Happy Meal to Happy Clicks

In an unexpected cross-industry collaboration, McDonald’s China and Lenovo have teamed up to create a quirky, limited-edition wireless mouse shaped entirely like a classic French-fry carton. 

Dubbed the “Fry Mark”, this eye-catching peripheral blends fast-food nostalgia with tech innovation, using a casing made from over 60% recycled plastic sourced directly from old Happy Meal toys. The initiative stems from McDonald’s China’s “Reimagine Good Things” sustainability program, which seeks to turn discarded plastic toys into functional items rather than letting them end up in landfills. 

Underneath its bright red-and-yellow shell, the device functions as a standard tech peripheral, featuring dual wireless connectivity (2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth), quiet-click buttons, three adjustable DPI settings, and a 380mAh battery. 

The package also includes a felt carrying case that cleverly unfolds into a green-tray mouse pad. Priced at 99 RMB (roughly $14) alongside 18 McDonald’s member points, the hardware generated massive consumer interest. 

Production was strictly limited to just 4,000 units, released exclusively through the McDonald’s China app and WeChat mini-program. Demand completely overshadowed supply; reports indicate that over 6,000 customers had queued up or registered for pre-orders before the sale even officially opened. 

While no official international release has been announced – leaving global fans out of luck – the Fry Mark McDonald’s mouse stands out as a clever small-batch experiment. By transforming yesterday’s playground toys into today’s desktop accessories, McDonald’s China and Lenovo have successfully turned a playful concept into a viral collectible.

Yesterday, Celtic produced a stunning late turnaround to claim a dramatic 3-2 victory over Beşiktaş JK and finally get their Europa League campaign up and running. 

The first half was entirely uneventful, ending in a 0-0 stalemate. It was "boring beyond all reasonable belief", as neither team managed a single shot on target during the opening 45 minutes. 

The Black Eagles broke the deadlock only in the 54th minute, opening the scoring on a penalty rebound following a Jordan Lotomba foul. The Hoops responded in the 62nd minute when substitute Callum Osmand equalized with a brilliant 22-yard strike on his very first touch. 

The 20-year-old then turned provider in the 78th minute, threading a perfect ball to fellow sub Camilo Durán, who rounded the goalkeeper to put his team 2-1 ahead. The Turkish side temporarily silenced the stadium by leveling the score 2-2 with a 25-yard rocket in the 85th minute. 

However, parity lasted less than two minutes as Kieran Tierney forced a dangerous deflection in the 87th minute which Durán scrambled home to seal a dramatic late winner for Celtic.

Martin O'Neill's side remain in the bottom 12 of the table, but, with four games left, they still have a chance of reaching the knockout stages.

Mark Zuckerberg Acquiesces to Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump has signed a legal settlement that will see Meta pay out roughly $25 million. 

Trump had sued the social media giant and their chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, in 2021 over the suspension of his accounts after the January 06 Capitol riots that year. In July 2024, Meta lifted the final restrictions on Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts in the lead up to US presidential elections. 

The settlement was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Separately on Wednesday, Meta defended their $65 billion investment in AI which Zuckerberg had announced on January 24, after tech stocks were rocked in the wake of Chinese AI app DeepSeek's sudden rise. 

He told investors there was a lot to learn from DeepSeek, but it was too soon to have "a really strong opinion" about what the app means for the future of AI. 

"If anything, I think the recent news has only strengthened our conviction that this is right thing for us to be focused on", he added.

Many US tech stocks sank this week after DeepSeek surged in popularity, though Meta bucked this trend. The stock was up in after hours trading after they posted better than expected financial results on Wednesday itself. 

Meta, parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, took a different tack from many US companies by releasing an open source AI model called "Llama 3.1 405B", an advanced LLM for synthetic data generation, distillation, and inference for chatbots, coding, and domain-specific tasks. 

Zuckerberg said he thought that approach was important to keeping the US at the cutting edge, as countries around the world compete to become the key players in the still-emerging industry. 

"There's going to be an open source standard globally and I think for our own national advantage it's important that it's an American standard", he declared. "We take that seriously. We want to build the AI system that people around the world are using".

Methinks, it is China that'll be setting the global standard. In AI and everything else. Americans should get used to it! 😁😁😁

On January 18, I received my new 14ʺ Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 laptop. 

I'm really pleased to be able to finally replace my Dell Inspiron 16 laptop – its construction quality is appalling, the plastics is fragile and the hinges are notorious for breaking quickly. I saw on Reddit that this is pretty common among Dell laptops. 

I don't recommend Dell at all, period!

Black Myth: Wukong Breaks Record on Launch Day

“Black Myth: Wukong”, the new video game title – refer to my post published June 23, 2024 – launched yesterday by a Tencent-backed start-up has quickly become the most-played game on a major online platform, highlighting growing interest in Chinese-developed titles. 

 

“Black Myth: Wukong”, based on the Chinese mythological figure and classic novel “Journey to the West”, topped Steam’s most-played games chart with 2.2 million concurrent players, making it comfortably the biggest-ever single player launch on the PC platform. I cannot locate PS5 player numbers, but it’s safe to assume they’re high too.

 

Game Science, the developer behind “Black Myth: Wukong”, was founded in 2014 by former Tencent employee Feng Ji. The company have secured backing from investors, including Chinese tech giant Tencent and mobile game publisher Hero Entertainment.

 

 

First teased in 2020, the game has attracted global attention as a high-budget title from China. Pre-orders opened on June 08, with the game topping Steam’s China sales chart for the week of August 06-13.

 

The Tuesday launch also made waves domestically, with “Black Myth: Wukong” trending on social media. The hashtag ranked second on Weibo, China’s popular microblogging platform, accumulating 1.7 billion views.

 

FYI, this game's release marks a bold foray by Chinese game developers into a market long dominated by Western triple-A titles.

 

And already, major Chinese brands have leveraged the game’s popularity in their marketing efforts. Lenovo's Legion PCs and Luckin Coffee are among those incorporating elements inspired by “Black Myth: Wukong” into their promotional campaigns.

 

The Coffee Table PC

On Sunday, Chinese tech company Lenovo unveiled the IdeaCentre Horizon Table, a home table-top touch-screen computer aimed at turning typically solitary online activities into family affairs. Lenovo director of global marketing Dee Kumarbrags, "We want to take social to the next level'.

He adds: "Smartphones and tablets provide one-to-one interaction but it is great for a family to come back home and use this device to consume content.''

The coffee table PC is designed to bring families together through the use of one common computer system. Instead of being spread around the house on a number of different gadgets, Lenovo is hoping the PC will bring people together.

The "interpersonal PC'' is a "multi-user, multi-touch, multi-mode'' table computer with a starting price of $1699 thatcan be used by up to four people simultaneously for communal activities such as games or for individual endeavors such as updating Facebook.

In terms of size, the Associated Press described the Windows 8-powered 27-inch computer as “eight iPads stitched together.” Weighing about 8.2 kg, it is built with a hinged stand in the back so it can be propped upright to serve as a television or desktop computer screen. Lenovo says the table computers will hit the market by the middle of this year.