Light Start: McDonald’s plant burger tested, Russian space movie dusted, Team Spirit invested and REvil bested

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The McDonald’s McPlant could arrive on your plates soon

McDonald’s began rolling out its new plant-based burger to a few restaurants in the US, according to CNBC via The Verge. Appropriately named ‘McPlant’, the fast-food chain has teamed up with Beyond Meat to have another go at adding meat alternative options to its menu. We, here in South Africa, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view) didn’t get to try out the first Beyond Meat branded burger, the P.L.T.

A post on the McDonald’s website states the McPlant will be “made from plant-based ingredients like peas, rice and potatoes.” It’ll be topped by more plants that you find on regular burgers, like pickles, tomatoes, onions and lettuce. Since running the P.L.T in 2019 and 2020, the company said it was not planning to bring the plant-based alternative back, but it has. Just called something else. McDonald’s probably doesn’t want to miss out on the growing popularity of plant-based alternatives, like Burger King’s Impossible Whopper. Whether this meatless substitute will make it to local plates will likely depend on how successful these tests are. We hope it does, so vegetarians have an option when looking for hangover food.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Russian film crew returns from space after shooting space movie on the space station

The Challenger, the first feature film shot aboard the International Space Station has wrapped. The crew consisted of actual cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, producer Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Pereslid. Pereslid and Shipenko joined Novitskiy, who was already aboard the ISS doing cosmonaut things, on the 5th of October. The movie, aimed primarily at a Russian audience, has Pereslid portray a surgeon that travels to the ISS to operate on the cosmonaut, played by Novitskiy.

Not only was this space venture the first time footage for a feature film was shot in space but Pereslid became the first professional actor in space, beating William Shatner by a week. As cool as it may be, the trip will mean that NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov will have their scheduled trips home delayed by six months, making Vande Hei’s spaceflight the longest by a US astronaut. It will be some time before the movie is ready for watching, we just hope it comes with subtitles.

Source: Engadget[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Dota 2’s The International 10 has come to a close with Team Spirit taking home $18 million

Professional Russian Dota 2 team Team Spirit was crowned world champions on Sunday as they bested Chinese team PSG.LGD to take home the Aegis trophy and the equivalent of R268.4 million in prize money, the largest prize payout in esports history. It is the first time an Eastern European team has won the event since Natus Vincere (Na’Vi) won the very first event in 2011.

For the last four years, the Dota 2 professional scene was dominated by European teams with Team Liquid winning in 2017 and OG taking back to back wins in 2018 and 2019. With last year’s event cancelled due to the global pandemic, the prize pool transferred to this year making it the largest prize pool in esports history at roughly R588 million, beating the previous record set by 2019’s event of R504.5 million. 

Source: PC Gamer[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Ransomware group REvil shut down again by a hacker

A rather brave person has taken it upon themselves to hijack the Tor payment portal and data leak blog of the infamous ransomware group REvil, according to Bleeping Computer. The compromise was seemingly confirmed when a user associated with REvil operations posted to the hacking forum XSS. The sites in question were hosted on the Tor network, which is like the internet you’re reading this from, only everything is encrypted. This is what people mean when they talk about the dark web.

A user going by the handle ‘O_neday’ posted to the XSS forum and said someone had gained access to the groups’ server and was targeting them. It isn’t known who is person or group is, or what their motives are but if what they’re doing means REvil stays down then we’re fans. Unless they want to take control for their own personal gain or start REvil 2.0. Then we’re the opposite of fans.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]