Aza Raskin

Aza Raskin
Aza Raskin in 2019
Born	(1984-02-01) February 1, 1984 (age 40) California, United States
Education	University of Chicago (BS)
Occupation(s)	interface designer, entrepreneur, writer
Organization	Center for Humane Technology
Known for	Reportedly developing infinite scrolling
Parents	Jef Raskin Linda S. Blum

Aza Raskin (born February 1, 1984) is the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology^[1] and of the Earth Species Project.^[2] He is also a writer, entrepreneur, inventor, and interface designer.^[3][4][5] He is the son of Jef Raskin, a human–computer interface expert who was the initiator of the Macintosh project at Apple.

Raskin is an advocate for the ethical use of technology, and has been critical of the effects that modern technology has on everyday lives and society.^[6] In the podcast Your Undivided Attention, along with Tristan Harris, Raskin has talked extensively about the power of information technology and the dangers it potentially poses to modern society.^[7][8]

Raskin coined the phrase, "freedom of speech is not freedom of reach,"^[9][10] which was the title of an article that he wrote with Renée DiResta.^[11] The phrase is now widely used to refer to the large-scale implications of platform amplification and free speech. For example, it was publicly quoted by the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, and was used by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to help explain the rationale for banning political advertisements on Twitter.^[12][13]

Raskin has continued his father's work on project Archy, has worked as the head of user experience at Mozilla Labs and as lead designer for Firefox, and has founded a number of companies. More recently, he has collaborated on virtual reality projects^[14] and on zooming user interface (ZUI).^[15]

Career

Personal projects

Aza Raskin participated in a talk with his father, Jef Raskin, on user interfaces, at age 10, at a meeting of the San Francisco chapter of the Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI).^[16] He holds bachelor's degrees in mathematics and physics from the University of Chicago.^[17]

In 2004, he worked with his father at the Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces, on the development of Archy software, which is a user interface paradigm.^[18] In 2005, after his father's death, he founded Humanized, where he continued working on the Archy paradigm and created the language-based, service-oriented Enso software.^[19]

Raskin is an active phishing researcher,^[20] best known for discovering^[21][22] the tabnabbing^[23] attack, which takes advantage of open browser tabs to launch phishing sites without the user's knowledge.

He also has a number of smaller projects, such as Algorithm Ink (based on Context Free),^[24] which generates art from a formal grammar.^[25]

In Wired UK magazine's series, Rebooting Britain, Raskin advocated for iterative governance, and was featured on the magazine's cover.^[26] He has also given a TED talk about new humane directions for computing.^[27]

Mozilla

In 2008, Humanized employees, including Raskin, joined the Mozilla Corporation as part of a hire-out.^[28] Raskin was named head of user experience at Mozilla Labs. In 2010, Raskin was appointed to the position of creative lead for Firefox.^[29][17] He has worked on several labs projects, including Ubiquity^[30] and Firefox for mobile,^[31] and he wrote the original specification for the geolocation application programming interface (API).^[32]

In 2010, Raskin introduced Tab Candy—the result of his work on the Firefox team at Mozilla. By organizing tabs spatially, Tab Candy allowed the user to "organize browsing, to see all of our tabs at once, and focus on the task at hand".^[33]

Computerworld called Tab Candy's initial design and alpha release "the best new browser feature since tabs were invented".^[34] Tab Candy—renamed Firefox Panorama—was incorporated into the initial Firefox 4 release (as a hidden default), but it was later removed from the default Firefox package and converted to an add-on.^[35]

Startups

Raskin has founded two other companies besides Humanized, including Songza, a music meta-search tool, and Bloxes, which sold furniture made out of cardboard.^[36] Songza was acquired in late 2008 by Amie Street, an Amazon-backed company.^[37] Songza was eventually bought by Google and now powers much of Google Play. Songza was also responsible for enabling the creation of mood- and activity-based playlists.^[38][39]

By the end of 2010, Raskin had left Mozilla^[40] to co-launch a start-up company called Massive Health. His goal was to apply design principles to the goal of maintaining health.^[41][42] In 2011, Fast Company conferred its Master of Design award on him for this work.^[43] On April 16, 2012, Massive Health announced that Raskin would lead the company as its “chief vision officer”.^[44] In 2013, Massive Health was acquired by Jawbone.^[45]

