It's Never Too Early To Say Goodbye  —  “You can't just quietly slip out the door,” I've been told by too many people I trust.  So okay, fine, here's this post!  —  Since you asked, TechCrunch is in a really good place right now.  —  The various numbers we use to measure ourselves …

New Gmail Feature Allows Anyone On Google+ To Email You & Vice Versa, But Opt Out Is Provided  —  Google is today making a change to Gmail that will further bake in Google+ to its webmail product in a way that's actually somewhat practical, though also potentially invasive.

Overstock.com becomes the first major online retailer to accept bitcoins, will use Coinbase's payment system  —  The Grand Experiment Goes Live: Overstock.com Is Now Accepting Bitcoins  —  Overstock.com is now accepting payments in bitcoin, making it the first major online retailer to embrace …

Surprise: Amazon tests physical retail with ‘Kindle Kiosk’ vending machines  —  LAS VEGAS — Amazon, the company that defined the world of online commerce, is venturing further into the world of physical retail — experimenting with standalone, automated “Kindle Kiosk” vending machines in selected airports and shopping malls.

Snapchat apologizes for leaked user data, updates app to let you opt out of ‘Find Friends’  —  Snapchat today rolled out the security fix it promised last week, which lets users opt out of the app's “Find Friends” feature.  The feature, which let users plug in their phone number to find friends …

The Bitcoin-Mining Arms Race Heats Up  —  Joel Flickinger's two-bedroom home in the hills above Oakland, Calif., hums with custom-built computing gear.  Just inside the front door, in a room anyone else might use as a den, he's placed a desk next to a fireplace that supports a massive monitor …

Gartner: PC shipments slip 6.9% to 82.6m units in Q4, as 2013 sees the worst yearly decline in history  —  The PC market continues to be in free fall, having now seen its seventh consecutive quarter of declining worldwide shipments.  Worldwide PC shipments dropped to 82.6 million units …

Closing Windows: Microsoft and its platforms are nowhere to be found at CES  —  For over a decade, Microsoft was the dominant presence at CES.  But after pulling out the show in 2013, the company has faded almost completely from view this year: the biggest Microsoft story at CES 2014 …

Jason Calacanis's mobile news startup Inside.com has hired former The Wire editor Gabriel Snyder, launches Jan. 23  —  Gabriel Snyder, Former Editor of The Wire, Joins Mobile News Start-Up  —  Gabriel Snyder, the former editor in chief of The Wire, a website owned by Atlantic Media …

Motorola offering free Google Chromecast with purchase of off-contract Moto X  —  After the Cyber Monday madness surrounding the $349 Moto X, Motorola officially dropped the device's off-contract price to just $399 last week, looking to get the device into even more consumer's hands.

Facebook To Sunset Sponsored Stories April 9  —  Facebook's sponsored stories have seen their highs and lows, with the lowest low occurring when the ad unit became the subject of a class-action lawsuit, but sponsored stories will be history after April 9, according to a list of breaking changes …

Source: Yahoo Bought Aviate For $80M  —  Earlier this week, Yahoo announced that it had acquired Aviate, a startup providing contextually relevant information on Android homescreens, but it didn't say anything about the acquisition price.  Now a source with knowledge of the deal tells me that the acquisition was for $80 million.

Meet Airlock: Facebook's mobile testing framework  —  It's taken a while, but Facebook has started to move in the direction of “mobile-best”.  With popular mobile apps on iOS and Android, how exactly does the company know what works and what doesn't?  With millions of people using its apps …

Google's master plan for Android: More Internet users paying $6.30 a pop  —  The mobile industry is headed to Google, who is in an ideal position to clean up at roughly $6.30 per Internet user per year.  —  Forget today's smartphone profits: Apple and Samsung increasingly split those relatively evenly …

Google updates Play services with turn-based multiplayer, Google Drive API, improved battery life, and more  —  Google today updated Google Play Services to version 4.1, adding turn-based multiplayer support, a preliminary Google Drive API, improved battery life for all users …

Google Data Chief Says ‘Flawed’ EU Privacy Law Is Dead  —  Google Inc. (GOOG)'s top privacy official said the European Union's “flawed” attempt to overhaul data-protection rules is “dead” and urged politicians to go back to the drawing board.  —  “Europe's much-ballyhooed, and much-flawed …