Tuesday, June 24, 2008

BBN buys California firm Digital Force

By Mass High Tech Staff

BBN Technologies Corp. reports it has bought engineering firm Digital Force Technologies LLC for an undisclosed amount.

Digital Force will become a wholly owned subsidiary of BBN, according to the Cambridge technology company. With the deal, BBN employs 700 people in the United States.

Digital Force, which will continue to be based in San Diego, is most well known for rapid prototyping and production of small electronic devices for surveillance, reconnaissance, and communication in challenging environments for U.S. government customers, BBN said. 

Earlier this month, the U.S. Army ordered more than 8,000 of BBN’s Boomerang wearable shot-detection systems in a $73.8 million deal. Also this month, the Office of Naval Research awarded BBN with a $13.6 million contract for virtual, game-based military training.

Founded in 1948, BBN is well-known for its role in the development of the ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet. BBN specializes in acoustic technology, speech recognition, secure computing and data mining.