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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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.
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Armed with technology know-how, teens and preteens are learning to hack everyday items and find bugs for major tech giants. Their work can pay off, with companies offering rewards for fixes. -
Recent Amber Alerts startled millions of mobile phone owners and left them confused. The wireless emergency alert system just rolled out for mobile phones earlier this year. Some child advocates worry that the alerts' lack of context may cause people to turn them off. -
A series of threats and abusive messages aimed at prominent women in the U.K. have placed Twitter in an awkward spot. As the company gears up to go public and expand its brand around the world, it is increasingly running into cultural and legal hurdles that challenge Twitter's free speech ethos. -
Chris Valasek and Charlie Miller have been hacking into products for a long time. But they don't steal stuff or mess with people; instead, their purpose is to pressure companies into making their products more secure. Their recent research on hacking cars has shown just how dangerous these kinds of attacks could be. -
Each summer, thousands of security researchers, hacktivists, black hats, white hats and feds descend on Las Vegas for Black Hat and Def Con. A look at the stories and trends we're keeping an eye on. -
Are you addicted to technology? Do you check email obsessively, tweet without restraint or post on Facebook during Thanksgiving dinner? Many techies and marketers are tapping into powerful reward mechanisms in our brain to make their products as compelling and profitable as possible.
