Code/red: Symantec’s Split Take

// HAPPENING TODAY

• HTC’s “Double Exposure” event in New York City.
• The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the Amazon warehouse worker case.
• Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is holding a surveillance roundtable with a handful of Silicon Valley executives, among them Google Chairman Eric Schmidt.

It’s Like the Ice-Bucket Challenge for Corporations

First eBay. Then Hewlett-Packard. Who will be the next big tech company to split itself in two in pursuit of focus and flexibility? Symantec. People with knowledge of the matter tell Bloomberg that the company is in “advanced talks” to calve off its data storage business from its security software business. The move, were it to happen, would effectively undo Symantec’s $13.5 billion acquisition of data-storage outfit Veritas in 2004 and, potentially, turn the newly separated businesses into takeover targets for the likes of HP and EMC.

New iPads Next Thursday

Apple sent out invites this morning for the special event we told you about last week.

Facebook Developing an Anonymous Messaging App? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Hey, remember Facebook’s “real names” policy? The one the company took such a hard line on up until about a week ago? The New York Times reports that the company has been developing a new mobile app that will allow its users to interact “without having to use their real names.” Evidently, competing with anonymous social apps like Secret and Whisper makes for a more compelling business case than honoring the wishes of transgender people and others who would prefer not to use their legal name on Facebook.

Bitcoin Just Like Netscape, Except It’s Not a Web Browser Destined to Be Acquired by AOL

Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen on bitcoin: “When we tried to get investors for Netscape, most of them said ‘you’re out of your mind.’ This is the thing that’s most like that of anything I’ve seen in the last 20 years.”

Presumably Part of That No-Telecommuting Policy …

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been considering layoffs at the company’s operations in Bangalore, India, almost since she joined the company. Now she’s finally swinging the ax. Yahoo sacked about 400 employees in Bangalore this week — about a third of the staff working at its software development center there. “We’re making some changes to the way we operate in Bangalore leading to consolidation of certain teams into fewer offices,” the company said in a statement acknowledging the cuts. “Yahoo will continue to have a presence in India and Bangalore remains an important office.”

Gee, I Wonder if This Had Anything to Do With GT’s Recent Bankruptcy Filing?

The Wall Street Journal on Apple’s deal with sapphire manufacturer GT Advanced Technologies: “Apple had agreed to lend GT a total of $578 million to help get a large sapphire factory in Arizona up and running. The tech giant reportedly withheld the last $139 million payment it was due to make, although it isn’t clear why.”

Apple: Let’s Just Remember the Good Times, Okay GT?

Apple on GT’s financial debacle: “We are proud of the jobs we’ve helped create in Arizona through Apple’s domestic manufacturing initiative and our state-of-the-art facility powered entirely by renewable energy sources. We are focused on preserving jobs in Arizona following GT’s surprising decision and we will continue to work with state and local officials as we consider our next steps.”

“You Have Zero Privacy Anyway, Tim. Get Over It.”

Tim Berners-Lee: “The idea that privacy is dead is hopelessly sad. We have to build systems that allow for privacy.”

“Under-shifted.” Hahahaha.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: “I probably under-shifted to one or two things, and I feel bad about that. I don’t feel bad about social networking. Good for Facebook, great, but I don’t feel bad [that we missed it]. I feel a little differently about search, and a little differently about phones. We should have done better. I feel worse about phones than I do about search.”

Obviously, a Self-Driving Camel

Lindsay Carroll, The National: “Most images for Google Street View are collected with a car, but for the first time, the task was given to an animal — a 10-year-old camel named Raffia. Raffia walked through the desert around Liwa Oasis with a Street View camera mounted on top of her hump to create panoramic views for Internet users around the world.”

Off Topic

Emergent and some amazing U.S. currency vandalism.

Thanks for reading. Send tips, comments and octopus to John@recode.net, @johnpaczkowski. Subscribe to the Code/red newsletter here.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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