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SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Apple’s new iPhone, a “smart” mobile phone offering music storage and Internet access, will be launched on June 29, according to television ads by the high-tech group.

The iPhone, which combines the wildly popular iPod music player with features found in other smart phones, was unveiled in January by Apple chief executive Steve Jobs.

The device, to sell at prices of 499 to 599 dollars, will be distributed in the US market through ATT, the new name for the Cingular Wireless brand.

It will weigh 135 grams (3.8 ounces) and have the Apple OS X operating system and four or eight megabytes of storage. It will be able to play videos as well as music and have a screen of 3.5 inches (nine centimeters).

Analysts are divided on whether the iPhone will be an industry-changing device or be too expensive to compete with other smart phones such as the BlackBerry.

On its website, Apple said the iPhone will include “a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device.” It will also include a two-megapixel digital camera.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Smartphone maker Palm Inc. will sell a 25 percent stake to private equity firm Elevation Partners for $325 million and name the former technical guru behind the iPod to be chairman, the company said Monday.

The deal with the long-term investor brings significant new leadership to Palm, which has been battling stiffening competition in a market that is only going to get tougher with Apple Inc.’s June 29 debut of the iPhone.

As part of the deal, Palm will pay a special distribution of $9 per share, or about $940 million in cash, to shareholders. It said the special distribution would be financed by the new investment, cash on hand and $400 million in new debt.

Palm, best known for the Treo line of phones, said two board members — former CEO Eric Benhamou and D. Scott Mercer — will resign. Elevation partners Fred Anderson and Roger McNamee will join Palm’s board, and Apple Inc.’s former top hardware engineer, Jon Rubenstein will join the board as executive chairman.

Rubenstein ran the iPod division at Apple from 2004 to 2006 and was key in the creation of Apple’s iMac computer before that. He was part of the executive team that joined Apple after Steve Jobs returned to that company’s helm.

Anderson, the former chief financial officer of Apple, recently agreed to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges related to a stock options backdating probe at Apple. He also agreed to pay about $3.5 million in fines, without admitting wrongdoing. Anderson also serves as a director of eBay Inc. and Move Inc.

Among Elevation’s five partners, besides Anderson and McNamee, is the rock star Bono, lead singer of U2.

Elevation’s investment in Palm is the firm’s largest ever.

“We don’t think Palm is faltering or that there’s anything wrong with the present,” McNamee said in an interview. “We just think the future is incredibly bright.”

The $1.9 billion private equity firm seeks to strengthen Palm’s position in a highly competitive market that will only become more so with iPhone’s expected entry at the end of the month.

“Today, you can’t get your highest valued content to your phone, other than e-mail,” McNamee said. “And we think that’s going to change in the future.”

Sunnyvale-based Palm was the subject of extensive takeover speculation this year as it hired Morgan Stanley to examine its options, including a complete buyout. A range of telecoms, including Motorola Inc. and Nokia Corp., to private equity firms, were rumored suitors.

“We were approached by larger parties over the last six months,” Palm Chief Executive Ed Colligan said, declining to be more specific. “The reality is that we thought this was the best outcome for our business and our investors.”

For years, Palm’s primary smartphone competitor was Research in Motion Ltd., maker of BlackBerry devices. But as handset giants like Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung Electronics Co. entered the fray last year with lower-priced, slimmer, consumer-oriented models, Palm’s once-groundbreaking Treo design began to appear stale.

Seeking to recapture its innovative streak, Palm last week introduced a new laptop-like device, the Foleo, designed to work with smartphones. However, it was roundly panned.

Colligan said in a conference call with analysts Monday that Palm’s roadmap for the next year is set, but he is looking forward to working with Rubenstein and drawing on his proven record of creating highly efficient engineering teams that produce innovative products.

Rubenstein will work with Palm’s co-founder and top product designer, Jeff Hawkins, who pioneered the Palm Pilot and Treo smartphone, but has been working at Palm only part-time in recent years.

“That’s just a team that can’t be beat,” McNamee told analysts.

Shares of Palm were up nearly 9 percent, or $1.41, to $17.50 in midday trading.

Palm said the deal, which needs shareholder approval, will leave the company with more than $300 million of cash after the transaction.

“The management shakeup at Palm is the key takeaway,” Think Equity analyst Jonathan Hoopes wrote in a note. “Today’s deal should quiet skeptics as these new investors in Palm have ‘been around the block’ and clearly understand the value of a global brand, of a foundation based on software, and of design acumen.”

