I is Michael Garfier Michael Garfield. Michael Garfield's joining US and the high Tech Texan. Michael Garfield is here with a high Tech Texans items to make life easier, some new technology. So Michael Garfield has something you might like. Michael Garfield is your high tech Texan, three decades helping you make magic with your gadgets. I heard worldwide on the iheartaredio add now your high tech Texan, Michael Garfield. Which was the Saturday before Christmas in all across the land.
I have no clue how to rhyme this. I should have used chat GPT two more shows before the end of twenty twenty three, our last show before Christmas. If you are listening live KPORC nine a m in h Town that is Houston, well I'll tell you what you've got. Well, depending if you're listening live here in the late morning on Saturday the twenty third, I guess you got about a day and a half. If you're listening to our encore repeat at eleven pm a night, well you really better hurry up
because you got one more day. Michael is the name, It's called Michael Garfield. Just call me Santi Claus because I will be working on Christmas. I don't celebrate Christmas, so I am here for you. So if you get something under your tree you don't want it, it's always fun to let me know. Hey, Michael, I didn't want this fit bit, or I got a bad stationary bike. Here's a TV, here's a phone, here's a headset. Is there anything better? I may exchange it for see,
that's what I've been doing for twenty plus years. Hell, I'll give you the phone number. I actually have something to give away little gift later this hour or two seven to one three two one two five nine five zero nine five zero. That is the station number on your AM dial here in Southeast Texas. Merry Christmas to you kind of read and the entire staff here at Kate Percy actually all of iHeartRadio and everybody for tuning in. If you're
not listening in Houston, good for you. Thank you for downloading the iHeartRadio app. We do have some fun. What do we got last minute Christmas gifts? Yes, you still do not even need to go to a store. There are everything from gift cards to other digital things that you could download and give people. But you have to be careful. I've been doing a number of different interviews to some of my affiliates earlier this week about gift card
scams. I didn't know there was such a thing as gift card scams, but things are getting very technologically advanced. These hackers out there, along with the typical phishing emails and charity scams, and the romance scams and the travel scams, somebody is trying to get away from Nigeria the whole thing. I will actually break that down for you. I'll also let you know how to protect your privacy for these last minute shopping deals and everything you should do to
protect yourself. I guess, data wise, before the end of the year and certainly going into twenty twenty four, I've got that I got the best cheap phone I have found this year, the best cheap phote of twenty twenty three, and some other hot things that I will talk about. But I also will take all your questions too. You may have some last minute gifts or may out there be you may be shopping around. You know the phone number you can hit me up high Tech text and h I G H T
E C H T e X A N these gift cards games. I'm a gift card guy. If you if you know you, dear listeners, I've been working my you know what off for twenty plus years, almost every single Saturday, more than happy to accept your gifts. You know, I really don't need a lot a very honored, bless whatever you want to call it. But who doesn't want a gift certificate? A gift card? And this is this is not a commercial. I mean, it's not an endorsement.
