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  • De Vier Werelden, Spijkenisse

    Gegevens
    Naam: De Vier Werelden
    Hoogte: 70 meter
    Plaats: Spijkenisse
    Oplevering: 2009
    Functie: Woningen
    Architect: Mei Architecten en stedenbouwers BV
    _____________________________________________________


    Flickr – Dutchmetal


    SSC – FCS87


    SSC – FCS87


    SSC – FCS87

  • VIDEO: Sony Dash personal internet viewer @ CES

    Adriana goes hands-on with Sony’s new Dash CID-H10 Personal Internet Viewer. Imagine Chumby, but bigger and on steroids. And made by Sony instead of a start-up.


  • e-Book Readers Everywhere — Who Cares?

    It has been clear for quite some time that the e-book reader space has gotten pretty hot. There are companies making readers right and left, and I must have seen dozens of them while wondering around the CES. There were readers of all types, almost all of them e-Ink equipped, and if the sheer number of devices is any indicator then the mainstream consumer is going to flock to digital books in droves. Wanna bet that doesn’t happen?

    We geeks love e-book readers. They are gadgets, after all, and we can’t get enough gadgets. Mainstream consumers are a different beast, however, and they are going to require something very specific to even have a chance to win them over. Content. Not just a big selection of content, but very specific content.

    Mainstream consumers want best-sellers and other recent releases. They want any book they can pick up in one of the thousands of stores where they shop. They want any book they can pick up in a public library. They want to see a book, and buy it for their reader on the spot. Not go searching to see if it’s available for their particular reader, and definitely not to see if the format is compatible with it. They want to see a book, and buy it.

    This is why the Kindle has been pretty successful; at least consumers can buy a book from Amazon simply, and have it work on the reader. Barnes & Noble is banking on this too with the Nook. They both have a huge selection of digital books, and buying them is a simple process.

    Once the book buying process gets less straightforward, the mainstream consumer will drop out. The first time they buy a book, only to find it won’t work on their particular reader, and it is game over. Frustration and reading books do not go hand in hand, it is a major failure for the consumer.

    So we may be seeing gobs of readers getting released, but the reader is only one piece of the consumer experience. And not even the major piece, as there are paper books everywhere they can read. And make no mistake about it, they will continue reading those dead-tree versions if it is easier. I’m just sayin’.

  • How to excel at scenework and influence improvisors – part 1

    I recently read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie for the first time. It’s the kind of book that I’ve avoided most of my life. Self help books, especially ones with a strong slant towards the business world, usually don’t excite me. However, it had been recommended to me by a couple of people, and I realized that it might be of some use for me.

    As I read the book, I wondered about how it might apply to the life of improvisation. On one level, it’s pretty straight forward. The way you build relationships in the worlds of theater and comedy are not that different from the business world. The advice translates pretty directly to how you should treat your fellow improvisors off stage. The advice seems especially well suited for sales, and while many of us in the theatre world loath selling ourselves, it is something that definitely helps us be successful.

    But I also began to wonder how it might apply to other areas. For instance, some of the advice is tricky to follow if you are a coach, director or teacher. For instance, the first principle discussed in the book is don’t criticize, condemn or complain. Obviously critiquing a student or performers work is exactly what they need (and sometimes crave). So can one follow Carnegie’s advice and still be an effective instructor? I think so. The last section of the book addresses this head on, so some of what I’m thinking won’t show up until a later blog post.

    It also occurred to me that some of these principles might be applied in interesting ways on stage. For instance, it might be fun to use some of the principles as negative templates for characters. In other words, you might want to follow Carnegie’s advice off stage, but on stage, you might want to create characters who would sorely need to read his book.

    With all this in mind, lets dig into Carnegie’s book. The first section of the book is titled “Fundamental Techniques in Handling People” and the first principle is “Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.”

