Category: News

Boeing [NYSE: BA] today announced that a fifth U.S. Army unit has fielded the CH-47F Chinook helicopter.

The 6th Battalion, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., completed all required training and officially assumed operation of 12 CH-47F Chinooks on Dec. 8.

“I am proud of B Company for completing the CH-47F New Equipment Fielding and Training Program. Together, the Pachyderms and Boeing worked extremely hard to accomplish all the required tasks to make this happen in preparation for our next deployment,” said Lt. Col. Brad Ninness, Commander, 6th Battalion, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade.

“The technological advantages and improvements in the CH-47F increase our capabilities and allow us to better support the soldier on the ground.”

The Army certified the CH-47F as combat-ready in 2007. The first four units equipped with the new Chinook have deployed in support of operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, and the aircraft continues to perform as an asset for the Army.

“The CH-47F is proving its exceptional capability every day in combat operations,” said Leanne Caret, vice president, Boeing H-47 Programs.

“This advanced aircraft significantly increases the unit’s capability in harsh environments and high-altitude operations to meet a growing range of mission demands.”

The CH-47F, built at Boeing’s Rotorcraft Systems facility in Ridley Township, features a newly designed, modernized airframe, a Rockwell Collins Common Avionics Architecture System (CAAS) cockpit and a BAE Digital Advanced Flight Control System (DAFCS).

The CAAS greatly improves aircrew situational awareness, while DAFCS provides dramatically improved flight-control capabilities through the entire flight envelope, significantly improved performance, and safety in the harshest of environments.

CAAS also incorporates an advanced digital map display and a data transfer system that allows storing of preflight and mission data. Improved survivability features include the Common Missile Warning and Improved Countermeasure Dispenser systems.

Powered by two 4,733-horsepower Honeywell engines, the new CH-47F can reach speeds greater than 175 mph and transport more than 21,000 pounds.

The CH-47F, with its Robertson Aviation Extended Range Fuel System, has a mission radius of more than 400 nautical miles.

About Boeing Integrated Defense Systems

A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is one of the world’s largest space and defense businesses specializing in innovative and capabilities-driven customer solutions, and the world’s largest and most versatile manufacturer of military aircraft.

Headquartered in St. Louis, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems is a $32 billion business with 70,000 employees worldwide.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Andrew Lee, 610-591-6670
Boeing Rotorcraft Communications
[email protected]

Tom Marinucci, 610-591-7507
Boeing Rotorcraft Communications
[email protected]

No one likes a wireless contract. It restricts our freedom as consumers (e.g., no class action lawsuits) and binds us to a single carrier for two years at a time. So why do we sign them? We don’t have much of a choice, since that’s the way America’s major carriers operate. But even if offered the option, many of us would still sign a contract, because that grants us a subsidy on a handset. While a BlackBerry normally retails for between $400 and $600, a subsidy gets that price below $200. Over the past year we’ve seen three prominent players in the U.S. introduce prepaid BlackBerry services. As expected, they all involve paying a heavy up front fee for the device. Is that a worthy trade-off?

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Filed under: Ford, GM, Saab, Volvo

Since the day talks between General Motors and Koenigsegg broke down in late November, Saab has walked the Green Mile about a half-dozen times. Spyker stepped in, Spyker stepped aside, GM “officially” announced Saab was winding down as of the end of 2009, Spyker stepped back in and GM pushed the (renewed) negotiation deadline to January 7 only to later call the date “soft.” With the newest (and likely final) end date looming on the horizon, The General now has some Swedish guests for still more talks on the hard luck brand.

Reuters is reporting that representatives from Sweden’s finance and industry ministries are meeting next week with the General to discuss Saab. State secretary Joran Hagglund reportedly told Reuters that the Swedish government wants to “make sure they (GM) have all the information they need.” Hagglund added that GM has not completely closed the door on Saab, intimating that there could yet be some hope for clemency or perhaps a deal. We’re not exactly sure what information the Swedish government has that the General may need, but since there are 3,000 Swedish jobs hanging in the balance, we’re guessing this last-minute trip is probably a good idea – if only to make sure no stone is unturned.

While the Swedish government is in the Motor City it also plans to stop by Dearborn and grab some talk time with Ford Motor Company. Ford is in the final stages of selling the Swedish automaker Volvo to Geely, and the country’s officials evidently want to take a look underhood at the proceedings.

