Ferrari S.P.A is a multinational sports car giant founded in 1929 by the visionary Enzo ferrari. Scuderia Ferrari also founded by Enzo, sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street legal vehicles in 1947. But his ultimate passion being making high performance racing cars for especially Formula One where it has seen great success and is one of the oldest Formula One racing firm, it holds almost all records for Formula one racing. Today ferrari road cars are top of the niche.

In 1943 the Ferrari factory moved to Maranello (Italy), where it has remained ever since. The factory was bombed by the Allies in 1944 and rebuilt in 1946, after the war ended and included a works for road car production. The first Ferrari road car was the 1947 125 S, powered by a 1.5 L V12 engine, Enzo Ferrari reluctantly built and sold his automobiles to fund Scuderia Ferrari.

In 1988, Enzo Ferrari oversaw the launch of Ferrari F40, the Ferrari launched before his death later that year and arguably one of the most famous supercars ever made. From 2002 to 2004, ferrari produced the Enzo which was Ferraris fastest model at the time which was named in honor of the company’s founder Enzo Ferrari. It was initially offered to loyal and recurring customers only, it carried the price tag of about $650,000. Only 400 of which were ever made 399 were sold and 400th was donated to the Vatican for charity.

In 2012 September 15, 964 Ferrari cars (worth over $162 million) attended the Ferrari Driving Days event at silverstone Circuit and paraded round the silverstone circuit and set the World Record. Throughout history Ferrari has provided race cars for other teams as well, today it boasts an annual revenue of about 2.2 billion dollars.

Spotify was developed in 2006 by a team at Spotify AB located in Stockholm, Sweden. The Company was founded by Daniel Ek, former CTO of Stardoll, and Martin Lorentzon, co-founder of TradeDoubler. Spotify Ltd now operates as the parent company in London while research still takes place in Stockholm at Spotify AB.

The application was launched for public access on 7th October 2008. While free accounts remained available by invitation only, in order to manage the growth rate of the service, opened with paid subscriptions to control the spreading of it apart from announcing several licensing deals with major music labels. Spotify has had its up and downs since it came into the market for the first time. But it has come a long way from that now.

Music can be browsed by artist, album, record label, genre or playlist as well as by direct searches. On desktop clients, a link allows the listener to purchase selected material via partner retailers.

A six-month free trial period is activated upon Spotify account registration or first login with a Facebook account, where a user can listen to an unlimited amount of music supported by visual and radio-style advertising. After the trial, Spotify has a listening limit of 10 hours per month, divided into a 2.5 hour streaming allocation each week (with any unused hours carrying over to the next week).

An “Unlimited” subscription removes advertisements and time limits and a “Premium” subscription introduces extra features such as higher bitrate streaming, offline access to music and mobile app access.

Users can trial Spotify Premium for 48 hours by logging into Spotify Mobile for the first time, or get a 30 day trial for their first month. An active Facebook account is required to use Spotify if the user has signed up using Facebook, but as of 30 August 2012 the option to make a Spotify username has been reintroduced.

Subscriptions are restricted to people with credit/debit cards or PayPal accounts registered in certain countries. Spotify is not available in India.

With the launch of the new google maps for ios brought a smile on the faces of many apple fans. After a flop of humungous proportions of the apple maps which led to a group of people being stranded in a hostile terrain with temperature up to 46 degree Celsius without cell reception and water.

Australian Mildura police department came out in public and advised people to not follow the apple maps as they have been misleading tourists away from their destination. Mr Tim Cook CEO apple released a statement apologizing for the blunder. It was not very surprising when the apple maps manager was fired either post the incident.

Apple maps have been criticized for inaccurate data and imagery glitches ever since it replaced Google maps on iOS devices. Google maps would not have taken much time to beat out the apple maps app, which has been criticized for omitting transit directions as well, giving poor navigation and displaying incomplete 3D views distorting the international monuments including the Eiffel tower.

Google maps soared to the top of the free applications list, as right from the launch many apple users took to the internet social platforms like facebook and twitter to share their joy and to download this application. The latest iOS Google maps adorns a very clean subtle white/light-grey look hence making it attractive while accessing it through mobile platforms.

Apple worked hard for developing the trust in its users that the product always works. The apple maps incident and the number of apple fans criticizing this app on social media platforms is sure to cost it some brand equity. Google with the release of its google maps application for iOS did soar its stocks to 700$ a share.

The apple efforts to build a great maps application cannot be discredited completely, some features like the siri map direction assist, while google maps also provides turn by turn voice assist one of the major reasons why it was kicked out of the iOS in the first place. Another major drawback of the iOS system was the exclusion of the public transport directions, where as Google maps not only provide the directions but it also provides the user with an estimated time of arrival.

Google maps is sleeker more organized than ever before users can also select a home and user address within their profile to make it easier to access and quickly get directions. Apart from apple maps accuracy issues it is still hard to deny the fact that the interface is highly attractive and has some highly impressive features like accessing the satellite view in maps for cities like New York, San Francisco and London.