    Don’t criticize, condemn or complain

    As an improv student, you should remind yourself of this principle before every class and practice, until it becomes second nature. Criticizing your fellow students work is unlikely to do anything except annoy them. But this should probably extend to the teacher, the theatre and the class itself. People who spend a lot of time complaining are unpleasant to be around, no matter what they are complaining about. This is important, because you are in class to learn and to practice. But you can’t forget that you are also there to network and to make friends. If you go to make a career in comedy, some of the people you meet in your classes may end up being your friend for decades. Don’t be the jackass who spends their time in class complaining about exercises, condemning techniques and criticizing their fellow students.

    Like any guideline there are going to be exceptions. As a teacher, occasionally I’ve run into students whose behavior is disruptive to the rest of the class. Sometimes it’s a behavior that I see, but sometimes I haven’t seen it. I think it’s fine for a student to complain to their instructor about a serious problem, but I would wait until a discreet moment, at break or after class. Also, there have been some rare occasions that I’ve heard of where a teacher is conducting his or her class in an inappropriate manner. An example might be a teacher who shows up drunk or consistently late. In this case, you have every right to complain to the school administrator.

    What you probably don’t want to do is whine and bitch about a teacher’s style, their exercises or their teaching philosophy. There are going to be some teachers who you don’t gel with. Some instructors might ask you to do an exercise which you don’t understand or might hold an opinion about improv with which you don’t agree. These are not good reasons to have a tantrum. If faced with a situation like this, I would suggest that you suck it up, try your best to do the exercises and thoughtfully consider what the instructor has to say. If after the class, you don’t think you learned anything of value and you didn’t enjoy the class, avoid that instructor in the future. Whining about it in class will likely just turn people off to you.

    Your attitude as part of a team or show should be similar. You want to be the kind of performer who other people like to be around. Sure it’s important that you have talent and that you are funny and skilled as a performer, but people have a lot of choices when they are putting together a show or a group. Most improvisors would prefer to perform with an optimistic, fun player with a positive attitude, not someone who spends their time bitterly complaining about their teammates or the theater where they perform.

    Now as a coach, a director or a teacher, you have to criticize people you are working with. There is an implicit agreement when someone comes to your rehearsal or class. They know you might criticize them, and they have agreed to listen to your notes and consider them, and to at least try to do what you ask. However, I think there has to be some balance here.

    For instance, you are coaching a team and they have a performance which is significantly below their capability. You could go backstage after the show and rip them a new one. You could give them two hours of notes picking apart everything they did wrong (in their 30 minute set). What effect do you think this will have? Will your performers be able to implement every last little note you gave them in future shows? Will they even remember them? Will they spend the rest of the night feeling like crap because their coach made them feel like they suck at improv? Will that help them that much in future shows? I don’t think it will. Don’t get me wrong, you need to critique your performers, but an onslaught of negative notes may not be your best approach if your goal is to truly motivate them to do better.

    I guess I would say that as a coach or teacher, don’t complain, don’t condemn, and be careful how you criticize. I’m sure I’m going to expand on this as we go along. The last part of the book has a lot of ideas that should work well in a teaching or directing scenario.

    How about the characters you create on stage? Is it alright if they are complainers? Of course! I can think of a lot ways that a character who complains can work on stage. There are some pitfalls to avoid though. For instance, you don’t want the critical nature of your character to stop him or her from doing something in the scene. Let’s say you are playing a husband who complains about his wife’s cooking. If your wife has cooked a seven course meal for you, it’s going to be better for you to go ahead and try each course and find things to criticize, than it would be to refuse to eat anything. I remember Susan Messing often pointing out how behavior that you should avoid off stage, often is great behavior to indulge in on stage.

  • Canadian Bat/Rabies Shot Guidelines Changed

    Rabies used to be in the news quite a bit – it was even the subject of movies (think Old Yeller). Sadly, before vaccinations were available and treatment had been discovered, rabies killed many animals and humans.

    According to the World Health Organization (WHO), although rabies may be out of the minds of those who live in the developed nations, the disease is still a major concern elsewhere:

    • More than 55 000 people die of rabies each year. About 95% of human deaths occur in Asia and Africa.
    • Most human deaths follow a bite from an infected dog. Between 30% to 60% of the victims of dog bites are children under the age of 15.

    upsidedownIn North America, rabies is sometimes transmitted by rabid bats, so countries, like Canada, have guidelines in place about prophylactic (preventative) treatment if someone comes in contact with an animal that could be rabid.