Photos by Chris Paukert/Copyright (C)2009 Weblogs, Inc.
[Source: Reuters]

Report: Swedish govt to meet with GM, Ford to discuss Saab and Volvo next week originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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2005 Rally America Rookie of the Year and a three-time medalist at X Games (among other things…) Ken Block announced today he joined Ford in pursuing "future global motorsports opportunities." Simply put, Block will be racing a Ford Focus in the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) and a Ford Fiesta in Rally America and X Games.

I am stoked to be rallying in a Ford. They are an impressive force in the sport, Block said. From the days of the 1970s Escorts to the Group B R… (read more)

Ever worry that cars are becoming more and more complicated and driving is becoming more and more electronically assisted? Well things are going to get pushed further, as Continental AG announced it is working on an accelerator pedal which will reduce fuel consumption and cut CO2 emissions, says autonews.com.

The new pedal comes as an alternative to other systems meant to reduce fuel consumptions like blinking lights or weird sounds telling you to shift into the next gear.
… (read more)

Clever, but not so sure about the hearts motif. This slimline little gidgit from Doxie scans your images straight into whatever Cloud you hang out on, as well as desktop apps, is PC/Mac Friendly and costs $129.

Available from February, and showcased on Thursday at CES, the Doxie does Google Docs, Evernote, Scribd, Backpack, Acrobat.com and Flickr. There’s also a Doxie Cloud PDF hosting service, which works with email, chat and Twitter.

[Ubergizmo]

It’s official: Russell Brand has confirmed tabloid rumors that he is set to marry pop star Katy Perry.

The comedian — a recovering drug and sex addict — proposed to the “I Kissed A Girl” singer during a holiday excursion to India.

“It’s true. Much love,” reads a text Russell, 34, reportedly sent to a gossip columnist with London’s The Sun on Wednesday.

He and Katy, 25, are now celebrating their engagement with a trip to Thailand.

The couple have been dating since meeting at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York last September.

After endless speculation, today’s press event at Google answered the burning questions about the Nexus One.  The event, though, offered more than just news about the Nexus One.  It also offered insight about Google’s role in shaping the future of Android.  With steam from the hype machine finally easing up, let’s review some of the things that are about to happen for Android.

Software
Android version 2.1 offers some noteworthy enhancements to the user experience.

• Updated Gallery application.  Release 2.1 brings much needed changes with finger scrolling, various options for picture sorting, and pleasant navigation animation throughout.
• Voice-to-text entry in any text box.  While 3rd party applications and input providers allow for this on today’s devices, having built-in integration should make the process easier to use.  (The demonstration quality was impressive, but with data always going back to Google for processing we can hope that improvements are constantly being made).
• Google Earth. More impressive to some than others, but it’s finally coming to Android.  This should be a Market application, but there was no specific mention as to whether or not it would require a specific version of the OS.

Cooperation with Google, manufacturers, and carriers
Some of the only new information to come from the press event had to do with carriers and handset manufacturers.  It was no secret that the Nexus One was made by HTC, had T-Mobile 3G built-in, and would have an offer for a T-Mobile subsidized price.  What was completely missed by virtually everyone (is there a link anywhere to the contrary?) was the plan to bring the Nexus One to Verizon and Vodafone in the spring of this year.

During the Q&A session, Mario Queiroz mentioned that there were ongoing discussions with a number of carriers.  He even went so far as to suggest that one of the largest obstacles was system integration with those carriers in order to make the purchase and activation process as seamless to the customer as possible.

Google also made a point about manufacturers.  A number of times we heard about the partnership and strong relationship between Google and handset makers – especially HTC and Motorola. Though this was expected to be a Nexus One event, Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha joined the panel during the Q&A session – seated right beside HTC CEO Peter Chou.

At the risk of hopeful speculation, it seems reasonable that Google is working to expand the device “store” by offering more than a single device on a couple of carriers.

Multitouch and app storage
One of the best questions from the Q&A session received one of the most aggravating answers.  It seems Google still refuses to address the question of multitouch support for US-based devices.  When pressed for clarification about why Google applications (Maps, Gallery, Browser) had multitouch capabilities in overseas equivalents to US devices (Hero, Droid / Milestone), Andy Rubin could only dodge the purpose for the question, pushing it off as a software question for device manufacturers or developers. Regardless of the importance of multitouch in the broad scheme, Google needs to move beyond it by openly addressing it. Build it in or don’t and say why you didn’t.  The coy act is grating and starting to feel a lot like Apple’s take on cut / copy / paste for the iPhone.  Google: please do not wait so long that the press applauds for multitouch just because you finally came to your senses.

