LUSARAP

Most of us are never going to be like Jay Leno and drive a new car every day. However, its possibly affordable to collect a handful of vintage rides, especially if you look a touch off the beaten path. In recent video, Petrolicious highlights Hans Abrahams, who is doing just that. He has three 1960s, European classics that love to be driven.

The absolute star of the trio is a 1966 Sunbeam Tiger. In the cabin, it has the meaty growl of a muscle car, but outside it has a little of the raspiness of period European cars. Abrahams says its mostly original except for its Ford 289-cubic-inch (4.7-liter) V8 with Shelby parts, producing around 273 horsepower. He says i ts a bit difficult to maintain and hard to keep cool, but when you hear it, you know the trouble is worth it.

Next up, is Abrahams 1965 MGB that is a bit of a monster in its own right. It lacks the Tigers oomph under the hood, but its loud enough to blow out Petrolicious microphone. Its still a very cool little roadster.

Finally, there is a 1967 Volvo Amazon 123GT, Abrahams daily driver, that might secretly be the best of the lot. While it probably wouldnt win a race with its two siblings in Abrahams garage, its the most livable and still sounds absolutely amazing. At full chat, its like a hive of angry hornets live under the hood.

Scroll down and turn up the speakers to listen to this European power trio.

BlackBerrys woes are well documented, but the Canadian firm isnt giving up without a fight as news surfaces that its planning to launch some new handsets very soon.


The news comes from Foxconns CEO Terry Gou, whose company recently signed a deal with BlackBerry to design and produce a series of low-end handsets for emerging markets over the next five years.

BlackBerry is said to be eyeing up MWC 2014 in Barcelona as the platform to showcase its new wares, with Gou being quoted by Focus Taiwan saying: "We are working with them to design a new device, and we will showcase multiple devices at the trade show in Barcelona in February."
 

BlackBerry set to emerge

One of the rumoured entry-level handsets is apparently codenamed "Jakata", and will be targeted at countries such as Indonesia and Mexico.

BlackBerry is shifting its focus to a more business-orientated view, but insists it isnt giving up on the consumer side of things - and perhaps its new focus here is low-cost, low end devices.

Its not clear whether BlackBerry will aim to bring any of the rumoured handsets to the UK, or indeed how many phones it will actually reveal during MWC at the end of February.

Dropbox has revealed a new set of developer tools called Dropbox Platform, which aims to help make your data readily available across platforms and apps.


The company announced the new tool at its first Dropbox developer conference, DBX, which is being held in San Francisco this week.

The Sync API already lets developers access Dropboxs file syncing technology, but this latest announcement opens up far more possibilities.

For example, the new Datastore API allows app developers to sync app-specific data to the cloud. This could involve settings, contacts, to-do lists, sketches, and even game save files, to name just three.

It means that you could have an app installed on multiple devices and it would sync up across them without fuss. Potentially the most exciting aspect of this will be for mobile gamers, who will be able to start a game on their Apple iPad and continue it on their Android phone (or vice versa).

The other tool is Drop-in, which provides simple lines of code to add important Dropbox functionality to your app quickly and efficiently. The two initial examples provided are Chooser, which grants quick access to Dropbox files from within an app (for sharing files, for example), and Saver which - you guessed it - permits one-click saving to the cloud.

The important thing to note here is that Dropbox Platform doesnt provide a whole heap of brand new functionality, but it does make it a lot easier for app developers to sync data to the cloud. This should ensure that we see such features as standard in a lot more apps from now on.

The Motorola Moto G and Google Nexus 5 have ‘shaken up’ the smartphone market, network provider Three has suggested.


Speaking on the current state of the handset sector, retailer Three has claimed that the budget Motorola and high-specced Nexus 5 are forcing rival manufacturers to alter their approach to the smartphone space.

“The Moto G and Google Nexus 5 have absolutely shaken up the market,” Three’s Product Portfolio Manager Brendan Arndt said.

Launched last November as a mid-range smartphone with an entry-level price tag, the Motorola Moto G, which can be snapped up for just £100, features a 4.5-inch 720p HD display alongside a 1.2GHz quad-core PCU and 1GB of RAM.

Adding a 5-megapixel rear-mounted camera and the choice of 8GB or 16GB of internal storage, the Motorola Moto G became an instant hit, with the wallet friendly price tag meaning many consumers could bypass costly 24 month contracts.

Discussing the Moto G’s new approach to smartphone pricing, Arndt stated: “It will absolutely put pressure on the other guys to up their game a bit.”

The Moto G is not alone in its efforts to push the smartphone sector in a new direction either. The Three Portfolio Manager highlighted the LG-manufactured Google Nexus 5 as another handset that has ‘shaken up’ how consumers view their smartphone buying habits.

“The Nexus is absolutely one of those phones that people will buy outright, because it’s a good deal, and not just buy it on a network,” the Three official said.

While the Motorola Moto G and Google Nexus 5 might have led the way, Arndt believes they are only the start of a larger movement.

“All the vendors are looking at giving consumers a bit more value, and bringing 4G down,” he said and added: “Moto G and Nexus 5 have challenged all the other vendors to do that.”