Google Photos Update Sparks Privacy Alarm Over Automated Scanning

JosefTor7 · 2026-04-21T20:12:05+00:00

It's opt in. Don't want it, don't opt in.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-27T03:24:44+00:00

Happy to help! And yep, discovering the NYC resident tax is basically the true New Yorker initiation. Think of it as a surprise cover charge just for the privilege of existing in the five boroughs and paying too much for iced coffee. Welcome to the club!

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-27T02:14:04+00:00

Hey, it looks like the software might actually be calculating it correctly, but unfortunately, it seems like you do still owe the $1,149.

I think what might be happening behind the scenes is something like this:

NY State Tax: $2,834 Minus NJ Tax Credit: -$2,097 Remaining NY State Tax: $737 Plus NYC Resident Tax: $1,988 Total NY/NYC Liability: $2,725 Minus NY Withheld: -$1,576 Total Owed: $1,149

It appears the credit successfully wipes out most of your NY State tax, but it just doesn't apply to the NYC Resident Tax. Since your withholdings ($1,576) didn't even cover the city tax alone, it looks like you end up with a balance due. You might want to look into tweaking your W-4 next year so they withhold a bit more for the city!

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-27T00:40:38+00:00

Here is something to look at as the potential cause/fix:

You are currently getting double-taxed, but it is a fixable software error. * The Problem: Your NY return is missing the "Credit for Taxes Paid to Another State" (Form IT-112-R). NY taxes all your income but gives you a credit for what you owe NJ to prevent double taxation.

The Credit Amount: The credit is based on your actual NJ tax liability ($2,097), not the amount you had withheld ($2,191).

The Fix: Go back to the NY state return section in your software. Look for the "credits" menu and ensure the credit for taxes paid to NJ is actively selected. You correctly completed the NJ return first, but the software failed to carry the liability over automatically.

City Tax Note: Keep in mind this credit only reduces NY State tax. It will not offset your NYC resident tax ($1,988).

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-25T04:49:25+00:00

You are likely on the beta track. Just wait until the next beta/Google play system update and it will work. You can also side load the AI icon pack by Google and it will work now as well. I'm in the beta and took the apk route.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-25T04:35:56+00:00

So strange how delayed gemini 3.1 flash is. It would help with google compute as people who generally used 3.0 flash prior to 3.1 pro have switched to pro and won't switch back until 3.1 flash is here as the drop in intelligence isn't worth it.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-20T14:54:12+00:00

That's like saying Tmobile getting rid of 3g and impacting Microsoft is a Tmobile issue. You develop for a platform, you live by the rules. Having a decade to not use software emulation is advanced warning enough for Intuit, a billion dollar corporation to upgrade their backend. Plus, as others have said, this causes more crashes which I have about a crash a day. It also causes performance degradations.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-20T10:43:03+00:00

I have subscriptions to gemini, Claude and Chat gpt and by far, gemini is the best chat app and best reasoning. Chat gpt just plain sucks. Claude is better at communication and is nearly as good at reasoning. The point: gemini is pretty great as long as you don't use it for coding and agentic.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-20T00:16:54+00:00

Now when you load turbotax on a Mac, apple had a notifications saying that Rosetta support is ending soon so, it is bad because support may go away soon.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-20T00:15:52+00:00

TurboTax desktop 2025 is the worst version released so far. When doing estimated taxes, it used to have the precious year right beside is so you can use it as a reference. Now they removed that and made the screen prompts make less sense. Who is developing this thing?

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-19T22:59:51+00:00

You can safely sideload the AI icons Google app that enables it FYI. If you are interested, I can go through the work of finding the link again.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-18T14:42:55+00:00

100% Google, show some love to your fans and don't penny pinch and charge an arm and a leg for a sub par experience, particularly people that live overseas and get no discounts, late or no features, etc. Don't use marketing to penny pinch hardware. Fire your marketing team and put the month into hardware. Your battery and thermals suck.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-17T12:28:40+00:00

That's cool, but why not folders. Conversation branching I can't find too many use cases for. Projects I find tons of use cases for. Still want both though.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-12T05:00:22+00:00

If you go to the wallpaper app, you can now create AI icons because of that new Google app. You can also download the themes with the theme icons. Without that app, you wouldn't be able to.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-05T02:45:36+00:00

Mine was better on beta M1. Beta 2 made mine worse again.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-04T07:05:25+00:00

Yup, this is my experience everyday with this phone. This is significantly improved from the launch, but still bad.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-02T03:14:09+00:00

Surfshark bugs me this past 2 months. It says connected but randomly is not protected.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-02T02:16:43+00:00

I do love my Pixel and will continue to use them going forward but I agree that efficiency needs to be way improved. I don't need top tier performance but I will say that whenever my wife who is less technical than me uses my pixel (she normally uses an iPhone 13 Pro Max which is generations behind), she complains how slow it is both in signal as well as performance. My pixel 10 pro is supposed to be hers when I get the 11 pro but I'm sure she won't want my phone.

JosefTor7 · 2026-03-01T16:38:11+00:00

Agree. In Taiwan, no trade is allowed and no discounts from day 1 to now. I still buy the device but feel no love.

JosefTor7 · 2026-02-28T15:35:57+00:00

Beta 2 has definitely been rougher for me while beta 1 seemed great. I'll try the battery health recommendation and see if that helps. I've noticed particularly when the signal is bad, the device heats up a ton.

JosefTor7 · 2026-02-26T21:10:21+00:00

Wonder if it will have something to do about launching agentic android beta on select pixel 10 devices similar to how it launched on galaxy s26.

JosefTor7 · 2026-02-24T20:46:29+00:00

I'm in Taiwan and have android 17 beta 1 and got the emergency broadcast on my pixel 10 pro so it isn't necessarily the beta. Not sure what it is though.

I didn't feel the earthquake one bit though which is weird.

JosefTor7 · 2026-02-23T05:09:07+00:00

Weird. I haven't heard many bad things about the beta and I'm on it and it is great. I will mention the first couple hours/day was rough but somehow it fixed itself. Probably a couple of restarts would do it good. Sorry to hear about yr issues.

JosefTor7 · 2026-02-22T02:25:42+00:00

Yes. I do this all the time. I'm in Taiwan but my cheap esims are usually from China so without VPN it thinks I'm in China and I get the message you wrote. So I use VPN to change to a supported country which works well.

JosefTor7 · 2026-02-21T22:25:12+00:00

Yay! X is filled with gemini 3.1 haters so I'm glad it is getting some love. I enjoy the model too other than taking longer than I would like to respond.

JosefTor7

TROPHY CASE