But I want you to think about this. It's kind of fun. You could tell you you can tell a good amount of about someone if you ask someone if you had one gift card to any place you want, where would it be. It's actually a good it's a good question for dating, online dating, or you're meeting someone tells you about that potential person you may go out with. If they answer Cardier Tiffany's yeah, then I ain't my gift card. You ain't gonna go that far. And I'm glad you're actually choosing
that over food and clothing. Uh So, it's it's kind of a fun icebreaker. I actually actually create a board game about that. Choose your gift card if somebody wants to give me a gift card. The probably most use and the most joy I would get out of it would be coming from probably a sporting good store. So let's just say academy here and around the Houston area. I'm a runner. I can everyth three months, four months, I get a new pair of running shoes, running clothes. I'd like tennis
shoes. You go fishing. I have guns, we need Ammo, there's ut Longhorn, cowboy gear. I mean, you can always find something that's pretty good. Stores, sunglasses, batteries, snacks, footballs, baseball's, golf stuff. That's that's me. I'm an active That would, to me would be the ultimate gift card. Restaurants are also nice to money would also be nice too. Well, let's talk about these gift cards. This is
this gift card scam. You can get gift cards almost anywhere. Go into a grocery store, go to your HB, go to your Kroger's, go to a CVS of Walgreens and they have racks and racks of gift cards. Restaurants online, Amazon, doort ash, movies, you name it and you pull up, you pull it off the shelf. Physical it's a physical gift card and you take it up to the register and then they they activated,
they scan it. You know, let me put twenty five bucks, fifty bucks, one hundred bucks whatever on the Well, there's gift card hackers. What they do. They could go into those grocery stores before you do, and they could start. They can actually scan or pre scan the UPC or the bar code on there, because sometimes it's actually shown through those little cardboard
holders. Now they're not activated yet. What they'll do is they'll wait, wait a week, wait to two weeks, wait three weeks, hoping that somebody is going to go in, pull that card off, go activate it and gift to somebody. So they'll check it on a regular basis. Once they see that it's activated, boom, they have those digits. They actually can duplicate it by buying things online. Gift card scam. So what do you do? Number one, If you're buying a gift card, make sure
you inspect that gift card because they usually pretty much come coming. You know, they tape or glued onto a cardboard back or if you know, if you get a Visa master card, they actually concealed. Make sure it's not tampered with. That's number one. The other thing that I would do also is this pull grab the one in the back. All right, So they're hanging on the bettle hangar, and let's say here's a gift card to Chili's. There's twenty or thirty of them stacked up, stackstack, sack sack,
Pull all of them out and grab that last one. My guess is these scammers, they're only going to scan probably the first or second card that's hanging out there, knowing that that's the first or second one to be picked. Pull the last one out. They probably really don't care about twenty gift cards deep into a Chili's restaurant. That's one. Always keep your receipt too. When you go buy a gift card, take it up to the checker who scan it, they'll activate it. They'll give you a receipt that you paid
fifty bucks whatever to put on the card. Keep that receipt because if for some reason it doesn't work or somebody stole it, you could actually even go up all the way up to the FTC. Man. I'm telling you what I thought. I've heard of every single scam. That's a pretty interesting and tricky, tricky one. But when we come back I've got more, including what do you do to protect yourself in twenty twenty four? How do you
lock it down? Up and down before things? You know, you find a stage five soccer, you just you've got to clamp it down, keep your head at a swivel. I've got that and some giveaways, at least one giveaway here. I'm a high tech Texan show Mary Christmas last minute shopping ideas. Should you be in and around the Houston area. I know it's open today Saturday, the Silvery twenty third last Saturday before they before Christmas US
coins and jewelry. I ten Katie Freeway just outside you know Felt the uh the Loop six ten right at vas Voss they are there. They are selling gold silver. If you need extra money, like real quickly, why don't you sell your gold or silver. They have pre owned rolexes, they have sporting cars. You could they buy them from you, you could sell them. It's just it's fun stuff. Kenny and Matt Duncan, they've been doing it, second generation. Their their dad started. He works there. But
it's fun. You hear a lot of people here at our radio station talk about it. But I'm there once every two three weeks. There are good dudes, There are dudes and there. You certainly work online too, so if you're not in Houston, you can check it out. You as coins and Jewelry dot com. They say happy holidays to you all, and go check those things out. I am talking about scams. By the way, I just gave you the gift card scam. If you missed it, you're
gonna have to go listen to this on podcasts right after the show. Phishing is always scare fishing. That's phi I NG. It's called phishing. It's when you get an email and it looks like it's coming from a legitimate company, looks like it's coming from your bank. Oh, here's a logo this as well as fargo. You click this link because you're overdrawing. You need to do something and let me help you out. Banks do not contact you that way. They'll probably tell you to log on to the website in the
secure manner where you put your username and password on their website. People, it's really simple if you're it works certainly on your mobile phone. But if you're on a desktop or laptop, and if you get a link, you see a link, www, what whatever? Take your mouse, put it on top of the link, don't click it, hover, hover over it, and what should happen If it's a legit website, A little little box is gonna pop up somewhere, maybe a little small it'll show where that link
is gonna take it. So if it says this is a link that's gonna take you to Chase dot com, Wellsfargo dot com, and watch the spelling before you click it, read where that link is gonna take you? Is it really taking you to where that the words on that link say. It's very simple to create a link saying hey, this is totally safe. We're taking you to a very safe place, and then put a link that leads to a porn side or there's something that can steal your information. Read that.