    Canadian guidelines required anti-rabies injections for people who would wake up and find a bat in their bedroom. The reasoning was that if the person was sleeping, they would not always be able to tell if they had been scratched or bitten by the animal. However, researchers looked into the number of people who found themselves in that situation and found that this type of blanket treatment was likely not needed.

    Now, instead of encouraging that the bat be caught for testing, which could put people at risk if they hadn’t been bitten in the first place, adults must meet one of the two following requirements:

    • The bat must have touched or landed on the person
    • It cannot be ruled out that there was not a bit or scratch that has come into contact with a wound on the person or the person’s mucus membranes (mouth, nose)

    With children, more caution may be taken and injections given if there is any concern.

    The change in recommendations came about because the risk of rabies with just being in the same room did not justify the expense and discomfort of the prophylactic treatment.

    ~~~

    Image: PhotoXpress.com

    Post from: Blisstree

    Canadian Bat/Rabies Shot Guidelines Changed

  • Hydrogen Cars Nothing New: 1966 GM Electrovan

    This new wave of hydrogen fuel cell cars is not due to new technology, but instead a demand from the public in response to rising gas prices. In fact, fuel cells have been around since the early 1800’s. Even so the first car to put fuel cell technology to use was the 1966 GM Electrovan.  This van’s fuel cell had a range of over 120 miles which is not to bad compared to the modern Honda Clarity which has a range of 24o miles. This van was built and tested in 1966 but ultimately ended up failing due to cost and a lack of space.  The piping and equipment needed to power the fuel cell turned the 6 seat GMC Handivan into a 2 seat hyrdogen Electrovan. High costs came as a result of a lack of information, technology, and interest at the time. There was such a lack of information on hydrogen fuel cell cars that even the Smithsonian Institute did not allow it inside their facilities for the sole reason that they had never heard of a fuel cell before and did not understand it’s dynamics. Obviously the information  and technology available today makes the hydrogen fuel cell cars more affordable and safe, but the main reason they may now succeed is that there is a greater worldwide interest due to the global energy demand and rising fuel prices.


  • Companies to shape the decade: China Mobile

    UK Guardian has a “Companies to shape the decade” series, the China Mobile article is an interesting one to read.

    Posted in Business, World, World Affairs

  • Announcement: New Year’s Resolution Contest

    newyears contest collage Announcement: New Years Resolution ContestThere are only 4 days left until the end of this year’s New Year’s Resolutions Contest.

    For a chance to win $750 in Primal Prizes submit your 60 second YouTube video detailing your health and fitness goals for 2010 by this coming Friday.

    Click here for all the details about the prize package and contest. Grok on!

    Get Free Health Tips, Recipes and Workouts Delivered to Your Inbox

    Related posts:

    1. Announcement: New Recipe Theme for the Cookbook Contest
    2. Announcement: New Recipe Theme for the Cookbook Contest
    3. Contest: What Did You Learn This Year?

  • FDIC’s Bair Blasts Other Regulators for Reluctance on Banker Pay Plan

    For anyone who thought the federal regulators were all on the same page regarding the best way to police compensation at banks, think again.

    [Sheila Bair]
    Bair

    Tension behind the scenes spilled into a nasty exchange of words at a public meeting of the five-member Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. board of directors. The long and short of it: FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair and two other board directors support proposing a new policy that would tie the fees banks pay for deposit insurance to the risk-profile of the compensation plans at those banks. In other words, if the bank pays executives in a way that the FDIC feels encourages dangerously risky behavior that could ultimately lead the bank to fail, then the FDIC can charge them more for deposit insurance.