It’s another bleak forecast for the future in the new video game “Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.”

Yet it’s so much fun you probably won’t mind the prospects of an Earth politically splintered and environmentally devastated by an ever-spreading crystalline alien substance called Tiberium.

This latest saga marks one of the best, and only, games of its type for the
Xbox 360. (The T-rated, $59.99 title is also available for Windows PCs for $10 less).

Like other real-time strategy titles, the gameplay is centered around collecting resources (in this case truckloads of Tiberium), constructing barracks and other structures, and then sending your newly minted army into all-out war.

Nothing here really breaks away from the real-time strategy genre’s conventions, and that’s just fine.

The frenzied managerial pace of building forces, collecting tiberium and defeating rivals remains an intense experience. The hours will quickly pass as you conquer one mission after another.

There are several ways to play, but I recommend going through the single-player story modes first.

They not only serve as a good primer to the Xbox 360 controls and various units you can build (tanks, troops and air fighters among them), they also advance an intriguing story that’s filled with plenty of cheesy sci-fi twists and turns.

Anyone who’s played earlier games in the series, which date back to the mid-1990s, will get an especially big kick out of seeing what fanatical Nod leader Kane and other characters in the long-standing series are up to now.

Speaking of characters, one of the hallmarks of the series returns with a campy vengeance in “Tiberium Wars.”

The full-screen, full-motion video segments between missions tell the story and feature great appearances from some Hollywood talent such as Battlestar Galactica’s
Tricia Helfer,
Billy Dee Williams and
Michael Ironside.

Yes, it’s often painful watching these actors “act” in a video game. But I had a smile on my face the whole time, and seeing this classic feature from older “Command & Conquer” games conjured up a warm retro feeling.

Whether you enjoy the video sequences or the addicting gameplay, “Tiberium Wars” is a welcome return to a reinvigorated franchise.

Three stars out of four.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Cigna Corp. said on Wednesday it will offer HopeLab’s “Re-Mission” video game, which lets teens and young adults blast cancer while learning how to improve the odds of beating the disease, free of charge on its Web site.

“‘Re-Mission’ has demonstrated that video games have the power to help teenagers better adhere to their cancer treatment and embrace key behaviors that improve their health and quality of life,” Dr. Glenn Pomerantz, medical director of its CIGNA HealthCare unit, said in a statement.

Teenaged cancer patients can face a unique set of challenges, medical experts said. They are old enough to be responsible for their treatment, but may be too young to understand the potentially deadly consequences of skipping required medications that may make them feel sick, lose their hair, get acne, or gain weight.

Pam Omidyar, a medical researcher married to eBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar, launched HopeLab in 2001, seeking to improve the health of young people with a mix of good science and fun technology.

HopeLab, a Northern California-based nonprofit organization, teamed with video game developers and animators, cancer experts, cell biologists, psychologists and young patients, seeking to make a high-quality video game that would educate as well as entertain.

The results was “Re-Mission,” a teen-rated shooting game featuring a nanobot named Roxxi who roams inside the bodies of fictional cancer patients, destroying cancer cells, battling bacterial infections and managing side effects associated with cancer and cancer treatments.

Since the game’s launch early last year, HopeLab said it has delivered 76,000 copies of “Re-Mission” on disc or via download on its Web site (www.re-mission.net).

Cigna’s site (www.CIGNA.com/re-mission) will offer the game.

HopeLab tested “Re-Mission” in a randomized, controlled trial of 375 male and female cancer patients aged 13 to 29, who were enrolled at 34 medical centers in the United States, Canada and Australia.

Preliminary study results suggested that playing the video game increased quality of life and cancer-related knowledge.

The “Re-Mission” players also maintained levels of chemotherapy in their blood and showed higher rates of antibiotic use than those in the control group, indicating that the game helped patients stick to cancer therapy regimens.

“The ‘Re-Mission’ video game is an important tool to help improve their understanding of cancer, its treatments and effects, which can result in more confidence in their ability to deal with the disease and more consistent compliance with their treatment,” said Dr. Gary Dahl, a pediatric oncologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University in California and a principal investigator for the “Re-Mission” study.

“‘Re-Mission’ works. It gives young people with cancer a sense of power and control over their disease,” HopeLab President Pat Christen said.

