Steve Henn
Steve Henn is NPR's technology correspondent based in Menlo Park, California, who is currently on assignment with Planet Money. An award winning journalist, he now covers the intersection of technology and modern life - exploring how digital innovations are changing the way we interact with people we love, the institutions we depend on and the world around us. In 2012 he came frighteningly close to crashing one of the first Tesla sedans ever made. He has taken a ride in a self-driving car, and flown a drone around Stanford's campus with a legal expert on privacy and robotics.
But Steve's favorite technology stories are the ones that explain how little-understood innovations can change the way millions of us behave. Why do people buy cows in Farmville? Why are video games so compelling and why do some people have such a hard time setting Twitter aside? He is fascinated by how digital companies attempt to mold our behavior and study our every move in a world where we are constantly interacting with connected devices.
Prior to moving to Silicon Valley in 2010, Steve covered a wide range of topics for the public radio show Marketplace. His reporting kicked off the congressional travel scandals in late 2004, and helped expose the role of private military contractors at Abu Ghraib.
At Marketplace, Henn helped establish collaborations with the Center for Public Integrity and the Medill's School of Journalism.
Steve spent his early life on a farm in Iowa where his parents, who are biochemists, hoped to raise all their own food and become energy self-sufficient. It didn't work. During college Steve hoped to drop out and support himself by working in the fishing industry in Alaska. That also didn't work. After college he biked around the country with his sweetheart, Emily Johnson. He then followed Emily to Africa, volunteering at Soweto Community Radio. That did work out. He and Emily are now happily married with three daughters.
Steve graduated from Wesleyan University's College of Social Studies with honors and Columbia University's Graduate school of Journalism.
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Some parents say their children are addicted to video games, but it's no accident that kids can get lost in them. Game developers are studying gamers' actions as they play in order to make the games more compelling — and lucrative. -
The rollout of the health care exchange has been plagued by a host of technical problems. Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley likely would have approached the website differently from the beginning — one former startup employee says that has to do with how projects are funded.
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New technologies give parents ways to keep tabs on their kids' driving habits. One such device can alert parents when their children are speeding, when they slam on their brakes, and shows their location. But some experts say parents shouldn't rely too much on technology to keep their teens safe. -
Twitter gave potential investors the first peek at its financials as the company heads toward its keenly anticipated initial public offering. Twitter plans to raise $1 billion in its IPO and will trade under the ticker symbol TWTR. While Twitter has quickly transformed the way people communicate and comment on events it has yet to establish itself as a business. Twitter's revenue was $317 million in 2012. But the company still lost nearly $80 million.
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Over the course of its existence, BlackBerry sold smartphones to more than 200 million people. It became ubiquitous in places like Indonesia but it began with an invasion of Wall Street and Washington. -
Computer technology offers us abilities we could once only dream about. But many companies have yet to recognize the commercial opportunity in making products for the disabled. Some argue that ignoring accessibility issues completely is a multi-billion dollar mistake. -
Passwords are a pain to remember, and they're only partially effective in securing your devices. Now, with a fingerprint scanner built into the new iPhone 5s' home button, biometrics is taking a big step into a much bigger ecosystem. But such scanners raise security and privacy concerns of their own. -
Smartwatches are capturing imaginations because of what they can measure about their wearers. A watch touches your skin, so it can take your pulse, measure your temperature and record the quality of your sleep. -
Revelations that national security officials have used their agency's eavesdropping power to spy on love interests has sparked a new meme: #NSAPickupLines -
This summer, The New York Times moved all of it reporters' email to corporate Gmail accounts. This move to a third party could leave Times reporters and their sources with fewer legal protections if they are the subject of a government investigation.
