BBN Technologies (originally Bolt, Beranek and Newman

BBN Technologies (originally Bolt, Beranek and Newman) is an American high-technology company which provides research and development services. BBN is based next to Fresh Pond in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It is a military contractor, primarily for DARPA, and also known for its 1978 acoustical analysis for the House Select Committee on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.^[1] BBN of the 1950s and '60s has been referred to by two of its alumni as the "third university" of Cambridge, after MIT and Harvard.^[2] In 1966, the Franklin Institute awarded the firm the Frank P. Brown Medal.
BBN became a wholly owned subsidiary of Raytheon in 2009. On February 1, 2013, BBN Technologies was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.^[3]

History

Founded in 1948, by Leo Beranek and Richard Bolt, professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with Bolt's former student Robert Newman, Bolt, Beranek and Newman started life as an acoustical consulting company. Their first contract was consultation for the design of the acoustics of the United Nations Assembly Hall in New York. Subsequent commissions included MIT's Kresge Auditorium (1954), Tanglewood's Koussevitzky Music Shed (1959), Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall (1962), the Cultural Center of the Philippines (1969) and Baltimore's Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall (1978).^{[citation needed]} Experts at the company examined the Richard Nixon tape with the 18.5 minutes erased during the Watergate scandal^[4] and the Dictabelt evidence which was purportedly a recording of the JFK assassination.^{[citation needed]}
The substantial calculations required for acoustics work led to an interest, and later business opportunities, in computing. BBN was a pioneer in developing computer models of roadway and aircraft noise, and in designing noise barriers near highways.^{[citation needed]} Some of this technology was used in landmark legal cases where BBN scientists were expert witnesses.^{[citation needed]} BBN bought a number of computers in the late 1950s and early 1960s, notably the first production PDP-1 from Digital Equipment Corporation.^[5] BBN was involved in building some of the earliest Internet networks, including ARPANET, MILNET, CSNET, and NEARNET.
A number of well-known computer luminaries have worked at BBN, including Daniel Bobrow, John Seely Brown, Jerry Burchfiel, Richard Burton, Edmund Clarke, Allan Collins, Bernie Cosell, William Crowther, John Curran, Wally Feurzeig, Ed Fredkin, Bob Kahn, Stephen Kent, J. C. R. Licklider, John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Dan Murphy, Severo Ornstein, Seymour Papert, Oliver Selfridge, Bob Thomas, Ray Tomlinson, Peiter "Mudge" Zatko.
Former board members include Jim Breyer, Anita K. Jones and Gilman Louie.

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http://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/bbn/