Thursday, September 5, 2024

Welcome to TechCrunch AM! This morning, we're looking at Verizon's latest buy; X refilling vital staff positions after layoffs; and a sweet new app that helps grandparents and kids stay in touch. We also have notes on the Ford BlueCruise crash; the latest on short drama apps; Bolt's continued snafus; and Facebook's weird attempt to attract Gen Z. — Rebecca

TechCrunch Top 3

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1. Verizon's big bet: Verizon is buying Frontier Communications for $20 billion, more than double Frontier's market cap. The smaller company operates an array of services, but Verizon seems to be most interested in its fiber optic business. Read More

2. X fills in some gaps: When Elon Musk took over Twitter, he oversaw the firing of its trust, safety and security teams. Now, it looks like X is trying to fill some of those crucial empty positions. Read More

3. It takes a village: Kinsome is an adorable new app that helps kids and grandparents share daily updates and preserve memories. It can give kids conversation prompts and uses AI to provide real-time explainers for grandparents. Read More

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Morning Must-Reads

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👐 The problem with hands-free driving features is that people are too confident in the tech's abilities and stop paying attention to the road. We've seen a number of fatal crashes from Tesla's FSD, and now we're starting to see them with Ford's BlueCruise. Read More

😵‍💫 The new opium of the masses: First it was religion, then it was TV. In the future, it might still be TV, but tweaked and optimized to captivate our internet-addled brains: My Drama is a short-drama app that offers more than 30 short soap operas, plus an AI-powered chatbot that helps viewers get to know characters. Read More

🍿 The Bolt drama continues: Ryan Breslow's plan to reinstall himself as CEO of Bolt and push through a $450 million deal has stalled after he thanked investors for signing off on the deal. The problem is, many of them didn't sign off on anything. Read More

💰 More fintech consolidation: Paylocity is buying Airbase for $325 million to offer products that cater to CFOs' offices. Airbase, a corporate spend startup, had raised over $100 million in equity from Menlo Ventures, Bain Capital, First Round and others. Read More

✅ Making life easier for the green tech ecosystem: Reonic has raised €13 million to provide planning and workflow tools to help small businesses that install heat pumps and solar panels be more efficient. Read More

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Around the Web

🪆 The US DOJ has seized 32 internet domains used in Russian influence campaigns as part of a larger campaign to tackle Russian interference in 2024 U.S. elections, reports CNN. A 300-page FBI affidavit describes a broad, Kremlin-backed effort to seed fake news stories to attack U.S. politicians supporting Ukraine and stoke tensions. Read More

☁️ Show me the data center: Applied Digital just raised $160 million from Nvidia and others to boost its business of leasing out computing power for AI, reports The Wall Street Journal. Similar companies like CoreWeave have also attracted recent investment. Read More

🎶 Take the money and run: The New York Times reports a North Carolina man has been accused of stealing royalty payments from Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music by using AI to create hundreds of thousands of fake songs by fake bands that ended up topping the charts. Read More

Before You Go

Image Credits: TechCrunch

🤦 The kids are alright without Facebook: Meta is trying to "rekindle the flame between Facebook and socially anxious youths," TC's Amanda Siberling writes, with a blog post titled "Navigating your 20s with Facebook." Right, because Gen Z kids are reading blog posts… Read More