a good thing), but I've run across this interesting observation in several contexts recently:

"Participants push themselves to formulate better arguments when they know they will have to justify them."

CHICAGO, June 4 /PRNewswire/ --

- Vision Solution is the 'Most Innovative Value Added Service (VAS) Platform' Contender

Novarra today announces that GSMA has nominated its Vision(TM) Widgets Mobile Content Framework for the Most Innovative Value Added Service (VAS) Platform in the EMEA leg of the 2010 Mobile Innovation Grand Prix competition. This prestigious award recognizes the leaders in the development of innovative mobile products. During the EMEA event, ten companies from around the world will compete in five categories, with two overall winners awarded a trip to compete for the Mobile Innovation Grand Prix Cup at Mobile World Congress, February 2010.

PARIS, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Generali France, France's second largest general insurance company, has selected CA's (NASDAQ: CA) Clarity(TM) Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) as its single project management solution to deliver major IT transformation projects and to increase business agility and competitive advantage.

In early 2007, Generali France was growing much faster than its rivals. To maintain that competitive advantage, it made the strategic decision to create a single entity from the numerous insurance companies it had acquired.

LONDON, June 4 /PRNewswire/ --

- New 'Panel-Centric Hybrid' Approach Enables Unified Reporting Across Entire Internet Universe, Including Internet Cafes and Mobile WiFi Browsing

Strong industry support has emerged following the announcement earlier this week that comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, will be launching its new Media Metrix 360 'panel-centric hybrid' solution for digital audience measurement in the U.K. The new service, which combines person-level measurement with Web site server metrics to account for 100 percent of a Web site's total audience, will be available in the U.K. from September 2009 with the publication of August 2009 data.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080115/COMSCORELOGO)

In the last few columns, I described how laboratory simulations of a volcanic prebiotic environment showed that interesting organic reactions can be driven by the heat and pressure associated with vulcanism. I also described my own studies of volcanic sites on the present Earth, which we call prebiotic analogue environments, and pointed out some of the problems that arise when we try to duplicate laboratory experiments in the real world geothermal conditions. 

In the comments following the column, Gerhard Adam suggested that ice might be a plausible alternative to a hot site for the origin of life.

WAREGEM, Belgium and FREIBURG and NECKARSULM, Germany, June 4 /PRNewswire/ --

- Framework Agreement for the Installation and Maintenance of Solar Systems for Electricity Generation Concluded

MUNICH, Germany, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Mobile communications operator T-Mobile International has chosen the Rohde Schwarz group as the exclusive supplier of its standard drive test systems. The contract includes the delivery of RS ROMES software and associated mobile radio scanners to five European countries. T-Mobile International will use the drive test systems from Rohde Schwarz to test the transmission quality of channels in its mobile radio networks. This will enable the network operator to ensure interference-free mobile communications coverage.

LONDON, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The publication recognised that since launching their managed telepresence service in July 2008, Tata Communications has been leading the industry with their innovative and comprehensive strategy. According to Peter Quinlan, Tata Communications is the first provider to open public telepresence rooms, with a global network of public telepresence rooms which customers can access on a pay-per-use basis. Starting with four public rooms in India, their coverage has expanded to ten rooms: Mumbai, Bangalore (2 rooms), Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, London, Boston, Manila and also Santa Clara, California (Cisco location). Tata Communications plans to significantly expand their global network of rooms by the end of 2009.

LONDON, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- European CEO, the premier pan-European publication for business leaders, has announced the winners of its Telepresence Awards 2009. The awards were announced in the June-July issue of the magazine, released this month. The winners were as follows:

Telepresence Provider of the Year Award for 2009, Tandberg

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, June 4 /PRNewswire/ --

The global number of users paying for mobile video services will grow five-fold from 2008 to 2014, surpassing 534 million, with a substantial proportion of mobile net additions coming from emerging markets, according to the latest report by Pyramid Research (www.pyr.com), the telecom research arm of the Light Reading Communications Network (www.lightreading.com).