Laura Sydell
Laura Sydell fell in love with the intimate storytelling qualities of radio, which combined her passion for theatre and writing with her addiction to news. Over her career she has covered politics, arts, media, religion, and entrepreneurship. Currently Sydell is the Digital Culture Correspondent for NPR's All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and NPR.org.
Sydell's work focuses on the ways in which technology is transforming our culture and how we live. For example, she reported on robotic orchestras and independent musicians who find the Internet is a better friend than a record label as well as ways technology is changing human relationships.
Sydell has traveled through India and China to look at the impact of technology on developing nations. In China, she reported how American television programs like Lost broke past China's censors and found a devoted following among the emerging Chinese middle class. She found in India that cell phones are the computer of the masses.
Sydell teamed up with Alex Bloomberg of NPR's Planet Money team and reported on the impact of patent trolls on business and innovations particular to the tech world. The results were a series of pieces that appeared on This American Life and All Things Considered. The hour long program on This American Life "When Patents Attack! - Part 1," was honored with a Gerald Loeb Award and accolades from Investigative Reporters and Editors. A transcript of the entire show was included in The Best Business Writing of 2011 published by Columbia University Press.
Before joining NPR in 2003, Sydell served as a senior technology reporter for American Public Media's Marketplace, where her reporting focused on the human impact of new technologies and the personalities behind the Silicon Valley boom and bust.
Sydell is a proud native of New Jersey and prior to making a pilgrimage to California and taking up yoga she worked as a reporter for NPR Member Station WNYC in New York. Her reporting on race relations, city politics, and arts was honored with numerous awards from organizations such as The Newswomen's Club of New York, The New York Press Club, and The Society of Professional Journalists.
American Women in Radio and Television, The National Federation of Community Broadcasters, and Women in Communications have all honored Sydell for her long-form radio documentary work focused on individuals whose life experiences turned them into activists.
After finishing a one-year fellowship with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, Sydell came to San Francisco as a teaching fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at University of California, Berkeley.
Sydell graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor's degree from William Smith College in Geneva, New York, and earned a J.D. from Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law.
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Hardware is a hot topic this year at the Texas-based festival famous for launching startups like Twitter and Foursquare. -
The Leap Motion Controller senses and tracks hand motions to allow users to browse the Web, play games and open documents. It represents another step in a goal of computer scientists: to make interactions with machines feel natural and easy, and to take away the barriers between humans and computers. -
A copyright ruling from the Library of Congress covers whether people may buy a phone from one carrier and then use it with another. A recent change makes it illegal to unlock a phone, or untie it from the original carrier, without permission. But some people are petitioning the White House to undo that change.
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The "graph search" feature, which will let users comb their friends' pages for everything from travel tips to restaurants they like, gives the company a path to grow its revenue but could also add to privacy concerns. Most analysts don't see the new feature as a direct threat to Google — for now. -
Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, has landed in North Korea. His trip there is a bit of a mystery. North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un, recently set out a series of policy goals that included expanding science and technology as a way to improve the North Korean economy in 2013. -
It's unlikely 2013 will be the year that jet packs make it big, but the coming year could bring us a host of other new technology trends and products, like 3-D printers for consumers, even smarter smartphones, and more connected devices like glasses and cars. -
Services like Pandora and Spotify have been trying to win over two types of customers: younger people who don't buy music at all and older people who still like physical albums. But it's been difficult to lure customers willing to pay for music they won't own or that they can find for free online.
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This year has seen an explosion of professional online videos, eclipsing home videos of cats and babies. In 2012, 8 of the top 10 YouTube videos were professional — and Hulu, Netflix and multichannel networks like MiTu all produced exclusive new programming. -
A nonprofit called The Seasteading Institute is advancing a hugely ambitious scheme: constructing floating structures that will house hundreds of people in international waters, out of the jurisdiction of any nation. Now, the organization has attracted its first big name donor. -
For the first time, Apple's iPad has some competition: Google's Nexus, Amazon's Kindle Fire HD and the Microsoft Surface. Tech reporters Steve Henn and Laura Sydell have been testing out the latest tablets this holiday season — and found that content is king. -
Facebook has a long history of upsetting its users by suddenly announcing a change to its privacy settings. In 2009, as a way to quiet the critics, Facebook set up a system for its customers to vote on changes. If enough of them were unhappy, the company would back down. Now, Facebook wants to get rid of the voting. -
Thousands of New Jersey residents remain displaced due to Superstorm Sandy which hit the Northeast more than two weeks ago. Finding temporary housing has proven to be a confusing and difficult process for many storm victims.