Fishing is very good. Charity is another thing too. This is sad. People are people's guards are down during the holiday season. Oh, I wanted to donate to a charity. A lot of emails going around out there. Hey, this is our last minute push before the new year. We're trying to raise money for the kids, or send somebody you know off to a foreign country to meet their long lost relatives or ancestry or going to school. A lot of these are legit, A lot of them are not legit.
If you get an email like this, you know what you should do. Don't even click a link. Just look who sends it. Go to that with Just go to open a browser and just start typing it in. Type www, dot whatever it is. Look for donations, go directly through your browser and type it in. Don't fall for this stuff. Don't fall for anybody saying, hello, my friend, I have followed you forever.
I am in Nigeria and I am a prince. All I need is about fifteen hundred dollars to get me out of here, but I will gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today. Now, do not fall for that either. Times used to be easy. I remember back in the seventies. I was a kid, little kid, man, I just you know, we never told our parents where we were, you know, late at night, afternoon, we were just hooping it up, you know, son went down. We would ride our bikes, drop them on the lawn walk in.
Parents didn't care. Parents don't understand nowadays. Man, it's this is really special important rules for kids too, certainly is some of the things actually uh let's see to protect your data, lock down your browser too. See, advertising not only collects tons of information about you, but it's a big source of malicious links and scams. You can use an ad blocker. There's such thing as advertising blockers web. Some browsers actually have those auto exactly built in.
You can shut those things down switching to a private browsing or maybe an incognito mode will block tracking cookies too. You actually could just just go Google Search incognito mode browsing. You get download a browser. No one's gonna know who you are. I actually don't use that because listen, I go to websites a lot. I do want them to cash that information cash chach because
they know who I am. I mean, I have my spot. Like if I go to ESPN dot com, which I go to probably twenty times today, well, they know that they're gonna give you the Longhorn Scores, the Cowboys scores, some of my favorite teams because they know it's me, they are seeing me instead of going to an incognito But if you're doing your you know, banking or something, and maybe you want to switch to an incognito mode or incognito browser, you can also get another privacy tip for last
minute shopping. You separate log ins. It's very tempting to use your Facebook or Google account to sign in on a multiple on an online account. I see it all the time. Hey click here, let's sign in. Use your Facebook or Google. Don't. I never do that. I don't want these third party companies legit as they may be. I don't want them to know by Facebook use your name and certainly my information to let them send me Facebook ads, and I do potentially still my password. I use an email
and I have several different emails. It's very simple and very free to create a Gmail account, a Yahoo email account. I have tons of I probably have fifteen different email accounts. I put a lot of junk mail spam every time I go in here. I have to remember the passwords though secure everything to You may not think that a you know you need a long and unique password. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you want two factor authentication if it's available.
Two factor authentication very simple. You log into a website, Wait a minute, They're going to text you a code, a little four or five six digit code. I always have my phone on me. Well, within seconds I'll get a text I'll then enter that code on a website that's pres It's called two factor authentication t FA. More and more websites, more and more companies should be doing this thing. A lot of things you should be doing taking care of all that stuff, including your health. We'll talk about
health in a second. One more thing, Everything you should do to protect yourself in this coming year twenty twenty four. Maybe your parents, maybe your kids, need to do this too. Update all your apps and and your devices. You need the most current patches, You need the most current options. Start the security checkout by updating all your devices. Look on your phone, Go to your setting, Go to your phone, check for updates.