    Comptroller of the Currency
    John Dugan, whose agency regulates national banks, and Office of Thrift Supervision acting director John Bowman, whose agency regulates federal thrifts, strongly disagreed with the proposal. They said, among other things, the FDIC was moving too quickly because the Fed and Congress were both looking to address of banker compensation using different standards. They also said it was unclear how much of a factor banker pay really played in causing banks to fail. And Mr. Bowman also suggested it was unclear whether the FDIC even had the authority to assess higher fees based on pay plans. Messrs. Bowman and Dugan voted against the proposal, which narrowly passed 3-2.

    Ms. Bair wouldn’t let their criticisms go unanswered, and launched into a lengthy unscripted rebuke:

    (The only acronym worth noting is “MLR,” or material loss review. These are conducted after sizable bank failures, when government investigators go through the causes of the collapse)

    Ms. Bair: I must say to take a position that we should not even be asking these questions is not one that I can understand. I also cannot understand why we need to keep waiting. We need to keep waiting for this or that, and in the interim, nothing changes. We just maintain the status quo, and the longer we try to [implement] meaningful reforms, the more momentum for that dissipates. We are simply asking the question.
    There are a number of MLRs for the smaller institutions that draw quite a clear contributing factor to bank failures on losses. We don’t have MLRs for the larger institutions because they got bailed out. That does not mean to say that we shouldn’t be looking at the huge compensation systems of the larger institutions as well, and how that fed into risk taking and the credit crisis which has obviously imposed massive losses for the deposit insurance fund. We must rely on academic research and other work done by our own staff to determine whether there is cause and effect here. We are asking the question right now but we are obliged to have risk adjusted premiums. And we are obliged to evaluate risk to the deposit insurance fund, and we are obliged to try to factor in those risk elements into our premium structure.
    So I think there is nothing we are doing that conflicts with the Fed is doing. It complements that. There is nothing we are doing that conflicts with what the Congress is doing…
    To suggest this agency shouldn’t do anything when there is such an overwhelming amount of evidence that this is clearly a contributor to the crisis and to the loses that we are suffering, I just cannot understand that.
    John, you made a very good inventory of all the regulatory and statutory provisions dealing with management and compensation, but I must say, how effective have those been? And maybe we should be looking at some other tools as well to again reinforce and complement those supervisory efforts.
    I think the regulators have been roundly criticized for not fully exploring the regulatory tools we have at our disposal to address some of the root causes of this crisis…not to even ask the question I think would not be responsible for this board to do.


  • Nissan ofrecerá dos modelos en EEUU, Centro y Sudamérica, de bajo precio

    nissanversa.jpg

    Nissan no presentó grandes novedades en Detroit, pero anunció en la sesión de prensa, que presentará dos modelos económicos dirigidos exclusivamente al mercado norteamericano.

    Ambos modelos se basarán en la plataforma del Nissan Micra, que reemplazará al Versa, el vehículo más pequeño y más económico que la marca japonesa vende en EEUU.

    Los nuevos vehículos serán construídos en México, para toda América, en un intento por ahorrar costos de mano de obra y mantener el precio lo más bajo posible. A pesar de que el Versa es uno de los vehículos menos equipados del mercado norteamericano, sigue siendo un coche que vende, viendo que, a pesar de una caída en el 2009, todavía vendió casi 7.000 coches en el mes de diciembre.

    El precio aproximado de los nuevos Nissan Micra, será de unos 10.000 dólares, lo mismo que lo que cuesta el Versa, pero sobre una plataforma mucho más moderna. El intento no será algo aislado de la marca por ofrecer un coche económico, ya que se tiene previsto fabricar al menos un millón de estos coches al año.

    Vía | Automotive News



  • Is a Scorching, Earth-Like Exoplanet a Withered Up “Hot Jupiter”? | 80beats

    corot-7bOnce, most of exoplanets that astronomers spotted were giants, but now they’re seeing more and more new planets with masses not far off from the Earth’s. One of those newly found Earth-like exoplanets, however, may not have always been so similar to our own world: An astronomer made the case last week that the small, sweltering planet was once a mighty gas giant that shrank.

