Bob Metcalfe, co-inventor of Ethernet 40 years ago this week, will get his turn to play social media rock star as the subject of a Reddit IAmA on Tuesday, May 21, at noon EDT.
Reddit IAmAs, live Q&As on the increasingly popular social news aggregation site, have become a must-do these days for everyone from presidential candidates (Barack Obama's IAmA briefly crashed the site in August) to rock bands hitting the road on new tours.
Some IAmAs are pretty techie, too, with a former Amazon cloud engineer recently spilling info to the Reddit audience.
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This week, Metcalfe gets his turn (squeezed in between the likes of comedian Patton Oswalt and tennis pro Roger Federer). It was 40 years ago this Wednesday, May 22, that Metcalfe outlined the Ether Network connectivity scheme in a memo. Metcalfe, in conjunction with Dave Boggs, is credited with coming up with the idea for Ethernet while at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
The essential network invention is being celebrated in assorted ways this week, including at an Ethernet Innovation Summit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.
Metcalfe is currently professor of innovation and Murchison fellow of free enterprise in The University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering. Other claims to fame for Metcalfe include starting 3Com Corp., and serving as a venture capitalist.
Metcalfe is one of the network industry's most decorated pioneers in terms of awards, honors and prizes.
Bob Brown tracks network research in his Alpha Doggs blog and Facebook page, as well on Twitter and Google +.
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