See the companies behind these technologies. They've done a lot of work to keep you safe. It is your job to make sure you're taking full advantage of all these updates. Look at your operating system. About thirty minutes, I'll tell you about Apple. They just came out with another another update to their iOS seventeen point two point one. They're trying to help you, they really are. Maybe you want to get a password manager. Download a password manager
that stores all your passwords. Strong passwords. That's the first line of defense to keep your account safe, but it's very tough to memorize and keep track of them. Download a password manager. They store all this information for you, this stuff. Change passwords maybe every sixty every ninety days. Do that. You may want to consider a VPN, a virtual private network, a strong VPN that'll they'll keep your web browsing private. There's a few free ones,
there's some paid ones. But if you use a VPN, a lot of you. If you have an office and if you like here at iHeart inter Media, we have a VPN that we have to log into to get into our email when we're outside of the office. Your company potential and hopefully has one of those, tell brokers to also you get to also companies to stop selling your data. Stop selling because you're gonna have to really dig down. You're gonna have to read all the user's license agreement. You're gonna have
to check a lot of boxes. But you know what, you don't want your information shared every time you sign up for something, subscription, service, site, whatever. Try to delete all this information. Backing up information all is important. I've talked about this for twentty plus years. Go get an external hard drive, connect to a cloud, keep all your data backed up. Hurricane comes in, a fire comes through your house, it's gonzo if
you just have everything back this stuff up. Obviously, Yes, if you have a hard drive next to your computer, it's it's going to do you no good. It's also why it's very smart to go to a cloud. Go to cloud to it just install all that stuff. Those little few tips people just it's you're at home, maybe you have a week to kill this next week or so, just just don't puts around, go actually try to do some of the stuff to keep you really keep you updated, uh,
to keep your health updated. You know, I talk about health a lot because I am not getting younger and a lot of us are not either. Here's what I want you to do. Stand by. I Am going to have a conversation coming up with a cardiologist. And this is a good time of year to check many potential to check many things in your life and your loved one's life, but also plan for twenty twenty four. We're going to talk about things with cardiology. Yes, the new technology actually ways to help
track and better help you should you have any issues. But I found a really interesting and very very smart cardiologist. We'll talk to him coming back up, and then when we come back, I promise we're going to give away something if you have a PS five, a PlayStation five gave around people because I'm giving away a PlayStation five game. This is what I do. Santi Claus hanaka Harry Michael Garfield right here on your C nine to fifty am. It is the high Tech Textan show. We are back at it. It
is Michael Garfield, PEPRC nine to fifty am. Well over twenty years I have been hosting this program, and you know what it is, my friends.
It is my job to give you good information, maybe answer some of your questions comes to products or services, but also keep you updated of keeping you healthy too, especially this time of year December, we're almost into a whole new year and really kind of touching on some subjects to maybe give you some incentive to give yourself a little check up, making sure that the years
about as healthy as can be, one of which is your heart. And it did something near and dear to my heart because I try to keep a really good beat on what's going on in my heart. And not too long ago, had a really interesting conversation with a cardiologist here in the Houston area. Has been here for quite some time, and it brought up a few things that I wanted to share with the audience over here. So I'm going
to spend a few minutes here talking to doctor Katalin log In. He is a board certified cardiologist and professor at a government medical school at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston UTA Health. I thank you so much for a few minutes of your time. Doctor. Let me start with this. What are some lifestyle changes that people can make to improve their heart health? Well, thank you so much for having me. First of all, as
far as life changes go, the advice is the classical one. You once should lead in moderations. Should try to avoid animal fat and go more for vegetable fat. Should try to exercise, nothing really intense, but constantly, something that keeps you moving, and in the same time address the risk factors that may be present, from smoking to hypertension, from high cholesterol to diabetes, from some extra weight to physical conditioning. Other than that, really nothing
much else, nothing much else of that. You probably scared half the audience right now, going, oh goodness, I'm really going to need to get on a diet and Exercise program for twenty twenty four. But really that's the reason I wanted to have you on this show, to remind people it's very important. Speaking of exercise, how important is regular exercise for your heart? I think it's very important because it provides several benefits, some of them which
are less known and not necessarily seen. Amongst other things, they provide something called myocardial conditioning, which makes the heart muscle less prone to injury during a heart attack, leading to better outcomes should a heart attack happen. Exercise leads to creation of small new blood vessels which are now seen, but they work very well in providing oxygen. In addition to that, it also increases overall
physical capacity in muscle conditioning and muscle tone and everything else. But for the heart, that's the major benefit, growing new blood vessels. Yeah, So would you say either a I should keep running or do some different types of things, maybe swimming or biking right, Well, in general, the recommendation is for aerobic exercise, which is anything that keeps you in motion, ideally
