Danny Cohen, an Israeli computer scientist whose work in the 1960s and ‘70s on computer graphics and networks led to innovations in flight simulation, internet telephony, cloud computing, and one of the first online dates — with him — died August 12 at his home in Palo Alto, CA. He was 81.
David Cohen said of his father: “He used humor to put people at ease, to skewer ideas he thought were wrong and, as a network engineer, to confirm transmission accuracy. He said he always began his talks with a joke to check whether people could understand his mix of Israeli accent and mild speech impediment. If they didn’t laugh, he knew they either couldn’t understand him or it wasn’t a good joke.”