Tanuj

I made a messaging app for, and with, my family. It is ruthlessly simple; we love it; no one else will ever use it.

You know that feeling when someone is staring at you for a really long time? It’s super uncomfortable right? Especially if this gaze is unreciprocated. Glance Back grew out of a desire to recognize that this phenomenon occurs between ourselves and our machines when we spend so much time looking at our screen.

If our tools don’t better our collective humanity, we need new tools.

It can be dizzying when you think about the size of the universe compared to yourself. Or the fact that everything that keeps you alive hangs in perfect balance, based on our planet’s position. Perhaps you look at the stars at night and feel like you are being sucked toward them. Like you are being consumed by the expanse around you. [That... See more

I’ve found a deep sense of purpose in dedicating myself to bettering the lives of the people I love.

Given that most of the digital photos we generate of ourselves today are highly curated (i.e. wait let me fix my hair and smile and please take at least 10 photos just to make sure there’s a good one!), Glance Back also acts as an antidote to this attitude by providing you with unexpected and often… unflattering… photos of yourself.

For the people who’ve figured out the right incantations to type and buttons-buried-in-submenus to click, computers can automate administrivia, surface information, and make them feel “more fully participant in the future”. But getting there is an arduous journey, and many people get in a place where computers just make things harder. The... See more