which is non impact running. Jogging is an impact form of exercise. Again, doesn't have to be very into and somewhere in the range of thirty minutes. At least five days a week would be sufficient. One very good example would be walking at normal pace for five ten minutes, then walking briskly for five ten minutes, then go back to normal walk, and then again risk. So it doesn't have to be intense, it doesn't have to be painful,
doesn't have to be at the gym. Everybody can do it. So hopefully that's just taking some of the scare away from what needs to be done to keep heart healthy. Yes, yes, scaring you straight my listeners with doctor Catalin log In, he is a cardiologist here at Houston. You talk about diet. Also, what role does diet play and preventing heart disease? I think the role is extremely important, very very important. Probably next after
the genetic makeup that we only inherit which we cannot modify. The dietet is typically recommended, this so called Mediterranean diet, which is essentially putting an emphasis on a vegetable fatra that animal fat, and on basically fresh fruits and vegetables, very little red meat, very little fried food and so on, very little fried foods. That's maybe a tough one here for all the Texans listening
right now. But I do hope they take your words of advice. You know you talked about, you know, heart attack, and it obviously it starts with heart conditions. Give us if you could maybe some common heart conditions that people should be aware of. I think the one that's mostly ignored is hypertension. There's a reason why arpertension is called the silent killer because it can evolve for many, many years. Many people not having any symptoms, don't
even consider a disease, don't even consider it as a risk factor. Yet it does lead to significant cardiac conditions and risks, and primarily primarily would be heart attack and the risk of stroke because it promotes athos carosis, the the heartening of the blood vessels. Many people come in and say, oh, my blood pressure is one fifty one sixty. That's my blood pressure. It's
always been like this. It's okay, I don't feel anything. Why telling me you need to treat that well to avoid the complications that will surely appear after years and years of evolution like that. The other condition which is also potentially ignored and leads to cindact disease is diabetes or even pre diabetes, a metabolical disturbance which is associated will increase the risk. And let alone smoking,
which everybody knows about and we all these insist on quitting that. I think these would be the three main factors risk factors that can be modified by everybody. Essentially, it makes sense hypertension obviously, high blood pressure, diabetes and smoking is certainly these are things that I remember learning growing up and take some of my health health classes. How can individuals doctor, how can they recognize
the warning signs of a heart problem? Unfortunately they are not always any warning signs. This is why I hear that somebody dies suddenly, and you know, you wonder why and all that. More than likely there was underlying a disease and it had been there for years. So it can be from no signs whatsoever, the very mild signs. Maybe a little bit short saw breath which is out of proportion to whatever exercise one has just dead has just done.
Maybe it's just a little bit of a pressure or in the script feeling of uneasiness in the middle of the chest. Maybe it's something that goes into the jaw, into the teeth, into the neck, into both shoulders, something that's fleeting lasting only a few minutes three five minutes and goes away once you rest. Typically all of this is in this buy exercise and doesn't appear
at rest. Not that many people have the classical engine out the crushing pain in the middle of the chest radiating to the neck and to the jaw and responded to niri ricarin. This is just very few people. Most have no symptom, or they have the symptoms very mild like I described. Other times they perceive palpitations and irregular heart ridden pauses, heart beats very fast written.
Others do not perceive any of these at all, again, which makes it sometimes difficult to detect early, which would be the goal early detection of heart disease. Early detection, which is one of the things I mean, you can's That's what I'm trying to do obviously, chatting with you doctor Catlin log and a cardiologist here. Early detection is just at least knowing what's going on,
which we appreciate your time. A few more questions, if you don't mind, you said the word genetic genetic factors things that we can't change. Sadly, are there genetic factors that can contribute to heart disease in what are they yes, the typically the way to sess that is looking for what they
call premature atheroscuroses. That means people who have a heart attack or the equivalent of a hundred attack caused stroke early in life, typically sixty years of age, a little bit earlier for men, a little bit later for women, but around that age. Beyond that age, if something happens in the family, you know, in the seventies, in the eighties and nineties, that doesn't count as much, but early athros herosis and first degree family members or
other family members counts a whole lot. In evaluating the risk, we use certain tools and certain risk factors, many of them are online, and they calculate what they call the risk of Carriavacii events. And the importance that the genetic component is given in this risk calculation is quite high. It makes sense there. I'm going to use the word technology obviously, I'm this is what
this radio program is mostly about. Talk about technology. How has it improved maybe the diagnosis and possibly the treatment of our conditions compared to some decades ago, two three decades ago. On the emphasis was on international approach, meaning karrea characterization stands and all that the trend, and I shouldn't state trend. What you're moving onto is the non invasive early diagnosis of Karya disease. Non
invasive means essentially two if not three methods. One of them would be simple AULTO sound called an eco caateagram, and the other one would be based on a cats CAN exam, which nowadays can be performed very quickly, very safely, with a very very small amount of radiation, maybe with contrast substance, maybe without the contrast substance called die popularly, depending on the risk of every patient. These tools, and in particular the CATSCAN now has been approved everywhere.