    Astronomers discovered Corot-7b in September. Its diameter is roughly 1.7 times that of Earth. Based on its size and mass, its density is similar to Earth’s, indicating that it is a rocky Earth-like orb [ABC News]. But the comparisons end there. While it’s rocky like Earth, this fiery hellhole is no place for life. It orbits its star at a distance of only 1.6 million miles (we’re presently at a much more comfortable 93 million miles from our sun) and completes a revolution in only 20 hours’ time. And, NASA’s Brian Jackson argued at last week’s American Astronomical Society meeting, Corot-7b is probably just a shell of its former self, and once was a type of gas giant called a “hot Jupiter.”

    Given the planet’s proximity to its star, Jackson says it would be subject to a constant blast of heat that robs it of its mass. Rock vaporized by the extreme temperatures could escape the atmosphere of Corot-7b, and the planet would’ve steadily lost mass as it moved closer to its star. It could be shedding half an Earth mass every billion years. Extrapolating backward in time, Jackson concludes that the planet may have started as a gas-giant world more akin to Jupiter or Saturn, and that its light elements were driven off [Sky & Telescope]. The gas giant case isn’t clinched; one could also argue that the planet was always rock, and just slowly lost mass over the years. Either way “this planet is disappearing before our eyes,” Dr. Jackson said in a statement [ABC News].

    Elsewhere at the AAS meeting, astronomers announced a new find: the second-smallest exoplanet ever, given a mouthful of a moniker in HD156668b. The team of astronomers who discovered HD156668b used one of two Keck telescopes at the 4,145-meter (13,600-foot) summit of Mount Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The astronomers used the so-called wobble method, which measures the gravitational effects of a planet on its star [AFP]. This new world is some 80 light-years away in the Hercules constellation. It’s only four times more massive than Earth.

    With the exoplanet tally now well past 400, and the planet-hunting Kepler telescope starting to spot its first distant orbs, expect the announcements to keep coming. Maybe soon we’ll even find an Earth-like world that isn’t unbelievably sizzling hot.

    Related Content:
    80beats: Rock Solid Evidence of a Rocky, Earth-Like Planet
    80beats: Study: Strange Planet Has Atmosphere of Gaseous Rock—and It Rains Pebbles
    80beats: Kepler Telescope Spies Its First 5 Exoplanets, Including “Styrofoam” World
    80beats: Meet the New Neighbors: Earth-Like Worlds Orbiting Nearby Stars
    DISCOVER: How Long Until We Find a Second Earth?
    DISCOVER: Big Picture: The Inspiring Boom in “Super-Earths”

    Image: ESO. Artist’s impression of COROT-7b.


  • Who to Ask for Support for Nexus One…

    The Nexus One, while being a very good Android device, has some issues. It is starting with the ordering process with Google and the upgrade eligibility with T-Mobile. There are also reports of signal quality with 3G as outline by Gizmodo. The Nexus One is made by HTC, distributed by Google and subsidized by T-Mobile, so who is responsible for technical support, software updates and contract conditions…?

    Well HTC, through their Tweet account said 2 days ago:

    For the Nexus One, rate plan related ?’s should go to your carrier. Hardware/software support, please reach out to HTC http://ow.ly/UnTI

    and again today:

    Again, if you need hardware/software support with Nexus One, please contact us (HTC) via http://ow.ly/VemJ

    They take responsibility on their part of the deal, which is nice. Then, we can only assume that the 3G problem a lot of users are experiencing will be resolved with a software upgrade from HTC.

    It seems the problem with the confusion came from Google who didn’t communicate about this, they could have done it from the Nexus One’s page. Also, T-Mobile was not ready to deal with the specific of customers already on contract with them as outlined by TmoNews.

    Unfortunately, once again, this highlight the fact that carriers don’t care much about existing customers and prefer to be nice only with potential new ones! Google want to change the game by distributing the phone themselves but until there is an infrastructure in place (WiFi everywhere or use of white spaces) to do without them, we still have to deal with carriers!


  • Google GDrive Launches. Just Don’t Call It That.

    “This is not GDrive” said Google Docs product manager Vijay Bangaru yesterday while showing me something that sure does look exactly like the fabled GDrive.