In 2017, Raskin founded the Earth Species Project,^[46][47] a non-profit organization focused on using AI to decode non-human communication, especially human–animal communication. The project is the subject of an NPR Invisibilia podcast episode in 2020.^[48][49]

Media and other activities

In 2018, Raskin was featured on the cover of Off Screen Magazine.^[50] In 2019, he was included in The Art of Curiosity, a book profiling 50 contemporary innovative and influential thinkers, published by the Exploratorium to commemorate its 50th anniversary.^[51] In 2019, in recognition of Raskin's work as a collaborative multimedia artist, he was tapped to be a guest curator for Ars Electronica's 40th anniversary exhibit.^[52] and has exhibited his artwork at an exhibition about North and South Korea.^[53]

Raskin has been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30,^[54] and included in Fast Company's “Most Creative People" list.^[55]

Opinions on technology use

As one of the co-founders of the Center for Humane Technology,^[1] Raskin has been an advocate for the ethical use of technology, and is critical of the far-reaching and often negative effects that modern technology has on everyday lives and society.^[6] He has given talks on this topic for Wired magazine,^[56] The Wall Street Journal,^[57] Bits & Pretzels,^[58] Slush,^[59] Humanity 2.0,^[60] and Laurie Segall.^[61]

Works

Writing

• Raskin, Aza (July 13, 2007). "Never Use A Warning When You Mean Undo". A List Apart. Archived from the original on March 2, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Raskin, Aza (October 24, 2006). Death of the Desktop. The Ajax Experience. Archived from the original on March 3, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Raskin, Aza (June 30, 2006). "Collaboration Made Simple with Bracket Notation". Humanized. Archived from the original on January 30, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Raskin, Aza (January–February 2008). "The Linguistic Command Line". Interactions. 15 (1). Association for Computing Machinery: 19–22. doi:10.1145/1330526.1330535. S2CID 7819664.
• Jakobsson, Markus; Myers, Steven, eds. (2006). Phishing and Counter-Measures: Understanding the Increasing Problem of Electronic Identity Theft. Wiley. p. 800. ISBN 0-471-78245-9. (contributor)
• Raskin, Aza (May 7, 2020). "Growth Teams Have the Tools to Be Coronavirus Anti-Growth Teams". Wired.

Talks

• Raskin, Aza (May 4, 2007). Away with Applications: The Death of the Desktop. Google Tech Talk. YouTube. Archived from the original on December 15, 2021. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Raskin, Aza (April 2, 2008). Don't Make Me Click. Google Tech Talk. YouTube. Archived from the original on December 15, 2021. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Raskin, Aza (December 7, 2018). How to Create Human Protective Technology by Aza Raskin. Slush. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
• Raskin, Aza (June 28, 2019). Rebalancing Our Relationship With Tech. Wired magazine. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
• Raskin, Aza (July 2, 2018). Silicon Valley Renegades Take On Tech Obsession. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
• Raskin, Aza (July 2, 2019). Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology on the impact of technology on the human condition. Humanity 2.0. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
• Raskin, Aza (November 28, 2019). Aza Raskin (Center for Humane Technology): The digital attention crisis. Bits & Pretzels. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
• Raskin, Aza (December 9, 2019). Tech's Next Threat: The Weaponization of Loneliness. First Contact with Laurie Segall. iHeart Radio. Retrieved January 14, 2020.

Personal life

Aza Raskin married Wendellen Li in August 2015.^[62]

