abstract: In a joint work with B.Cassano (Roma), we prove global existence and scattering in the energy space for the NLS with variable coefficients. The metric is assumed to be a small long range perturbation of the flat metric, plus lower order terms and a potential with large positive part. The space dimension is $n\ge4$. The crucial tool is a bilinear smoothing estimate which we can prove also in the case of a star-shaped exterior domain with Dirichlet boundary conditions.