Tech News Digest… Breaking news into bite-sized chunks.

Today, Twitter floats on the stock exchange, Microsoft's Android royalties are revealed, 37signals helps you work remotely, Silk Road 2.0 is launched, the Internet Archive is damaged in a fire, Weebly wants everyone to become their own Amazon, the innards of the PlayStation 4 are exposed to the world, and an iPad Air gets badly beaten up.

Twitter Floats With IPO

Twitter has started trading as a public company on the New York Stock Exchange using the ticker symbol $TWTR. Twitter set its IPO (Initial Public Offering) at $26, as announced in the tweet embedded below. The stock opened at $45.10 and closed the day at $44.90, so while the price dropped slightly on day one it's still 73 percent up on the IPO.

http://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/398235511254298624

In real terms this means Twitter has raised $1.82 billion, though the immediate bump in price meant the company lost out on a potential $1.3 billion. As Dan Primack points out over at Fortune that's more than double the amount Twitter expects to raise in revenue this year. Furthermore, if Twitter had priced itself at $45.10 per share it could have given each and every employee a bonus of $580,000.

http://twitter.com/jack/statuses/398482069279748096

Despite all of this the Twitter IPO should be considered a success, with co-founder Jack Dorsey congratulating all involved in the tweet embedded above. True to the spirit of Twitter the head honchos decided to forego the opportunity to open the New York Stock Exchange in favor of three influential users of the service. Among them was 9-year-old Vivienne Harr, who wrote a rather touching note to co-founder Biz Stone.

Given the lack of enthusiasm amongst the MakeUseOf faithful about the Twitter IPO I wonder if anyone is still reading...

Android Enriches Microsoft

You'd imagine that the companies making money from the incredible success of Android would be Google and the manufacturers of the hardware running the mobile operating system. But no. It's actually Microsoft, which, according to Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund, makes $2 billion each year in revenue from Android patent royalties. No wonder Steve Ballmer is always smiling that big cheesy grin of his.

37signals Launches We Work Remotely

37signals, best known as the creators of Basecamp and Ruby On Rails, has launched We Work Remotely, a new jobs board for remote workers. Jobs available through the board include those in "programming, design, system administration, customer service/supper, business/exec, [and] copywriter," with employers paying $200 for a 30-day listing. We recently spoke to two remote workers, also known as telecommuters or work-at-home employees, about their experiences, and the interviews could be a real eye-opener to those who physically travel to an office each day.

Silk Road 2.0 Debuts

http://twitter.com/DreadPirateSR/statuses/398117916802961409

The Silk Road, the online black market for drugs and other illicit services, is back, with Silk Road 2.0 having been launched. The original Silk Road was taken offline by the U.S. Department of Justice in October, with the alleged owner arrested. But a new Dread Pirate Roberts, the pseudonym used by the previous owner, has emerged to carry on the business. The question is, for how long?

To learn more about the deep Web, the Tor browser, and .onion sites, be sure to read Chris Hoffman's fascinating guide for beginners. And be sure to tread very carefully if you do decide to explore further.

Internet Archive Damaged In Fire

The non-profit organization that runs Internet Archive, best known for the ever-popular Wayback Machine, has suffered a fire at its San Francisco scanning center. Thankfully no one was hurt and no data was lost, but an estimated "$600,000 worth of high end digitization equipment" was lost, and the organization has stated it will "need to repair or rebuild the scanning building." Which is why donations are being gratefully accepted.

Weebly eCommerce Has Arrived

http://youtu.be/GnqEB0XxAbM

For several years Weebly has allowed you to create a professional-looking website for free. Now, it's adding the option to create a professional-looking shopping site too. A Weebly eCommerce business account costs $25-per-month, but with the promise of your own "shopping site with features like that of Amazon" it could be hard to resist.

Sony Opens Up On PlayStation 4

The PlayStation 4 is due to launch in the U.S. on Nov. 15, with an EU release following on Nov. 29. Which means now is as good a time as any to catch a glimpse inside the hood of Sony's next-gen games console. Wired was there to witness Yasuhiro Ootori, "director of the mechanical engineering team in charge of the PS4" deconstruct the PlayStation 4 hardware piece by piece. Gamers will drool over the pictures, while non-gamers will wonder what on earth the fuss is about.

iPad Air Fails Drop Test

http://youtu.be/6JNTx4zy19w

And finally, those who have bought a new iPad Air recently may want to hold on to the iDevice very tightly with both hands. Why? Because the fifth-generation iPad isn't the toughest tablet in the world. As this video shows, the iPad Air even failed the standard soft dirt drop test, though that did at least justify the rest of the slow-motion torture that Richard Ryan captures on video.

Image Credits: Andrew Mager, Aidan