Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA

By Savyata Mishra(Reuters) – Nutella spread maker Ferrero, armed with experience in health-regulated European markets and a track record of revamping struggling brands like Keebler cookies, has a good chance of reviving WK Kellogg’s legacy cereal brands with its $3.1 billion take-private deal announced last week.Ferrero, which makes sugary treats like Kinder chocolate eggs, Ferrero Rocher, and Tic Tac, has pursued an aggressive global expansion to boost revenue and diversify its portfolio beyond sweets into snacks, baked goods, and now breakfast cereals.Under Chairman Giovanni Ferrero, the company has invested heavily in product innovation, reformulation and packaging redesign to turn around…

Popular YoCrunch yogurt products are being voluntarily recalled following consumer reports of plastic pieces in the dome topper that could potentially cause choking, parent company Danone U.S. announced Tuesday.The company, based in White Plains, New York, issued the recall on Friday for “all flavors and sizes of YoCrunch® products currently inmarket,” according to the release, and is being conducted with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”The plastic pieces are transparent, may have sharp edges, and could present a risk to consumers because some pieces are between 7 and 25 mm in length,” the statement read.Only the separately packaged topper is…

Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by OpenAI’s former chief technology officer Mira Murati, officially closed a $2 billion seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz on Monday, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch. The deal, which includes participation from NVIDIA, Accel, ServiceNow, CISCO, AMD, and Jane Street, values the startup at $12 billion, the spokesperson said. Several outlets reported in June that Thinking Machines Lab was close to closing this $2B funding round at a $10 billion valuation, but, apparently, that valuation has shot up in the last month. The deal marks one of the largest seed rounds — or…

In the last mile, the part of the supply chain that involves transporting goods from a warehouse to a consumer’s home, many things could go wrong. A package could end up at the wrong address, shipments could be late due to traffic, or a thunderstorm could damage a parcel left out in the rain.”You’re dealing with humans and the real world and trucks and traffic,” said Fred Cook, the cofounder and chief technology officer of last-mile delivery company Veho.In an area long dominated by carriers like UPS, FedEx, and the US Postal Service, Veho and many other software providers are…

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Tuesday grilled the leaders of Georgetown University, the City University of New York and the University of California, Berkeley in the latest hearing on antisemitism in higher education, accusing the schools of failing to respond adequately to allegations of bias or discrimination.In their appearance before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, the three university leaders said that they had taken disciplinary action where appropriate and stressed the importance of protecting free speech. UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons pushed back on the suggestion that antisemitism was more present on college campuses than anywhere…

As publishers fret about decreased traffic from Google, the search giant has begun rolling out AI summaries in Discover, the main news feed inside Google’s search app on iOS and Android. Now, instead of seeing a headline from a major publication, users will see multiple news publishers’ logos in the top-left corner, followed by an AI-generated summary that cites those sources. The app warns that these summaries are generated with AI, “which can make mistakes.” Image Credits:Google The feature is not yet appearing for all news stories within the Google app. In tests, TechCrunch was able to view the AI…

The peanut butter and jelly sandwich needs no introduction, but a new brand, Jams, is tapping into the trend of high-protein snacks and reinventing the simple recipe in hopes of capturing a new health-driven demographic of eaters.What are Jams protein PB&J sandwiches?Jams – PHOTO: The protein PB&J brand Jams launches nationwide in Walmart on July 14.Jams, a new premade sandwich pack that boasts 10 grams of protein per serving without the addition of dyes, seed oils or high-fructose corn syrup, officially rolled out exclusively in more than 3,000 U.S. Walmart stores nationwide on Monday.The sandwiches are available in two flavors:…

For years, code-editing tools like Cursor, Windsurf, and GitHub’s Copilot have been the standard for AI-powered software development. But as agentic AI grows more powerful and vibe coding takes off, a subtle shift has changed how AI systems are interacting with software. Instead of working on code, they’re increasingly interacting directly with the shell of whatever system they’re installed in. It’s a significant change in how AI-powered software development happens – and despite the low profile, it could have significant implications for where the field goes from here. The terminal is best known as the black-and-white screen you remember from…

AI researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and a broad coalition of companies and nonprofit groups, are calling for deeper investigation into techniques for monitoring the so-called thoughts of AI reasoning models in a position paper published Tuesday. A key feature of AI reasoning models, such as OpenAI’s o3 and DeepSeek’s R1, are their chains-of-thought or CoTs — an externalized process in which AI models work through problems, similar to how humans use a scratch pad to work through a difficult math question. Reasoning models are a core technology for powering AI agents, and the paper’s authors argue that CoT…

The Kansas City Chiefs beat the deadline to sign franchise-tagged guard Trey Smith to a multiyear contract, agreeing to terms Tuesday on a $94 million deal, a person with knowledge of the move told The Associated Press.The four-year contract includes $70 million guaranteed, said the person, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the contract had not been announced.Smith, 26, now has the highest average salary of any player at his position in the NFL at $23.5 million annually.The Chiefs had until 4 p.m. EDT Tuesday to work out a deal beyond this season after giving Smith…