Technologies

I Discovered the Mystery Flavor of McDonald’s New Pink and Blue Shake…

The crazy-colorful shake is part of the McDonaldland Meal, which is like a (pricey) Happy Meal for adults. And now I know the flavor.

I tried the McDonaldland Meal at my local McD’s on Tuesday, the day it came out. And I don’t want to say that I’ve been thinking about the mystery flavor of its pink-and-blue Mt. McDonaldland shake ever since, because that would make me sound truly bizarre, but…I have pondered it.

When I tasted the shake, I guessed it was maybe blue raspberry, maybe cotton candy, maybe mixed berry. It’s sweet but not sickeningly so, though I’d never order it again. (I’m a chocolate fan.)

But I kind of wanted to know what the mystery flavor was. And now I do: According to McDonald’s Canada’s own nutrition page for the shake, the blue beauty features a «mix of creamy vanilla soft serve and raspberry flavored syrup.» (I tried to confirm this on the US nutrition page, but it just spun and spun and never loaded. Get on that, Ronald.)

RASPBERRY! The Mt. McDonaldland shake is raspberry flavor! And it’s blue in color, so my guess of blue raspberry was correct! Raspberry is the hot fast-food flavor these days, as Starbucks just brought back its much-loved raspberry drink syrup in late July.

If you’re wondering what I’m even talking about, McDonald’s continues to capitalize on the love of its customers for the company’s goofy history. Recently, Happy Meals included McDonald’s-themed toys — such as drink machines, fryers and trays with food on them — delivered in mini-Happy Meal boxes. And the much-longed-for Snack Wraps finally returned after a viral fan campaign.

The McDonaldland Meal goes straight after that market of adults who have a nostalgic feeling for the Golden Arches. It’s not cheap — here in high-cost-of-living Seattle, the medium meal was $16.59 and the large was $18.29.

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You can choose from a Quarter Pounder with cheese or a 10-piece McNugget order. It also comes with the chain’s famous french fries and your choice of drink. But the specialty drink that’s made to go with the meal is called that mystery-until-now-flavored Mt. McDonaldland shake, and it’s a blazing blue color, topped with hot pink whipped cream. It’s supposed to look like a volcano, with the pink cream as lava, I guess.

You can order the shake without the meal if you just want to try it. If you don’t want to try it, you can choose a regular drink or another flavor of shake with your McDonaldland meal.

Read more: Review: McDonald’s Minecraft Meals Feature The Hottest Nugget Sauce Ever

I sampled the hot pink whipped cream by itself, and it seemed to have no flavor, so maybe they just took regular whipped cream and dyed it pink.

Instead of a simple toy, the McDonaldland Meal comes with a 5-by-7-inch tin with one of the McDonaldland mascot characters on it. I ended up with Hamburglar, who, after Grimace, would probably have been my choice.

Tins come embossed with Hamburglar, Grimace, Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese, Birdie the Early Bird and the Fry Guys. Honestly, I’m not sure what anyone would do with this tin, but it was definitely a classier included item than most of the Happy Meal toys.

Inside the tin is a card with a code you can scan to explore McDonaldland online, an ID card for your particular character, two postcards and four stickers. One of my stickers said «robble robble,» the Hamburglar’s favorite saying, and one read, «Keep up! Hamburglar and I are mid-heist.» I can’t really imagine anyone putting these on their water bottle or laptop, but to each their own.

Honestly, unless McDonald’s nostalgia is your thing, I’d recommend you just stick to ordering your usual at the Golden Arches and skipping the meal. But if you just don’t get enough blue and pink food in your life — and who does? — try the Mt. McDonaldland shake once, pass it around to let your friends make them guess the flavor before you smugly deliver the big reveal, and then go back to chocolate or another good old standard flavor.

Technologies

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Leak Claims Nov. 14 Release Date, No Switch 2 Version Yet

What new conspiracies will be revealed in Black Ops 7?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will be the next entry in Activision’s military shooter series, which typically comes out in October every year, making it one of the last big game releases before Black Friday. A leak suggests that the new CoD might come out a little later than usual, but still in time for the big shopping day.

