The Morning After: McDonald’s plant-based burger is here

Roughly a year since announcing it, McDonald’s is ready to test its first plant-based burger. Ahead of its trial launch in the US today, I tasted the collaboration between Beyond Meat and the Golden Arches; although the version here in the UK is entirely vegan, with pea-protein-based ‘cheese,’ a vegan sauce subbing in for mayo and even a vegan-friendly sesame-seed bun.

The US take uses a slice of American cheese and proper mayo — though you can customize your order to avoid these. The plant-based patty will also be cooked alongside meat-based products, making it not entirely vegan. Given the cheese included, however, McDonald’s USA is positioning it more like a substitute item for people looking to reduce their meat intake. But how does it taste? You’ll have to read on.

— Mat Smith

How your GPU might give your streams a leg up.

NVIDIA is tapping the potential of its own GPUs to do things beyond, well, graphics. Evolving from RTX Voice, which as the name implies, is a tool for upping your microphone skills, it quietly released Broadcast — a more comprehensive tool aimed squarely at streamers and content creators. Broadcast dabbles in both audio and video improvements, and James Trew has been testing it out. Expect to see his spin-off Twitch stream dedicated to the Atari Lynx very soon.

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Literally, there is no release date.

Activision Blizzard is once again delaying Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV. Following months of upheaval at its Blizzard Entertainment subsidiary, stemming from a sexual harassment lawsuit the State of California filed in July, the publisher announced during its recent third-quarter 2021 earnings call that it’s pushing those games back to give the teams working on them more time.

“While we are still planning to deliver a substantial amount of content from Blizzard next year, we are now planning for a later launch for Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV than originally envisaged,” the company said.

This announcement came alongside news that Jen Oneal has stepped down from her role as co-leader of Blizzard, leaving Mike Ybarra as the head of the studio. Oneal, the first woman in a president role since Activision’s founding in 1979, will temporarily transition to a new position, but will leave Activision Blizzard at the end of the year.

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Its creators may have made off with as much as $3.38 million.

​​A cryptocurrency inspired by Netflix hit Squid Game successfully enticed enough investors to see its value soar to over $2,800… before its creators cashed out and disappeared. The cryptocurrency called $SQUID launched in late October and rose up to 310,000 percent in value in just a few days. It was meant to be for playing for an upcoming online game based on the South Korean series.

Early Monday morning, however, the coin’s value plummeted to $0, its website disappeared (you can view an archive here) and its Twitter account got blocked.

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It makes the company’s vision of collaborative work clearer.

Microsoft Loop, a new Office collaboration app announced today, takes the company’s Fluid Framework vision one step further. You might remember the technology from Microsoft’s recent developer events. Simply put, it should allow collaboration on specific chunks of content, say a table or chart, synchronized across multiple Office apps. A table you create in Outlook, for example, would instantly update if someone plugs it into a Word document and adds new information. Oh, and Microsoft is, naturally, working on the multiverse. MS Word in VR, baby!

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Everything aspiring pitmasters need to prepare a feast.

Definitely not a plant-based burger. Traeger is expanding its range of supplies and gear to offer you literally everything you might need for a full meal, with all the dishes cooked directly on its grills. Traeger Provisions is a HelloFresh-like meal kit that includes the meat, sides, rubs, sauces and more.

At launch, the meat options are Wagyu beef brisket, Poulet Rouge chicken and Berkshire St. Louis pork ribs. Traeger says portion sizes for all three will accommodate 4 to 8 people, depending on the protein. For the brisket, the company also offers an option for 14 to 16 people (half brisket vs. whole brisket). Prices range from $150 to $180 for the smaller packages, while the larger whole brisket box is $250.

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