Another question addressed a longtime frustration with Android: why is the application installation space so limited?  The answer was most encouraging: the issue is one of piracy, but there will soon be an upgrade for installing applications to an SD card.  Again, no specific information on when or which OS versions would be supported, but this is likely the first time that the issue has been so clearly addressed – especially with such a positive result.

The event as a whole might have felt anticlimactic after weeks of anticipation, fizzling out with details of the “superphone” we already knew about and not really shaking up the mobile ecosystem after all.  If it were seen as an Android event, however, the news is promising.

BoomTown will be Southwesting to Las Vegas today for the annual Consumer Electronics Show, being held there over the next several days.

CES has certainly lost some of its immediacy over the last several years, as big players like Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) suck up all the oxygen outside of its noisy, analog crowd-filled pushfest. This year’s spoilers are the Nexus One launch yesterday and the upcoming iSlate arrival in a few weeks.

But CES is still the place to be to see a lot of different kinds of tech treats–from big-screen televisions to mobile devices to tricked-out stereo systems to whatever those odd booths in the back are peddling–in one spot to try to discern the tea leaves for innovation.

And, of course, also to go to a lot of parties with passels of geeks! Yes, it is that kind of fun. Ladies, hide your gadgets!

But, this year, Walt Mossberg–with whom I do an annual video walk across the massive Convention Center floor, where he is treated like the tech equivalent of Brangelina (see last year’s video below)–and I are trying to up the ante a bit by throwing a substantive interview event with top tech execs, which All Things Digital will be live-streaming on Friday.

We are at capacity at our venue at the Venetian Hotel, but you can see Walt, MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka and I grilling digital leaders, starting at 3:30 pm PT and ending at 5:30 pm (and it will also be available later for watching anytime).

Onstage: Jon Rubinstein, Chairman and CEO of Palm (PALM), talking to me; Reed Hastings, CEO, president and chairman of Netflix (NFLX), to be queried by Peter; and Google VP of Engineering and Android guru Andy Rubin, who will be interviewed by Walt.

ATD will also have extensive coverage of all the doings at CES over the next several days, so there will lots to peruse from keynotes to product launches to the annual blogger snub by Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, who seems to prefer to do pre-speech interviews with more traditional newspapers and television outfits.

But we’re not bitter and will cover whatever he gabs on about onstage tomorrow–apparently, a slate PC (how original!) with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ)–at the opening keynote at CES.

Remember: What happens in Vegas, stays right here.

Until then, here is my annual video interview of Walt, as well as Mossberg Solution columnist Katherine Boehret, on the CES floor last year:

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By Don Clark, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Jonney Shih has helped turn Asustek into one of Asia’s PC innovators, if not exactly matching Apple’s (AAPL) reputation as a trailblazer. But he made a case Tuesday that the Taiwan-based company is about style as well as substance.

At a press conference in Las Vegas before the Consumer Electronics Show, Shih pulled the wraps off some portables that were clearly designed to elicit oohs and ahs. His pitch had some similarities to last year’s press conference by Dell (DELL), which tried to burnish its reputation for style with a sleek device called Adamo.

The most striking offering by Asus, as the company prefers to be called, was a polished aluminum showpiece that looked like a piece of Bang & Olufsen stereo gear. Actually, that’s a pretty close approximation; the laptop is the result of a collaboration with David Lewis, a design guru with the Danish audio company who helped dream up some novel features.

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Filed under: Convertible, Coupe, Performance, BMW, Rumormill, Luxury

Don’t expect an official confirmation from BMW for another week, but some of the automaker’s anticipated updates to its 2011 E92/E93 (3 Series Coupe/3 Series Convertible) have already leaked into cyberspace. The team over at Bimmerfile is reporting that the exterior of both models will receive revised “sporty” front fascias, complete with LED lights and minor tweaks to the interior. Turbocharged 335i models optioned with either the M Sport Package or the standard Sport Package will be fitted with 19-inch alloys (a bump up from the current 18-inch offerings). Anthracite Bamboo trim will reportedly be a new interior option that will be joined by a new exterior color, and paddle shifters will be standard fare for vehicles without manual transmissions.

