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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It's expected that more than a million software and programming jobs will open up in the United States between now and 2020. But the country's educational system is not on track to train enough people to fill those jobs.
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Hedge fund and private equity managers came out of the "fiscal cliff" agreement with a better tax setup than many affluent taxpayers. It largely keeps in place a practice that allows them to have their earnings taxed at a capital gains rate rather than at a higher rate for ordinary income.
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Nokia was once the most valuable company in Europe, a pioneer in mobile phone technology. But Nokia has been left behind by competitors in the smartphone market. Now the Finnish company is betting its future on a new phone that uses a Microsoft operating system.
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Eye glasses with computing power have long been sci-fi fantasy, relegated to Terminator movies and the like. But now it appears Google may be a few months from selling a beta version of their own. -
You can never be too thin seems to be the mantra at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Ultra-thin laptops and slender next-generation TVs are being showcased along with thousands of other gadgets and gizmos. The show is so massive that if you walked from booth to booth you would travel more than 15 miles.
