Noah Mittman

Web professional since '96; Technologist; UX and IxD; Survivor of the era of Internet Optimism; I wish the punk MCs would turn to fish.

Magazines

Flips

Manhattan, NY
Fire Hydrants Have Been New York’s Cool Solution for 100 Years
The New York Times - By JEFF GILES
More than a century after it was published, the article reads like slapstick comedy from the silent-movie era. It was May 1904. A street cleaner had inadvertently left a wrench beside a fire hydrant. a
Sleater-Kinney
The Band That Meant Too Much
slate.com - Carl Wilson
Sleater-Kinney has long symbolized a feminist utopia. What happens when things fall apart? In its quarter-century life span, Sleater-Kinney always has …
Amazon
Those Obviously-Fake Amazon Warehouse Workers Are Still Tweeting
futurism.com - Dan Robitzski
Those bizarre “Amazon FC Ambassador” accounts on Twitter, which were ridiculed last year for seemingly posing as happy Amazon warehouse workers, are …
Technology
A new clothing line confuses automated license plate readers
MIT Technology Review - Charlotte Jee
Garments from Adversarial Fashion feed junk data into surveillance cameras, in an effort to make their databases less effective. The news: Hacker and …
Mobile Technology
Social media bots are damaging our democracy
Engadget - Andrew Tarantola
On the internet, nobody knows you're a natural language processing system. Social media has become our town crier. When major news breaks, roughly two-thirds of American adults now find out about it online
Tumblr
From $1.1 billion to around $3 million: A look behind the scenes at Tumblr's fall
Axios - Dan Primack
When Yahoo bought Tumblr in 2013 for $1.1 billion, its press release included a "promise not to screw it up." We could almost call that a tell, …
Data isn't the new oil, it's the new CO2
luminategroup.com - By Martin Tisné
I found last week’s BBC flagship ‘Moral Maze’ podcast frustrating. The program sounded great at first - cross-examining how surveillance and human …
Instagram
Amphora.
ethanmarcotte.com - Ethan Marcotte
I recently found myself on the official page forAMPStories, the latest offshoot of Google’sAccelerated Mobile Pages(AMP) project. If you’re not …
UX Design
The case study factory
uxdesign.cc
Kindle
The Original Kindle Was Crazy
medium.com - Tareq Ismail
“Are they completely nuts?” read the review from the New York Times of Amazon’s original Kindle e-reader back in 2007. “Printed books are dirt cheap, …
Am I Dead? | Unwinnable
unwinnable.com - Matt Marrone
Do you ever wonder what happens to those Words with Friends rivals when you move on to other apps?
Latin America
How YouTube Radicalized Brazil
The New York Times
Matheus Dominguez, who said YouTube was crucial to shifting his political views to the far right, recording a YouTube video in Niterói, Brazil. Mr. Bolsonaro was a star in YouTube’s far-right community
Technology
Why Do Appliances Have Their Own Jingles?
The Atlantic - Laura Bliss
Appliance makers believe more and better chimes, alerts, and jingles make for happier customers. Are they right? The roar of the MGM lion. NBC’s iconic chimes. The godlike C-major chord of a booting Apple
No Man's Sky
No Man’s Sky players build wild cyberpunk city that you gotta see
Polygon - Patricia Hernandez
Replicant City is probably the closest thing No Man’s Sky has to Times Square, but in space. Looking at it, you’d think that someone at Hello Games must put the locale together, but no. Replicant City
Tumblr
Tumblr was bought for the same price as a modest family home in San Francisco
TNW - Matthew Hughes
Yesterday, Automattic, the creator of WordPress, announced it had acquired Tumblr for “less than $3 million” from its previous owner, Yahoo. It’s an inauspicious fall from grace for the site, which was
Product Reviews
Eliza explores the dangers of on-demand digital therapy
Polygon - Jeff Ramos
Being able to access stress-free mental health care can be challenging. Eliza, the first visual novel from Zachtronics, the developer of Exapunks and Opus Magnum, explores a reality where digital therapy
iPod
These Legit-Looking iPhone Lightning Cables Will Hijack Your Computer
VICE - Joseph Cox
I plugged the Apple lightning cable into my iPod and connected it to my Mac, just as I normally would. My iPod started charging, iTunes detected the device, and my iPod produced the pop-up asking if I
Web Design
Native lazy-loading for the web |
web.dev
Support for natively lazy-loading images and iframes is coming to the web! This video shows a demo of the feature: Starting with Chrome 76, you'll be …
Amazon Alexa
Amazon’s Alexa Never Stops Listening to You. Should You Worry?
Wirecutter - Grant Clauser
When you invite a digital voice assistant like Amazon Alexa into your home, you’re inviting a device that records and stores things you say, which …
Canon EOS
Even DSLR cameras are vulnerable to ransomware
Engadget - Steve Dent
Hackers could hijack your valuable photos from a memory card. Cameras are among the few devices that don't connect to the internet, so you'd think they'd be immune to hackers. However, researchers have
JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase has an AI copywriter that writes better ads than humans can
Quartz - Michelle Cheng
In another sign that the future of work is already here, JPMorgan Chase has signed a five-year deal with a software startup that uses artificial intelligence to write marketing copy, following a successful
AOL
Goodnight Sweet Prince: Digital Prophet Shingy Departs AOL
Gizmodo - Jennings Brown
Shingy, né David Shingy, has relinquished his role as digital prophet of AOL and Verizon Media, after 12 years with the company. The anime-maned …
Postmates
Postmates lands first-ever permit to test sidewalk delivery robots in San Francisco
TechCrunch - Kate Clark
On-demand delivery business Postmates says it’s been granted the first-ever permit for side-walk robotics operations in the city of San Francisco. According to San Francisco Public Works, the permits active
Technology
Hackers Target Phones of Brazil's President and Economy Minister
Bloomberg - David Biller
Brazil’s federal police arrested four people for allegedly hacking 1,000 cellphones belonging to various government officials, including that of …
Republican Party
'Blood on their hands': the intelligence officer whose warning over white supremacy was ignored
Guardian US - Lois Beckett in San Francisco
Ten years ago, the Department of Homeland Security sent American law enforcement agencies an intelligence briefing warning of a rising threat of domestic rightwing extremism, including white supremacist
MailChimp
Is UX writing boring?
medium.com - Steve Howe
Writers are motivated by the endless possibilities the blank page can afford. Writing without rules, your imagination can run riot. The image you …
Metal Gear
How Metal Gear Eschewed Realism to Convey the Horror of Imperial Violence
fanbyte.com - Moira Hicks
The Department of Homeland Security was established November 25th, 2002. Immigration and Custom Enforcement was established March 1st, 2003. The War …
Google Photos
Apple joins Google, Facebook, and Twitter in data-sharing project
The Verge - Russell Brandom
Just over a year after its official launch, the Data Transfer Project is announcing a new set of partners and features. Today, Apple announced that it will be joining the project, developing interoperable
Jeffrey Katzenberg
Katzenberg’s Quibi Sees Early Success Luring Talent
hollywoodreporter.com - Natalie Jarvey
"We're going up on a high wire and there's no safety net underneath it," says the founder of the upcoming short-form video streamer that is paying …
Disney+
Disney Flushes Fox Film Development, ‘Redirects’ Strategy After Big Q3 Loss
Variety - Matt Donnelly
Disney has confirmed that big changes are coming to the Fox film division, including word that Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige is inheriting Fox’s …