It's in the American College of Cardiology guidelines, it's all over the world. It's perceived as a first line of screening people or the presence of quantatory disease, even if they don't have symptoms. So this is a major change that has happened in the way we approach Like I said, early diagnosis of heart disease compared to only just a few years ago, that, yeah,
certainly makes sense. In the last question, I'm going to get you out on this one, doctor, how often should people have heart checkops And what does a typical checkup involve. I don't think there is a set schedule. Care nowadays is personalized. Every patient gets his own regimen, if you would, both in terms of diagnostic test used and in terms of medications and so on. And it's all based on the perceived or calculated risk of carriovacid disease.
In other words, somebody who has a low cardio at risk is going to get maybe an auto sound. Somebody has a high krdiac risk is going to get quite a few more than that. When should you do it? There's no set rule, but I think it's fair and safe to say that
beyond the age of fifty, also depending on the genetic makeup. Again, beyond the age of fifty, a regular checkup, which would consist of a physically exam, an electro cardiogram, maybe an echo cardiagram, maybe a form of cat scan, again depending on risk, would be beneficial and would allow us to detect early conditions which otherwise could be fatal. There is people, It is a gift not only from me to you, but from doctor Ketalin
log In. He's a cardiologist here in Houston. Obviously, our city very very proud that you know both some of the greatest and smartest doctors in hospitals here in and around the the world. Doctor listen, thank you so much for your time, and I know hopefully you've changed gave a lot of people some ideas really what to do to improve their lives, stay healthy and live longer so they can listen to my radio show longer. Thank you so much
for having me. I hope it is useful, absolutely absolutely a great great advice. My friends, tell you what, don't go anywhere. The high tech text and show continues right after this KPRC nine to fifty am, Well, thank you to a doctor log in. I hope you guys took that to heart. You see what I did over there, listen, you really should check your health. I continue to do that, mister hypochondriac Michael Carfield,
almost all of this year. And uh, well, if the heart's taken, I don't know if it's a good thing about I think the way the world is this crazy. But I hope you do keep living because you're all listeners of mine and that's very special to me. Seven one three, two, one two, five nine five oh few days before Christmas here on the high tech textit and show. I'll tell you what's actually getting a lot of publicity lately. It's the second version of a product that I have seen,
and I actually had the first version. It was okay, actually I believe I gave it to my son and uh, I've seen the second version and it's pretty cool. But the publicity in terms of well there, I guess the company's doing a lot of advertising, but the buzz is out there. It's these Meta glasses, the ray band Meta Meta Obviously it's the owner of Facebook glasses there. They're ray band sunglasses, but they you know, they actually can change different lenses too, to make them you know, kind
of not in the sun. They go in the sun, they turn out, but they look almost identical to a normal pair of ray bands, aside from two little small cameras in the upper corners of the frames that flash when taking a high quality photo or they pulse when they're recording video. And you put these glasses on and they respond to voice commands to text someone, to call someone. But the company Meta Zuckerberg, if you will, if they're
banking on them to do much more in the future. They announced last week that the eyeglasses that they're soon going to be able to use AI artificial intelligence to translate languages in real time for people who wear them, come up with funny photo captions, help pick out your clothes. Pretty interesting now. If they work as intended, I think these features they may finally push wearable AR and VR virtual reality technology into the mainstream, because there has been years and
years of failed attempts. I mean, let's go back to Google Glass. Remember when Google came out with these glasses. Was that eight nine years ago or something? I tried on a pair of Google Glass and I there were pieces of wire with you know, frames, you know, with glass in them. Google is not an eyewear maker, but I understand what they did, and they actually were pretty relatively interesting technology many many years ago, but