Users are treated to 3D imagery, attention to detail is also spot on. One thing is for sure that as of now google is the market leader in the maps section and even though the apple maps showed promise at first it still has a long way to go, but with time both these players are going to get better and as of now Google has a menacing lead compared to anyone else.

“Providing the ultimate solution to work-life balance: Not escaping from work but living the way you want to at work”

? Stan Slap

In a constant endeavor to succeed, we as young leaders, try diverse approaches to reach our goals. We thrive for excellence at work, be it as entrepreneur or at a job. As employees, we evaluate our abilities based on various parameters like pay package, that early promotion, recognition on the floor, mentoring juniors/peers etc. Likewise stories for entrepreneurial journeys keeps us motivated to achieve desired mission.

In my last job as a financial analyst, I have learned that complete ownership of our work could be the most important aspect of these success stories. A lot has been written about how to be an entrepreneur at work but the challenge is to actually implement it.

Breaking the goals into smaller and manageable tasks has been endorsed by physiological pundits. The most crucial in achieving these goals is to focus on micro-managing a task as well as taking responsibility of the resultant macro event. That ownership is what will define us. The more accountable we get, the more we concentrate on making ‘the good art’. We learn to confront our mistakes, and hence try to get better at things instead of always being good at things.

While learning, we should lean into the pain and develop the trait of what is known as ‘deliberate practice’. What happens when we are given a task which we have never performed before? We tend to get restless and try to push it, at-least this is what I have done on a few occasions. Deliberate practice solves this dilemma. It means the efforts to come out of our comfort zone and never pull out when faced with adversity. It’s like learning a new skill and giving our cent percent to learn it with perfection. Don’t be encumbered by the environment around you.

Another area of focus should be that our intent should be aligned with that of the organization. The vision and culture of the workplace should be religiously followed, which will lead us to flow with organizational goals, and within the value chain fulfilling our target of sustained learning. According to Aaron Schwartz, we view things from our perspective. We judge right or wrong from this perspective but not objectively. Putting efforts towards viewing it from an objective viewpoint will help us in our change management.

As an analyst, while executing, my focus was on getting the deliverable error-free, which involved micro-managing the project. With time, the macro picture started making sense and hence the quest to value-addition started. With a view to invest in myself, most of my efforts henceforth will be directed towards practicing deliberately.

On the other hand, I had ‘real mentors’ who guided me all the way long at getting better at my work. We should always have a trust worthy mentor whose constant feedback will help us improve and direct our efforts. To quote from Farnam Street blog, Michael Polanyi elaborates on the process of learning:

“To learn by example is to submit to authority. You follow your master because you trust his manner of doing things even when you cannot analyze and account in detail for its effectiveness. By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. These hidden rules can be assimilated only by a person who surrenders himself to that extent uncritically to the imitation of another.”

Cook joined apple in March 1998 until he was made acting CEO of apple on August 2011 succeeding the legendary late Steve Jobs sadly passed away on October 5, 2011, succumbing to pancreatic cancer.

Cook had previously served as acting CEO of apple after late Mr Jobs who went on medical leave in January 2011. In early 2012, he was awarded compensation of 1 million shares, vesting in 2016 and 2021, by Apple’s Board of Directors.As of 2012, Cook’s total compensation package of $378 million makes him the highest paid CEO in the world.

Cook has earlier served as chief operating officer of the computer re-seller division of intelligent electronics, served as director of North American Fulfillment at IBM, Cook was VP for corporate materials when Mr Jobs hired him to become a part of apple.

At apple Cooks first job was to clear out the manufacturing supply and distribution apparatus from around the world so the team could focus solely on product development for which he did an amazing job hence meeting the efficiency levels of Dell Inc., dramatically increasing margins. These initiatives have proven key to Apple’s success in keeping their products secret until they unveil it and put it on the retail market.

In April 2012 he was listed on the world’s 100 most influential peoples list by Time magazine. Cook also happens to serve on the board of directors for Nike.

Aliph has made top quality bluetooth headsets for years. But when they did enter the world of portable stereos they entered with a bang with the Jawbone Jambox. It marked the company’s first step into stereo.

Its a small stereo that plays music through bluetooth connection from your cellphone and can also function as a speakerphone. It packs a surprising punch for a device its size and it sure is surprisingly good.

Apart from the its niche design the fact that makes it even more desirable is that it gets better with time, it is because Jambox is the only speaker in the world that gets smarter every time you plug it in. The Jawbones online platform called MyTALK where one can download apps, software upgrades, and the latest features including LiveAudio, an immersible three-dimensional listening experience. Jambox’s integrated intelligence allows you to personalize it to your specific preferences. No other speaker on the planet is intelligent and updateable. It also has an Android app that keeps you updated.

With a powerful built in microphone, it allows you to share clean and crisp sounding conference calls from the phone or computer making it perfect to share video as well through iChat, Skype, Google Talk and more.

Jambox looks and feels as striking as it sounds with variety of colours and designs to choose from it is truly an amazing product and has topped the SocialCult charts for the must have gadget of 2013.