    “How is it different,” I asked.

    “That’s hard to say, because GDrive doesn’t exist.”

    Alrighty then. Putting that aside, you can soon upload any file type at all to Google Docs, not just the dozen or so Office formats that the service allowed as of yesterday. Video files. Images. Audio Files. Even Zip files. As long as those files are 250 MB or smaller, you’re good. The new feature will roll out over the next several weeks, says Google.

    Like other documents in Google docs, files can be kept private, made public or shared with a few users. Google Viewer can be used to view many file types, with the notable exception of video.

    Regular users have 1 GB of free storage and can purchase more for $0.25/GB. Enterprise customer pay higher prices, starting at $17/year for 5 GB. There are no bandwidth charges.

    Three Third Party Apps Available Now

    Three partners have been working with Google to build value add features on top of the new product. The most interesting, Memeo Connect (from Memeo), lets users sync files between the desktop and Google Docs.

    Syncplicity is offering businesses an automated backup and file management application. And Manymoon, an online project management application, is also now integrated with Google Docs file storage.

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  • Kleiner And Bessemer Put $8.65 Million Into ReputationDefender

    The line between online security and reputation is blurring. ReputationDefender is a new kind of online security startup that helps you monitor your reputation on the Web and take actions to make sure that when someone Googles you they see you in the best possible light. Last year, ReputationDefender raised $8.65 million from Bessemer Venture Partners and Kleiner Perkins, which it is announcing today. The round came in two tranches, with $4 million form Bessemer in May, 2009 and another $4.65 million from Kleiner in August, 2009, with Bessemer participating again. David Cowan of Bessemer and Ted Schlein of Kleiner now have board seats, along with angel investor Mike Maples who led the Series A in 2008.

    ReputationDefender sells four different security products on a monthly subscription basis (MyReputation, MyPrivacy, MyChild, and MyEdge) which lets you monitor information about you across the Web, as well as in semi-private databases, and helps you remove inaccurate information or counter by promoting your own vetted profile. CEO Michael Fertick thinks “we are entering a third phase of digital security.” The first phase was around protecting your devices from viruses and malware. The second was around financial payments and making sure people are who they claim to be. “Now we have a third phase,” he says. “Your whole life is on the Web. You live, work, date on the Web. Nobody has your back yet. Nobody gives you the tools to control your life on the Internet.”

    Privacy might be dead, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything about it. “Information security has to evolve form protecting hard drives to protecting identities,” says Cowan. ReputationDefender specializes in recursive search. It doesn’t just do a search on your name. It will match your name to your employer, college, address, and other information it knows about you so that it can pull up comments, blog posts, photos, and other mentions of you across the Web even if your full name isn’t used.

    In computer science this is known as the persona isolation problem, or in national security circles the “27 Mohammeds problem.” How do you know that the John Smith mentioned in an online forum is your John Smith. But ReputationDefender has an edge. Fertick explains: “The unfair or competitive advantage is we are doing searches of our customers, who give us more information about themselves.” So it can narrow down, when someone is talking about you. And it constantly keeps an eye out for new mentions, so you don’t have to Google yourself every morning.

    “We now have a whole generation of folks growing up who think it is ok to say whatever they want to whoever they want, whenever they want,” says Shlein, who is an online security veteran and sits on the board of Lifelock, another online security firm which addresses identity theft, with Cowan. ReputationDefender aims to help people regain control of their online reputation, which is increasingly becoming an issue whenever someone applies to a new school or for a new job, or even when they are trying to get a date. Because what is the first thing a college admissions officer, potential boss, or prospective date will do? Google your name. And anything said about you on the Web will come up.

    The extent that ReputaionDefender can actually do anything about erroneous or unflattering information about you varies, but for the most part simply knowing what’s out there is first step to doing something about it. And the company is definitely seeing strong early demand. “The numbers are going up and to the right,” says Shlein. Fertick won’t go into too many financial details, but does share that when the company launched in October, 2006 it made $33,000 in revenues. The next year, revenues grew to $1.21 million. He pretty much bootsrapped the whole thing. “We were profitable for much of the history of the company,” he says. Even in the fourth quarter of 2008, when the economy was falling apart, ReputationDefender had a record quarter, followed by an even better one in the first quarter of 2009. It was that financial strength which helped convince Cowan and Shlein to back the company. Now, the company is investing ahead of growth and is not currently profitable.