Cigna’s Pomerantz said the insurer plans to work with HopeLab to help young patients with other chronic conditions.

Next on HopeLab’s list: obesity.

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Computer game makers and industry analysts agree that Wii is trouncing rival video game consoles due to a captivating blend of ease, fun, family, friends and affordability.

April US sales of Wii consoles with simple motion-sensing controllers were more than double those of Microsoft’s
Xbox 360 and quadruple those of Sony’s languishing PlayStation 3.

Demand for Wii consoles has outpaced supply since they debuted in November of 2006. Nintendo has reportedly sold more than 2.5 million Wii consoles in North America.

French video game giant Ubisoft began working with Nintendo a year before Wii launched and premiered sword-fighting game Red Steel at the console’s release.

Ubisoft embraces the Wii platform that lets game makers get players to jump, swing, thrash and dart, according to Xavier Poix, director of the firm’s Paris and Montpellier studios.

“We were convinced the first time we touched the Wii that it really was a revolution because it was a way to think of games differently,” Poix told AFP.

“When you look at someone playing an Xbox 360 game you see his face is really hard and both hands are stuck on the controller. When you see someone playing Wii, you always see a smile and movement. Sometimes crazy movement, but it is OK.”

US video game titan Electronic Arts and the game division of entertainment icon Disney have studios devoted to making Wii games.

The release of the Disney film “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” was accompanied by a Wii game of the same name that lets players use controllers to pretend to be sword-fighting buccaneers.

The head of the LucasArts, the game division for “Star Wars” series creator George Lucas, told AFP a Wii game that lets players wield virtual light sabers is on the horizon.

“The Wii opens up a range of creative possibilities for new and innovative game design,” said Disney Interactive Studios vice president Craig Relyea.

“Our Pirates of the Caribbean game for the Wii lets you slash and thrust with the Wii remote just as someone would do using a sword for combat. We wouldn’t have been able to offer those controls on any other platform.”

Japan-based Nintendo is cashing in on a gamble that there is a broad audience beyond the “hard-core gamers” keen on realistic warrior games rife with mayhem and bloodshed.

“Nintendo let Sony and Microsoft fight it out for the hard-core gamer market and went after all the people who either stopped playing or were intimidated by too many buttons on controllers,” said video game researcher Mia Consalvo, an associate professor at Ohio University.

“It is not just a game system it is something for everyone. Nintendo is crafty.”

Xbox and PlayStation consoles require players to master button and toggle combinations to command onscreen characters.

“With Wii it is just intuitive,” Poix said. “To move a weapon you simply move your arm.”

Wii is, in a way, a family board game for the computer generation because it turns play into a community event instead of just a person versus a machine, according to Poix.

“Part of the industry was misguided,” Poix said. “The question was how to get people other than geeks into the market. Wii really helped us to realize we are not developing games for one type of person anymore but for everybody.”

Nintendo heeded a “historical rule of video games” that consoles are hot sellers in the 200-dollar (US) price range and sales cool quickly as prices rise to “nosebleed territory” above 400 dollars, said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.

Wii is priced at 249 dollars, while the PlayStation 3 models are priced at 499 or 599 dollars and Xbox 360 models at 299 or 399.

“Nintendo knew their audience well — folks whose parents buy them stuff — and hit right on the price point,” Enderle told AFP.

Wii’s price makes it enticing not only to parents buying for children, but to people that already have a PlayStation or Xbox.

“It’s pretty, it’s fun, it’s cheap and kids like it” Enderle said.

“Plus it’s kind of fun to play with the wife when the kids are out of the room. Wii hit it on all cylinders and is chewing up the market.”

Nintendo’s vision for Wii is to appeal to everyone ages five to 95, the company’s legendary game creator Shigeru Miyamoto said at a recent game developers’ gathering in San Francisco.

Miyamoto joked that he gauged Wii’s potential by using a “wife-o-meter,” the reaction of his wife at home.

Miyamoto’s creations Donkey Kong and Legend of Zelda scarcely nudged the needle on the wife-o-meter, Miyamoto quipped.

“On Valentine’s Day I got home late from work and found my wife playing Wii,” Miyamoto said laughing.

“Now, my wife is bragging to me that she can beat me at this game, any time. What’s worse is she is right. If we can convert my wife, we can convert anyone.”