Hamburg - We all started out as diamonds in the rough - literally - according to German scientists who say crystalline interfacial water layers played a fundamental role in biology and evolution on planet Earth.

These primordial pools of microscopic hydrogenated diamonds in the rough were the original soup from which all life sprang billions of years ago, say the scientists from the Institute of Micro and Nanomaterials at Ulm University in Germany.

Hamburg - Next time you kiss your car when it starts on a cold day, or you curse your computer when it crashes - you may be relieved to know that it is only human nature to regard inanimate objects as sentient beings like yourself.

Scientists in Germany say our minds are hard-wired to interact with other human beings to such a degree that our minds just work better when we subconsciously think of objects in our environment as having human minds of their own.

Hamburg - Apple's new iPhone 3G has been on the market for just a few days, but some reviewers have had access to it for weeks and have already aired their views on the phone. Most have praised its ease of use although it is by no means perfect.

The iPhone 3G supports the third generation of mobile phone standards (UMTS/HSDPA) and GPS navigation. Matthias Kremp, of the news website Spiegel Online, says users will see the biggest benefit in the iPhone's internet access speed.

Hamburg - Sometimes there's nothing worse than having a song stuck in your head. It's particularly frustrating if you picked up a melody somewhere, but don't even know the artist or title. The internet may ease your pain. Specialized online services are helping identify those nameless favourites.

There are a variety of ways to name that tune. The Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology records the user singing the tune and tries to identify it against a database of melodies, an approach known as "Query by Humming." The technology was developed at the Fraunhofer Institute in Ilmenau.

Kiel, Germany - Windows Vista is the safest Microsoft operating system available, according to an online test conducted by the Association of German Network Security.

The test covered 225,000 PCs in Germany. Around 5.5 per cent of f computers using the Vista system had security problems. People using computers with the Windows XP operating system reported problem rates of 12 per cent. Even more problems were reported with computers using Windows 98, ME, and Windows 2000 - around 20 per cent.

Kirchheim-Heimstetten, Germany - Sun Microsystems intends offering a beta version of its StarOffice 9 office suite as a free download.