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McLaren 720S Spider Unveiled To Fight Ferrari 488 Spider - MSN Autos

Posted: 09 Dec 2018 10:14 PM PST

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After refreshing its Ultimate Series with the track-focused Senna and the three-seater Speedtail earlier this year, McLaren is now updating the “lower-tier” Super Series by introducing the 720S Spider. We’ve shared a plethora of drag races demonstrating the insane performance of the coupe, and the good news is the droptop version has an identical sprint to 62 mph (100 kph) time of 2.9 seconds.

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That’s because McLaren has figured out a way to limit the weight penalty commanded by the more complex roof to only 49 kilograms (108 pounds). In other words, the 720S Spider has a dry weight of only 1,332 kg (2,937 lbs) and that makes it 88 kg (194 lbs) lighter “than the dry weight of its closest competitor.” Without giving any names, the folks from Woking are obviously referring to the Ferrari 488 Spider.

As far as the sprint to 124 mph (200 kph) is concerned, the 720S Spider is a tad slower than its coupe counterpart, needing 7.9 seconds or a tenth of a second more. With the roof in place, it will max out at a coupe-matching 212 mph (341 kph). Folding in down will lower the velocity to a still mighty impressive 202 mph (325 kph) or just about the same as its rival from Italy.

2019 McLaren 720S Spider

17/17 SLIDES

So, how was McLaren able to keep weight in check? By developing a new electrically actuated retractable hardtop. It’s a one-piece carbon fiber roof panel, which takes a mere 11 seconds to lower or raise, thus making it a full six seconds quicker than the 650S Spider’s top. Another improvement over its predecessor is the maximum speed at which the driver can drop the top or raise it – 31 mph (50 kph) compared to the 18.5 mph (30 kph) of the 650S Spider.

McLaren goes on to mention the hardtop is quieter in operation up to the point it’s just like the “background noise in a quiet library.” Once the roof is up, the cabin is considerably quieter than the 650S Spider’s interior, so improvements have been made across all areas thanks to the patented RHT. Visibility shouldn't be much of an issue thanks to the glazed flying buttresses, which improve over-the-shoulder visibility by 12 percent compared to the old Super Series Spider model.

At an additional cost, the 720S Spider can be equipped with a glazed RHT featuring a carbon fiber frame allowing more light to come through the roof while it’s up. Since the glass is electrochromic, drivers will be able to easily switch between tinted or transparent by simply pressing a button.

Motivation comes from the familiar twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 engine with 710 horsepower and 568 pound-feet (770 Newton-meters) of torque channeled to those 20-inch rear wheels through a seven-speed SSG with selectable Comfort, Sport, and Track modes.

As it’s the case with the coupe, McLaren will sell its new convertible in Standard, Performance, and Luxury flavors. A total of 23 colors are available, including this lovely new Belize Blue, plus a fresh Aztec Gold, and a Supernova Silver shade as a nod to the original 12C.

McLaren is already accepting orders for the 720S Spider and is asking $315,000 in the U.S. Deliveries are programmed to start in March 2019.

Source: McLaren

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Yes, the New Microsoft Edge Will Support Chrome Extensions - Thurrott.com

Posted: 09 Dec 2018 10:20 AM PST

Microsoft’s curiously vague announcement about moving the Edge web browser to Chromium has unleashed a torrent of questions about the future. Well, here’s the answer to one of the biggest questions.

Yes, the new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge will support Google’s Chrome’s far more voluminous and capable library of browser extensions.

At least that’s the intention.

“It’s our intention to support existing Chrome extensions,” Microsoft’s Kyle Alden explained on Reddit.

So that’s great news.

Alden also spoke to the schedule for moving both Edge and Windows 10 to Chromium. As noted, the web browser will happen first. But switching over the OS—remember, web-based UWP apps and the PWA engine in Windows 10 both use EdgeHTML today—to Chromium would break things. So Microsoft will offer both side-by-side so that developers can move to Chromium on their own schedules.

“Existing UWP apps (including PWAs in the Store) will continue to use EdgeHTML/Chakra without interruption,” he explains. “We don’t plan to shim under those with a different engine. We do expect to offer a new WebView that apps can choose to use based on the new rendering engine.”

He also addresses whether new Chromium-based Edge will let users install PWAs from the browser, just like Chrome does.

“We expect to provide support for PWAs to be installed directly from the browser (much like with Chrome) in addition to the current Store approach,” he said, though it’s worth noting that the Edge team had previously planned this feature on the old browser too. “We’re not ready to go into all the details yet but PWAs behaving like native apps is still an important principle for us so we’ll be looking into the right system integrations to get that right.”

And yes, the new Edge is coming to Xbox One.

“We are at the early stages of our journey, but it is our intention to bring the next version of Microsoft Edge to all Microsoft devices,” he wrote.

So good news all around.

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