Thursday 8am Silicon Valley news report:

Rest in Peace, RSS -TechCrunchIT

Today, RSS is a shell of its former self, casually subsumed as the transport for 140+ content into the social stream. There, RSS items are fed into aggregators and husked for their behavioral signals, packaged as Tweets and sold for pennies on the whuffie dollar. The mainstream media, once cowed by the fulltexters, now masquerades as blog sites and competes for shortened URLs alongside the bloggers they deride under their breath.

The future of virtualization: a view from the front lines -arstechnica

One worthwhile point that came up in our forum conversation was that any discussion of the future of virtualization is really about the future of the OS. Abstractly speaking, virtualization is just the latest development in the operating system's ongoing adaptation to different forms of multitenancy (protected memory and multiuser support being two earlier points on this trend).

Google and others urge inventory of national airwaves -siliconvalley.com

"Radio spectrum is a natural resource, something that here in the U.S. is owned by all of us American citizens," Richard Whitt, Google's counsel for telecom and media, wrote in a blog post earlier this week in support of the Radio Spectrum Inventory Act, which was recently introduced in Congress by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Olivia Snowe, R-Maine. "Most of us don't give it much thought — and yet use of these airwaves is precisely what makes many of our modern communication systems possible."

Microsoft CEO still sees chance to work with Yahoo -Reuters

Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer said he sees opportunities to work with Yahoo Inc to create a "better search product" but would not comment on discussions that the two may be engaged in.

Campaign Trail Leads to the Web -NYTimes

“If you look at the typical microtargeting approach, you have to be a very large national campaign to really afford it,” said Tim Ryan, the general manager of Sawyer Miller Advertising, which has handled public affairs campaigns for Microsoft. “For the public affairs context, I think we’re excited about this, and excited about the ability to better target our audiences at a lower cost point, and get better engagement, and that’s the goal,” he said.

Harris: IPO pipeline has turned into a sieve -MercuryNews

"We're seeing a rebuilding and stabilization of the IPO market, so that Silicon Valley firms will be able to participate." said Jeff Grabow of the accounting firm Ernst & Young's San Jose office, which issued its quarterly U.S. IPO Pipeline report Tuesday.

Google Analytics Adding Two Advanced Features -searchengineland

Against the backdrop of this week’s eMetrics conference, Google has announced a pair of advanced features that are coming soon to Google Analytics. And they’re specifically warning that these are for advanced users.

Hosted CRM, ERP: Another Microsoft and Oracle battleground in the making -zdnet

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is famous for blurting out potential product ideas even when they are nothing but a glimmer in his eye. But maybe in the case of offering hosted financials, CRM, HRM and other similar services, there’s a chance such Oracle-hosted entities could come to market sooner rather than later.

Cloud vs sand: Google vs Microsoft -zdnet

The study looked at four different configurations: 1) Google apps with a single network connection; 2) Google apps with two network connections for added availability; 3) Microsoft Office and Exchange with internal disk storage; and, 4) Office and Exchange with an external storage array.

Firefox Could Be the Real Facebook Challenger -ReadWriteWeb

How well could Facebook compete with social software that prioritizes multiple personas (work/friends seeing different sides of you) and breaks free from the walled gardens of standard social networking? Those are approaches that Facebook will no doubt be moving towards soon as well.

Twitter co-founder says company not for sale -Reuters

When host Barbara Walters -- mentioning rumors that Google Inc, Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc might be interested in acquiring the company -- asked whether Twitter is for sale, Stone answered, "no."

Cisco Earnings Fall 21% but Beat Expectations -NYTimes

Chief Executive John Chambers said customers are ''finally seeing something reasonably solid underneath their feet,'' and the company itself has seen order rates possibly bottom out.

Will iPhone Work Its Magic on Mobile Advertising? -iphone journal

The iPhone and devices that are following in its wake provide the best platform yet for enabling mobile advertising because they are optimised for rich media applications like video and also provide a genuinely good mobile browsing experience.

More cell phone users dropping landlines -SFGate

Further underscoring the public's diminishing reliance on landline phones, the federal survey found that 15 percent of households have both landlines and cells but take few or no calls on their landlines, often because they are wired into computers. Combined with wireless only homes, that means that 35 percent of households — more than one in three — are basically reachable only on cells.

ND Supreme Court upholds Internet provider probe -AP

North Dakota's Supreme Court says the attorney general may continue a probe into the marketing practices of an Internet service provider.

Not so Quiet on the Cyber Front -h+

One approach to preventing network intrusions is to simulate cyberattacks – essentially cyber war gaming. The National Cyber Range is a test environment for the Internet of the future, and it is being built to be attacked. Northrop Grumman Corporation recently won a contract for this Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) project, “which will provide an environment to test and analyze new concepts and technologies to protect against modern cyber threats.”

FAA's Air-Traffic Networks Breached by Hackers -WSJ

"The threat of hackers interfering with our air-traffic control systems is not just theoretical; it has already happened," said Republican Rep. Tom Petri of Wisconsin, one of the lawmakers who requested the report. "We must regard the strengthening of our air-traffic control security as an urgent matter."

Steve Ballmer Sees the Light Through the Clouds

In addition to general entrepreneurial optimism, Ballmer spoke of specific opportunities for “software-powered experiences.” He said Windows Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, is a core project because it’s the future of Microsoft’s Windows Server and SQL businesses. But even while Ballmer pumped up the cloud and clients, he wasn’t willing to sign over existing businesses.

Intel, Microsoft, Dell band together for WiGig -SFGate

Computer and home entertainment industry leaders, including Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp., Dell Inc. and Panasonic Corp., said Wednesday that they're forming a new association to create an even faster wireless technology for zipping large files around the home.

An Android Netbook From Dell? -WSJ

Dell and BSquare now say the announcement of Dell’s allegedly forthcoming Android netbook shouldn’t have been made. Dell spokesman Andrew Bowins said the press release was published “in error,” though he didn’t deny — or confirm — that the PC giant is working on such a device.