Under The Radar News - Tuesday

Overseas calm. While fear of financial meltdown grips U.S. policy makers, their European counterparts appear calm, as no European bank appears close to collapse. Of course further dollar depression, signs of a substantial slowdown, or news of bank trouble could rapidly alter European monetary policy.

TV turns to casual gaming. Media companies are tapping the marketplace for casual online games. No longer just brand builders, casual games are evolving into full-fledged product lines that are attracting advertisers such as Target (TGT), Circuit City Stores (CC) and Six Flags (SIX). Nickelodeon and MTV parent Viacom (VIA) will announce today the first of 600 casual online games; a recent study shows youth often play games related to their favorite TV shows while watching them. “What video is to TV, games are to the Web,” a Nickelodeon rep. says. “For us to be relevant to our audience, that is where we need to put our investment.” Other players include Yahoo! (YHOO), Electronic Arts (ERTS) and Disney (DIS).

Flip iPhone? A recent patent filing indicates Apple (AAPL) is developing dual-sided, translucent touch-screens -- perhaps the foundation for a flip-screen iPhone or hybrid notebook/tablet device?

Apple PC sales shine, iPod slumps. Apple (AAPL) PC sales continues to outpace the industry, accounting for 14% of all unit sales and 25% of all sales in February -- 60% and 67% growth from a year ago. "MacBook Air sales appear to be additive to total sales, rather than replacing MacBook Pro sales," Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves said. "We believe a new set of corporate customers make up a meaningful portion of MacBook Air buyers." iPod sales were limp, and will apparently fall short of analyst estimates.

iSuppli puts positive spin on WDC. iSuppli says recent 10-year highs in Western Digital (WDC) shares are due to the company's "careful and strategic approach to the market and a management team that has shown it can play its HDD cards very shrewdly." It believes that due to factors including green HDDs that improve power consumption and tight product and financial management, WDC will continue to make gains in the HDD market and on Wall Street.

Nvidia looking at VIA. Sources say Nvidia (NVDA) is in talks to acquire VIA Technologies. Three possible scenarios are being discussed, including an outright acquisition. VIA is said to be asking for a steep price.

Chinese firm could boost RIO stake. Chinalco may look to raise its 12% stake in Rio Tinto (RTP) with Alcoa (AA). Many think the stake was a first step toward deflecting BHP Billiton's (BHP) takeover bid.

State of search. Citi analyst Mark Mahaney held a conference call with six major search-engine marketing and digital ad firms. Takeaways: 1) Search advertising trends remain strong. 2) Advertisers have not cut back on their search advertising spend. 3) Limited threat to Google (GOOG) from other search engines (YHOO, MSFT); have not seen a material change from Google's quality improvements.

Dish satellite may be a goner. A satellite recently launched by EchoStar Communications (DISH), which was to be instrumental in its plan to expand its HDTV capacity, may be toast. "Having the most high definition has become a major source of competitive advantage for DirecTV (DTV), which has used its HD superiority in an appeal to high-end subscribers," Bernstein's Craig Moffett says.

Bidu's big expansion. New diversification initiatives at Baidu.com (BIDU) -- including instant-messaging service, a customer-to-customer online auction platform, a search-results-by-phone service, and a JV with Omniture to help companies market in China -- should benefit its share price. Caveats: Lack of a CFO, and lawsuits over its MP3 search service.

Priceline looks for mate. Priceline.com (PCLN) is looking for a domestic partner to build a hotel booking brand in mainland China.