Keeping enthusiasts smiling, BMW will reportedly offer an “is” version of the refreshed two-door models. Exclusive to the U.S. market, the special variants are expected to be configured with either DCT or a Sport Automatic transmission. In addition, unique styling and special aerodynamic bits will differentiate them from the standard models. As expected, the interiors will be fitted with M Sport equipment as well. Best of all, the twin-turbocharged N54 under the hood will likely receive its own set of horsepower-boosting enhancements, much like those found on the recently announced Z4 sDrive35is.

[Source: BimmerFile]

2011 BMW 3 Series leaks out ahead of Detroit – special U.S. market performance model mooted originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 08:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New Enterprise Associates (NEA) this morning announced (PDF) the official close of its thirteenth fund, which it began investing in May 2009. At nearly $2.5 billion, it is comparable in size to NEA’s prior fund, which closed in 2006 and was just over $2.5 billion.

According to NEA, its fund XIII represents an estimated 17 percent of all U.S. venture capital funds raised in 2009 and is the largest single fund raised since 2007. The new capital commitments brings the venture capital firm’s total to more than $11 billion across all of its funds.

NEA, which has subsidiaries in both China and India, primarily invests in healthcare, energy, consumer and enterprise technology companies. The firm ranked number 4 on our list of most active VCs, which we published in October 2009 on our sister site TechCrunch Trends.

Some of its portfolio companies that will likely be most familiar to TechCrunch readers are Loopt, 23andMe, Vuze, Engine Yard and Millennial Media.

Its most recent investments were GroupOn (our coverage) and Playdom (our coverage), and it’s worth noting that NEA was the sole backer of Teracent, which was recently acquired by Google for an undisclosed sum after raising just south of $6 million.

(Press release via peHUB)

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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Toshiba grew its market share in the U.S. laptop market in 2009. The Japanese computer maker plans to hold onto those gains with a new family of laptops being launched at the Consumer Electronics Show this week in Las Vegas.

The laptops come in several types. The ultrathin Toshiba Satellite T100 series has a T115 model with an 11.6-inch screen and a T135 model (pictured) with a 13.3-inch screen. They use Intel’s CLV processors and get nine hours of battery life. They come with a sensor that shuts down the hard drive if the machine is dropped. They also have HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) ports, and you can charge universal serial bus (USB) devices with it even if the machine is in sleep mode. The T115 costs $449 and the T135 costs $499. Both machines are under four pounds. Toshiba plans to use AMD Neo processors in its ultrathin line starting in the first quarter.

Toshiba’s L series laptops are more expensive, premium machines, with screens that are 15.6 inches or 17 inches. The M series and the P series will have more of an entertainment focus. Toshiba launched its newest Qosmio gamer laptop in the fall. That machine has an 18.4-inch display and costs $1,449. It will be refreshed in the first quarter with a new Nvidia graphics chip.

The laptops have a lot of the standard new Intel chips that any manufacturer can use. But they also have some software features that set them apart.

One of them is the Toshiba Media Controller, which lets you do easy home networking. It lets you move your media from one computer on a network to another, tapping into new features of Windows 7 Premium edition. With it, you can play content from one machine on another. Another new software feature is Bulletin, a kind of virtual bulletin board you can use to do projects or organize daily tasks. It’s like a place to hang virtual sticky notes. It will be on touch-enabled Windows 7 machines in the first quarter.

Another feature is Toshiba ReelTime. This lets you see a timeline of your backups related to a single file. You can go back in time and filter out photos, documents or videos.

Toshiba also announced yesterday its Toshiba Mini NB 305 netbook (pictured), a second-generation machine that is smaller than a laptop and is meant for surfing the web. Toshiba was slow to join the netbook parade started by Asus. Toshiba’s first netbook shipped in the third quarter, and the business is still less than 10 percent of the company’s revenues. The new netbook has a 10.1-inch screen and a full-sized keyboard. The best thing about it is the 11 hour battery life, up from nine hours for the earlier model, based on the MobileMark 07 benchmark.

The Mini NB 305 costs $399 and comes in blue, brown, or white. It has an Intel Atom n450, a gigabyte of main memory, a 250 gigabyte hard drive, and the starter version of Windows 7. A $349 version has a high gloss black finish and a 160 gigabyte hard drive.

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Long-term solitary confinement is torture. More than 50,000 American prisoners are currently held in some form of longterm isolation, most of them leaving their cell for an hour, or less, each day.