    It is still early days and there is a lot of work ahead. Perhaps ReputationDefender’s biggest weakness is that it does not have a full view into Facebook, where only public comments or photos show up. If somebody is going to badmouth you online, chances are it will be on Facebook. “I don’t think we are especially awesome in getting into the semi-closed systems yet. We don’t yet have the ability to search all of Facebook,” Fertick acknowledges. But he does have at least partial access to 40 social networks, and this is a big area of focus for him. And over time, as Facebook becomes more public by default, it will become more visible to ReputationDefender. It’s the public stuff that most people care about anyway.

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  • Boeing Team Delivers Two Osprey Trainers to Marines

    Boeing [NYSE: BA] and partner Bell Helicopter delivered two MV-22 Osprey Containerized Flight Training Devices (CFTD) to the U.S. Marines at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Miramar in California in the last quarter of 2009.

    “Before the deliveries to Miramar, Marines would have to spend months at a time in North Carolina for training,” said Mark McGraw, Boeing vice president of Training Systems & Services.

    “Having two trainers in California increases warfighter availability while allowing the Marines to train more crew members at once.”

    The CFTD trains aircrew on basic aircraft familiarization and handling qualities, systems/sub-systems operation, communication, malfunctions, day and night flying, use of night vision goggles, formation flying, aerial refueling and landing on ships.

    The device is intended to train crews for any task that might be performed in the aircraft, while limiting the monetary and environmental costs and safety risks of in-flight training.

    “We thank Miramar’s warfighters for lending us their expertise,” said McGraw.

    “They participated in pre-acceptance testing ‘flyability’ trials and provided around-the-clock availability for the acceptance testing.”

    Boeing has delivered a total of three CFTDs to the Marines to date. Two more of the devices are scheduled for delivery to Miramar in mid-2010.

    Another CFTD will be delivered to MCAS New River, N.C., in fall 2010, where it will join the first CFTD, which Boeing delivered in 2007.

    All CFTDs can be locally networked to one another to allow for more robust training capabilities. The CFTDs at MCAS New River also will be able to network with AV-8 Harriers at MCAS Cherry Point, N.C.

    Cost and cycle time have been progressively reduced for each CFTD, while simulator quality has increased. The projectors are sharper and clearer than those on earlier Osprey simulators. Future CFTDs will include additional improvements.

    The V-22 Osprey is a tiltrotor aircraft manufactured by Boeing Rotorcraft Systems and Bell Helicopter, a Textron Inc. [NYSE: TXT] company. Bell and Boeing are teamed in a Strategic Alliance Agreement for the design, production and sustainment of the V-22.

    Bell Helicopter, a wholly owned subsidiary of Textron Inc., is an industry-leading producer of commercial and military, manned and unmanned vertical lift aircraft and the pioneer of the revolutionary tiltrotor aircraft.

    Globally recognized for world-class customer service, innovation and superior quality, Bell’s global work force serves customers flying Bell aircraft in more than 120 countries. More information is available at bellhelicopter.com.

    Textron Inc. is a multi-industry company that leverages its global network of aircraft, defense, industrial and finance businesses to provide customers with innovative solutions and services.

    Textron is known around the world for its powerful brands such as Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft Company, Jacobsen, Kautex, Lycoming, E-Z-GO, Greenlee, and Textron Systems.

    More information is available at textron.com.

    About Boeing Defense, Space & Security

    A unit of The Boeing Company, Boeing Defense, Space & Security is one of the world’s largest defense, space and security 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 Defense, Space & Security is a $32 billion business with 70,000 employees worldwide.

    MEDIA CONTACT:

    Alison Sheridan, 314-232-8187
    Boeing Media Relations
    [email protected]