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. 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. In 1966, the Franklin Institute awarded the firm the Frank P. Brown Medal.