References

Citations

1. "Center for Humane Technology team members". Retrieved February 10, 2019.
2. Jepsen, Mary Lou; Ryan, John (December 29, 2019). "Artificial intelligence is helping us talk to animals (yes, really)". Wired. Retrieved July 3, 2020.
3. Campofiorito, Matteo (September 1, 2008). "Interview with Aza Raskin, Head of User Experience for Mozilla Labs". oneopensource. Archived from the original on July 22, 2011. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
4. "Mozilla warns of new phishing scam". Infosecurity Magazine. May 27, 2010.
5. Shankland, Stephen (March 8, 2009). "Firefox, too, revamping new-tab behavior". CNET News. Retrieved March 10, 2009.
6. Dodds, Laurence (May 10, 2019). "'We lost control of our creations': The Silicon Valley heretic on a mission to make Big Tech repent". Telegraph.
7. "Your Undivided Attention Podcast". Humane Tech.
8. Anon (2018). ""It's as if they're taking behavioural cocaine and just sprinkling it all over your interface"". London: BBC.
9. "Design Principle for consideration: Introducing the Active Audience". Humane Tech. April 2019.
10. Newton, Casey (June 4, 2020). "What other social networks can learn from Snapchat's rebuke of Trump". The Verge. Retrieved July 3, 2020.
11. "Free Speech Is Not the Same As Free Reach". Wired. 2018.
12. "Free Speech Is Not the Same As Free Reach". TechCrunch. November 22, 2019.
13. Jack Dorsey (October 31, 2019). "Twitter".
14. Pierce, David (September 22, 2016). "VR Headset Makes All Your iPhone Videos 3-D". Wired.
15. makespace.fun
16. Raskin, Jef; Aza Raskin (September 13, 1994). The Interface Paradox. BayCHI Monthly Program. Archived from the original on February 2, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
17. Raskin, Aza. "aza's Thoughts - About me". Archived from the original on February 28, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
18. McCarthy, Jack (February 28, 2005). "Mac creator Jef Raskin dies of cancer". InfoWorld. Archived from the original on March 3, 2005. Retrieved March 6, 2008.
19. humanized.com/enso December 28, 2011
20. Jakobsson, Markus; Myers, Steven, eds. (2006). Phishing and Counter-Measures: Understanding the Increasing Problem of Electronic Identity Theft. Wiley. p. 800. ISBN 0-471-78245-9.
21. "InformationWeek, serving the information needs of the Business Technology Community". InformationWeek. Retrieved June 6, 2019.
22. "Aza Raskin's original disclosure of Tabnabbing". Archived from the original on February 17, 2012. Retrieved May 31, 2010.
23. "Tabnapping Web Browser Attack Makes Phishing Easy". eWEEK. May 25, 2010.
24. "Context Free Art". www.contextfreeart.org.
25. "Algorithm Ink | Aza Raskin". azarask.in. Archived from the original on August 12, 2008. Retrieved August 11, 2008.
26. Raskin, Aza (November 30, 2009). "Rebooting Britain: Enact beta versions of new laws". Wired UK – via www.wired.co.uk.
27. "Aza Raskin at TEDGlobal 2009: Running notes from Session 3". July 22, 2009.
28. Raskin, Aza (January 16, 2008). "Joining Mozilla". Humanized. Archived from the original on January 20, 2008. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
29. Raskin, Aza (March 30, 2010). "Firefox Looks Inward For a Creative Boost". Giga Om. Archived from the original on April 3, 2010. Retrieved April 5, 2010.
30. Raskin, Aza (August 26, 2008). "Introducing Ubiquity". Mozilla Labs. Archived from the original on March 8, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
31. Schonfeld, Erick (June 11, 2008). "Zoom, Pan, Throw: A Peek At What Firefox Mobile Could Be". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on March 21, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
32. Popescu, Andrei (July 7, 2009). "Geolocation API Specification". W3C. Archived from the original on July 16, 2009. Retrieved July 7, 2009.
33. Raskin, Aza. "Tab Candy: Making Firefox Tabs Sweet". Archived from the original on August 23, 2010. Retrieved August 19, 2010.
34. Gralla, Preston (August 26, 2010). "Firefox 4 Beta 4 opens a new Panorama". Computerworld.
35. "836758 - Convert Panorama into an add-on". bugzilla.mozilla.org. Archived from the original on August 1, 2013. Retrieved August 26, 2013.
36. Wenzel, Elsa (March 7, 2008). "Cardboard key to a 'green' office space". CNET News. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
37. "Interview with Amie Street: Why Keep Acquisition of Songza a Secret?". Archived from the original on March 9, 2011. Retrieved May 14, 2009.
38. "This Is What It Feels Like When Google Buys Your Startup". Business Insider. August 3, 2014.
39. "A $50 device turns any video into a 3D experience — and is a terrifying way to watch 'Game of Thrones'". Yahoo. October 1, 2016.
40. Aza Raskin. "Leaving Mozilla, Starting Massive Health". Archived from the original on February 6, 2015. Retrieved December 17, 2010.
41. Myers, Courtney Boyd (December 14, 2010). "Aza Raskin Leaves Mozilla to Start Massive Health". The Next Web.
42. at 11:41, Kelly Fiveash December 15, 2010. "Firefox UI man quits Mozilla for new health-conscious venture". www.theregister.co.uk.
43. "Fast Company Dedicates October Issue to "The United States of Design"". www.fastcompany.com. September 14, 2011.
44. "Massive Health CEO and Co-Founder Sutha Kamal departs company. Co-Founder Aza Raskin succeeds him". thenextweb.com. April 16, 2012.
45. Velazco, Chris (February 4, 2013). "Jawbone Acquires Mobile Health Startup Massive Health In Big Talent Acquisition". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
46. "Earth Species Project".
47. Yoder, Kate (March 25, 2020). "Starved for human voices? Listen to a podcast about whale songs and climate change". Grist. Retrieved July 3, 2020.
48. "Two Heartbeats A Minute". NPR. April 10, 2020. Retrieved July 3, 2020.
49. Calma, Justine (March 6, 2020). "Go listen to this podcast about decoding the songs of whales". The Verge. Retrieved July 3, 2020.
50. "Aza Raskin". Off Screen magazine. No. 20. 2018.
51. Exploratorium (2019). "Aza Raskin". The Art of Curiosity: 50 Visionary Artists, Scientists, Poets, Makers & Dreamers Who Are Changing the Way We See Our World. Weldon Owen. ISBN 9781681889993. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
52. "Gallery between North and South Korea features exhibition by art professor Jimin Lee". UC Santa Cruz. July 6, 2018.
53. Lee, Jimin (January 15, 2019). "Jimin Lee: To the Edge and Back". Issuu.
54. "Aza Raskin, Co-founder, Massive Health, 27". Forbes and Inc 30 under 30. Archived from the original on January 14, 2020.
55. "Aza Raskin". Fast Company.
56. "Rebalancing Our Relationship With Tech". Wired magazine. June 28, 2019.
57. "Silicon Valley Renegades Take On Tech Obsession". The Wall Street Journal. July 2, 2018.
58. "Aza Raskin (Center for Humane Technology): The digital attention crisis". Bits & Pretzels. November 28, 2019.
59. "How to Create Human Protective Technology by Aza Raskin". Slush. December 7, 2018.
60. "Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology on the impact of technology on the human condition". Humanity 2.0. July 2, 2019.
61. "Tech's Next Threat: The Weaponization of Loneliness". First Contact with Laurie Segall. iHeart. December 9, 2019.
62. The Georgian, January 2016.

