Dan Dubno is an Emmy-award winning TV producer, broadcaster, technologist, presenter, inventor, and “connector”. He is founder of Blowing Things Up (BTU) LLC., an international consultancy that brings innovative technology companies together to reach new markets and applications. He is founder and President of The Hourglass Initiative, a non-profit that engages the scientific community in efforts to combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He is a popular speaker at technology, business, and policy conferences around the world.

For seventeen years, Dan Dubno was Producer and Technologist for the CBS Evening News and supervised Special Events coverage of wars, terrorism, natural disasters, and elections. He is a pioneer in the use of powerful graphic technologies, satellite imagery, and visualization tools for news coverage. He introduced the first systematic use of 3D animations in nightly news broadcasts; the use of virtual sets, 3-D visualizations, and touch screens in news; and dozens of other technologies now seen regularly on broadcasts. His over thirty years of experience at CBS News and PBS garnered multiple Emmy Awards and commendations.

While at CBS, Dubno appeared on-camera as Digital Dan and humorously introduced America to important or frivolous new technologies. He continues to write technology columns and reviews for websites and science magazines. His success in "Bringing the Smart and Useless Together" led him to co-found the annual Gadgetoff, a notorious, invitation-only technology celebration in New York City.

At the 2002 and 2003 TED Conference, Dubno debuted the Keyhole software imagery program and introduced this cool earth-viewing technology to his friends at Google. This resulted in Google’s acquisition of Keyhole which led to “Google Earth.” At CBS News, Dubno developed the first system to map real-time news feeds and the latest detailed visualization of live earthquake data over Google Earth.

Dubno is chair of the Radio and Television News Directors Association Task Force on Remote Sensing, advisory committee member of the Department of Interior's National Imagery Archive. He is a consultant to numerous science museums including the Liberty Science Center, the New York Hall of Science, and the American Museum of Natural History. He is on the Board of Governors of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, a member of journalism advisory boards for Rutgers University and Queens College, and was adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

Dubno was a member of the scientific party in May 2005 in Wood's Hole Oceanographic Institution's expedition to the geothermal vents in the Galapagos Rift, and explored the "Rosebud" field nearly two-miles below the ocean surface in the Deep Submergence Vehicle Alvin. He is "Ambassador" for the FIRST: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology which mentors students to pursue careers in science and engineering.

Blog Entries by Dan Dubno

Walter Cronkite: When He Wasn't 'The Most Trusted Man in America'

Posted July 18, 2009 | 10:34 AM (EST)


News of Walter Cronkite's death did not come as a surprise. For more than a month, his close friends and family made it clear the former CBS News anchorman was gravely ill and would not recover. That his passing coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing is less...

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Auto Industry Teammates

3 Comments | Posted May 10, 2009 | 05:00 PM (EST)


Dear Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors, United Auto Workers Union Members,

It has come to my attention that, as taxpayers, we have all recently become auto company executives. I've long been dismayed at the dismal condition of American cars, but I realize that, as a...

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Amazon's Kindle DX: The End of Paper?

31 Comments | Posted May 8, 2009 | 10:53 AM (EST)


Jeff Bezos is known for many things: his irrepressible enthusiasm, his extraordinary tenacity, and, perhaps most memorably, his indescribable laugh. It is a penetrating laugh... high pitched, continuous, relentless and unstoppable. Yet the sound of his laughter is unique and, as I said, ultimately indescribable.

Earlier today, as he...

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Post-Madoff: The Final Insult

Posted April 20, 2009 | 05:35 PM (EST)


Earlier today, probably like most of you, I received the following email:

From: Dr.George Konan [mailto:george_konnan9@yahoo.co.jp] Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 12:58 PM

To:

Subject: My Dear

新しいメールアドレスをお知らせします
新しいメールアドレス: george_konnan9@yahoo.co.jp

My Dear ,
I am Dr.George Konan in Ivory Coast.I need your
honest assistance to...

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Blowing Things Up: In Praise of a Pyrotechnical Education

Posted March 17, 2009 | 02:10 PM (EST)


Somewhere, far beyond the jurisdiction of the U.S. DHS and the BATF, several young scientist-friends recently joined me with bottles of chemicals as they had many times before. We were engrossed in making homemade fireworks. That night, the folded paper-pouches and stuffed-tubes we made roared cacophonously with widely spread bursts...

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The End is Near: What's Your Personal Apocalypse?

Posted March 2, 2009 | 02:50 PM (EST)


It's always good fun predicting how our world will end. So many of us engage in this sport, I'm hoping we can somehow harness the considerable intellectual energy that goes into this question. For example, recently my friend Brian Deagon forwarded an article from USA Today, "Recession prompts bird...

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A.Q. Khan and the Oath Not Taken

Posted February 16, 2009 | 01:32 PM (EST)


Fans of AQ Khan He is old, angry, and suffers from thrombosis and prostate cancer. Yet this sick old man, who trained as a metallurgical engineer, is often described as the most dangerous person on Earth. Father of the "Islamic Bomb," Dr. Abdul Qadeer...

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Playing "Network Chicken" at CBS News

Posted February 11, 2009 | 01:36 PM (EST)


Several years ago, Les Moonves, President of CBS, publically suggested he wanted to "blow up" CBS News. What a sad departure from our golden days. CBS News had emerged over the decades as the most glistening jewel of the Tiffany network. This reputation for excellence flourished under William Paley's generous...

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