Dr. Atul Gawande, who got the world talking about solitary back in March with his excellent New Yorker story on the topic, spoke about the issue on Democracy Now! yesterday, and he didn’t mince words. (Skip to 51:30 in the video to watch the piece on solitary, but his stuff on health care earlier the episode is worth watching, too)

“We have found ourselves crowding prisons larger and larger,” Gawande said. “Of course that breeds more violence. And then that leads us to say, well, we should then put folks in solitary confinement. And we’ve caught ourselves in a vicious circle, to the point that prison commissioners I talked to would only speak to me anonymously about this, because they would get fired for saying it. But they thought solitary confinement should end.”

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Marseille Networks is coming out of stealth today and plans to launch new video chips for TVs. That, by itself, is nothing remarkable. But the company says it has designed those chips using a new kind of virtual prototyping tool that can cut the costs of chip development dramatically.

Designing custom chips can cost $15 million to $20 million, which is one reason that we don’t see that many new chip startups like Marseille. But Amine Chabane, chief executive, said in an interview that the company’s design tools can shave months off of the 18 months to two years that it takes to design chips — and save millions of dollars in the process.

For now, the company is keeping the technology to itself and using it to design it own video chips. Chabane says the company is launching three new video chips this year to show that its technology works. It has a test chip in a customer’s hands now.

The road will be tough. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has raised $5 million and has 20 employees. But companies such as Marvell, Broadcom, and Intel are investing heavily in video chips for TVs and other video-related products. Silicon Optix was a competitor, but its assets have been acquired by IDT and others.

On the design tool side, vendors such as Synopsys and Cadence have been making tools for years that are aimed at making the design process easier and less expensive. Chabane said that Marseille’s tools let chip designers see what the consequences of their designs are through simulation. They can try out different options to see how the chips work before they pull the trigger and send the design off to a chip factory.

“They can get the look and feel of the chip,” Chabane said. “You don’t have to gamble $15 – 20 million building the wrong product. Once the customers love the design, we go to mass production. That helps us mitigate risk.”

There are a lot of ifs here, to be sure. It sounds very similar to what hardware and tool companies already say they do with products such as field programmable gate arrays. Those FPGAs, however, are big, fat, “kitchen sink” chips. Designers can customize them to do exactly what they want, but the chips stay big and fat and expensive to fabricate. Chabane says that his tools let someone design a slimmer chip in a cost-efficient and completely custom way.

Chabane has been around a while. Before he co-founded Marseille in 2005, he held management positions at Conexant Systems and C-Cube Microsystems. If the technology works, then Marseille can expand its business and will have the option of licensing its design tools to others. The company isn’t yet naming its customers.

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Lady Gaga’s hit “Monster Ball Tour” is reportedly facing a serious deficit, despite being completely sold out.

The “Bad Romance” charttopper – who describes her stage show as “ostentatious and over-the-top” – takes a financial hit every night she performs on the North American leg of her tour, which has so far overspent by more than $2 million even though fans quickly snatched up tickets to every concert.

According to new reports, Gaga’s massive tour costs have been run up by the singer’s elaborate taste in stage design, costumes, and props — including a $50,000 bathtub she used while making a promotional appearance on the UK TV talent show The X Factor last November.

“The concerts are losing money hand over fist because they’ve spent a fortune on pricey costumes, technical equipment and elaborate set designs. She spent $500,000 on one stage alone,” a set tattle blabbed to Britain’s The Sun this week. “But Lady Gaga gets what Lady Gaga wants. Her wardrobe is huge and she wants to shock – and that costs serious money.”

According to her spokesman, the 23-year-old singer/songwriter just “doesn’t care” about finances. While she has already overspent massively, Lady Gaga’s bills are expected to soar again when she picks out a completely different set for the European part of her tour.

“I can’t comment on figures but it wouldn’t be a surprise. Gaga puts everything into her live shows. I wouldn’t want to be her accountant,” he told the tabloid.

So after weeks of rumors and leaks, the Nexus One is here. The website google.com/phone is now up,running, and taking orders for the “Google” phone. As expected the phone can be bought unlocked for $529 or with T-Mobile for $179, but those aren’t the only two options.

At the bottom of the “What Would You Like To Buy?” page, there is a Verizon section. The website states that soon there will be a Nexus One for Verizon,  available in spring 2010. Under Verizon, there is also a blurb with a link the sends you to the Droid, for those of us who can’t wait for the Nexus One (N1).  Below that, there is also a placeholder saying the Nexus One will be in Europe in spring 2010 for Vodafone.

Are there any other carriers you’d like to see pick up a subsidy deal with the Nexus One?