Bibliography

• Mossberg, Walter S. (January 25, 2007). "For Those Nostalgic For Typed Commands, Enso Does a Nice Job". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on March 16, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• de Avila, Joseph (March 2, 2008). "Former DJ Tests Music Sites". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on February 2, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Meyer, Ann (February 12, 2007). "A simpler approach to computers". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on March 16, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Blitstein, Ryan (February 15, 2008). "Software You Shouldn't Ever Notice". BusinessWeek. Archived from the original on October 10, 2008. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Norman, Donald (May–June 2007). "The next UI breakthrough: command lines". Interactions. 14 (3). Association for Computing Machinery: 44–45. doi:10.1145/1242421.1242449. S2CID 34245709. Archived from the original on February 21, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• "Crafting a Revolution". Ubiquity. 5 (21). Association for Computing Machinery. July 21–27, 2004. Archived from the original on March 16, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• "Archy - ny måde at bruge computeren på". Harddisken (in Danish). DR. October 22, 2005. Archived from the original on February 1, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• "Interview: Ubiquity, Mozilla's magic mashup maker". TechRadar. Future plc. September 10, 2008. Archived from the original on February 2, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Schwan, Ben (March 14, 2007). "Heutige Computer halten uns doch nur von unserer Arbeit ab". Technology Review (German edition) (in German). Archived from the original on December 15, 2007. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Ha, Anthony (August 27, 2008). "Mozilla Labs' Aza Raskin talks about the big picture for Ubiquity". Archived from the original on March 12, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
• Exploratorium (2019). "Aza Raskin". The Art of Curiosity: 50 Visionary Artists, Scientists, Poets, Makers & Dreamers Who Are Changing the Way We See Our World. Weldon Owen. ISBN 9781681889993. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
• Bird, Matt (March 24, 2020). "Brendan Doherty, Aza Raskin, Rick Ridgeway, Greg Medcraft, Lynn Paine, and John Edelman Deliver Ethical Transformations in Business Panel at the Vatican". Equities.

External links

Media related to Aza Raskin at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website
• Earth Species Project