October 08, 2004 —
Internet pioneer Vinton Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet, will take a
look at the phenomenal growth of this worldwide
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Vinton Cerf |
communications tool and its potential for delivering virtually any digital format
in a special USC campus open house to be held Oct. 14 from 5 - 7:30 p.m.
Cerf’s talk — “The Internet: A New Fabric for the Support of Rich Media Distribution
and Interaction” — will begin at 6 p.m. in the Gerontology Auditorium and highlight
some of the new transmission media likely to be adapted to the Internet as the
network expands.
“The Internet is capable of carrying virtually any digital content,” said Cerf,
senior vice president of technology strategy at MCI. “As its capacity increases,
new Internet transmission media, such as various forms of radio, satellite and
cable broadcast, will emerge. That will make the Internet one of the richest
environments in which to produce, distribute and consume a wide variety of digital
content.”
He helped design the Internet’s basic protocol, called Internet Protocol (IP),
to ensure that packets of data reached their destinations. He wrote the blueprint
for “Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol” (TCP/IP), along with his
colleague Robert E. Kahn. The USC Viterbi School's Information Sciences Institute
also did much of this fundamental work. TCP/IP defined the form in which Internet
data packets would be sent and how they would reach their destinations. TCP/IP
was solely responsible for turning the U.S. Defense Department’s ARPANET into
the Internet.
Faculty and students are welcome to attend the event, which begins at 5 p.m.
with an open house in USC's Integrated Media Systems Center. Guests are invited
to watch technology demonstrations and talk with USC computer science and engineering
faculty.
The event is being hosted by the Viterbi School of Engineering’s Integrated Media
Systems Center, the Marshall School of Business's Entrepreneurship Program and
Center for Technology Commercialization, and Hispanic Net.
For more information, contact Isaac Maya, director of IMSC’s Industry and Technology
Transfer Programs, by email at imaya@imsc.usc.edu.