Black Ops 7 will reportedly be released on Nov. 14, according to a leaker who goes by the name billbil-kun from a post on the French website Dealabs. Along with the supposed release date, the leak says there will not be a Switch 2 version when the game launches.

A spokesperson for the franchise said in an emailed statement that details about Black Ops 7 will be revealed at Gamescom Opening Night, which is this coming Tuesday, Aug. 19.

The Call of Duty series release dates typically straddle the late October and early November period. The last CoD game to come out mid-November was Black Ops Cold War, which was released on Nov. 13, 2020. It’s unclear if the later release was due in part to Battlefield 6 coming out on Oct. 10, which would allow for some time between the releases of the two popular military FPS games.

The lack of a Switch 2 version at launch could mean that the team working on that version of the game needed some more time before its release. While the original Switch has become too underpowered for modern games, Nintendo boosted the performance of the Switch 2, which makes it capable of running more graphics-intensive games, potentially including Call of Duty. Black Ops 7 will still likely be released on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X and Series S on launch day as it is every year.

In Black Ops 7, players will jump into the role of David Mason, played by Milo Ventimiglia. The year is 2035, and Mason is struggling with hallucinations of enemies from his past. The character was first introduced in 2012’s Black Ops 2 and was also in 2024’s Black Ops 6.

While other Call of Duty games tend to focus on certain eras of warfare, such as World War II and the Iraq War, the Black Ops series focuses on secret missions typically conducted by the US and range from the Cold War era to more modern and even futuristic times. Black Ops 2 took place in 2025, while Black Ops 6 was set in 1991.

Technologies

Beijing’s ‘Robot Olympics’ Are Off and Running (and Falling)

Strike up the Chariots of Fire theme and grab a flag, the futuristic Games are on.

China just turned a pair of Olympic venues into a playground for robots.

The inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, running from Aug. 15-17, opened Friday with soccer, sprints, kickboxing and table tennis, as well as a healthy number of face-plants. The games feature 280 robot teams from 16 countries and hundreds of bipedal bots vying for medals and whatever passes for bragging rights to robots.

Events are split between two 2022 Winter Olympics landmarks: China’s National Stadium and the National Speed Skating Oval. On the schedule: track and field, football (soccer to Americans), table tennis, and «scenario» trials such as medicine sorting, cleaning services and industrial handling—the kind of practical skills that robot-makers actually care about.

The highlight reel revealed more chaos than control: robots colliding mid-match, sprinters crumpling mid-stride and kickboxers needing a reboot. But there were bright spots, too. Some bots popped back to their feet unassisted and even finished middle-distance runs as handlers puffed behind them. There was even a 1,500-meter race. Tickets ran 128–580 yuan (about $18–$81).

The robot athletes are supplied by a combination of academia and industry, including China’s Unitree and Fourier, with squads also from the US, Germany, Brazil, Japan and more. Organizers pitch the weekend as data collection under pressure, with sports forcing the robots to demonstrate balance, vision and decision-making, all of which later will translate over to the robot’s work in factories, logistics and as home helpers.

China is using the Games to showcase its bet on embodied AI — software linked to machines that can navigate human spaces. The country has poured billions of dollars into robotics and is planning a 1-trillion-yuan ( about $137 billion) fund for startups as part of a push to counter an aging-workforce crunch and compete in advanced manufacturing.

Rules vary by event, but organizers say competitions span autonomous control and remote operation: either way, no mid-match «player swaps» for fresh robots are allowed. That means lots of stress testing on robot batteries, heat management and recovery behaviors in real-time chaos.

The Associated Press has streamed some of the Games if you want to check it out.

The event runs through Aug. 17.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Aug. 16, #1519

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle, No. 1,519 for Saturday, Aug. 16.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle was a puzzler for me. I know the answer word, and the letters aren’t super-rare, but I didn’t seem to be able to put them in the right places. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.