I don't think the consumers accepted them. Consumers are like, man, what do you mean? Are you videotaping me? Are you taking pictures of me? Where you know that? I don't know? And that happens with a lot of products. Sometimes products are pretty pretty cool, but the consumers aren't ready for them. And I know I'm going to go off on a tangent here, but let's look at self driving cars. The technology for most extent
is there for cars to be self driving. But if you've ever driven or seen a car driven by with no one driving it, it freaked you out. Plus there's a lot of questions insurance, and you know, it's still safety issues the consumers have not accepted yet. Let's go back to the glasses. Back in the day, no one really accepted Google glass. Nowadays, these things are pretty cool. And I talk about the publicity. I'm watching Jimmy Fallon watching the Tonight Show. Anybody see the Tonight Show? I guess
it was Tuesday. A few days ago. Meta sponsored the segment and they gave every single person into the audience a new pair of these Meta ray Bang glasses. As it was like an Oprah show or something, but then it was it was really good product placement because Jimmy Fallon, he kept him on the desk, and whoever the guest was, I forgot who it was. But they kept put on the glasses and having fun with each other, and
then they will take a live feed of what they were seeing. Because one of the things that these glasses can do is they can have a live feed, a live stream to Facebook or Instagram. Now, isn't that interesting that Meta which owns Facebook and Instagram would actually allow it to live stream. There are a lot of uses for this thing. And I actually saw these in person at the at my eye doctors at my eye doctor earlier this week. Doctor Alan Panzer, he's over on Beach Nut at six' ten. He
is the eye doctor to the stars. He sells glasses, and he sells these meta glasses. So for some reason, last minute, you better hurry over today. I think he's even open right now today Saturday. He's got several pairs of these meta meta glasses that you can get about three three hundred dollars or so three hundred and twenty dollars or something like that. But they're all over TikTok. People are making these viral videos because you can now record
things without holding your phone or holding up your phone. But they actually do look like real sunglass rate band sunglasses, and the the videos come out and it's relative's pretty good resolution too. I can see it a practical use for me, and you know a lot of other people who do these, you know obviously in instagrammers. If you will, I open a lot of package,
you know, you have these opening ceremonies. You know, So what I did, Jim, I need two hands free and it's very tough because from my point of view POV, I have to hold the camera in one hand while I take my other hand and I'm opening a package. It's kind of awkward. But nowadays where you got your you wear glasses like this with cameras built in. It's shooting your point of view, as we say in
the halloween industry. So now you're looking down at a package or you're looking at something, and now you can use both hands to open packages and do things. They actually actually work quite well. So that is neat. One of the neater technology is version two. And again I've always said it's very tough to you got something pretty cool, don't get version one. You better
wait a little better way. I used to work for Microsoft twenty five years ago, and we got the ability to download all of the software that they came out before it was in beta testing, before the released. I mean I'm talking to the early versions of Windows and Microsoft Word and the games and stuff, and there was it was bugs. It was so buggy, and internally it was like, hey man, Bill Gates doesn't get anything right till thest version three. So I felt sorry for his first two kids that he
had. But don't really jump at version one of things because at some point the technology is going to get better, they'll get lighter, they'll get hopefully cheaper too, depending on what industry is. But I think that's one of the things that we should be looking at in the future of Hey, you know what's wearable? This is a wearable that is a multi billion dollar you know, opportunity pivot to the industry. Now, VR headset and AR glasses
sales in the US they've dropped like forty percent in the last year. This is according to Sirkana Data. I saw that on a thing on CNBC, But that's because there's really been new products out, but the buzz in the marketing put together for this meta glass, which I do not have a pair yet, I may go get one, deucing to be pretty cool. So I kind of like that. So anyway, thoughts on that, we could talk more about that next hours. We're coming to the top of hour number
one. I am at seven one three, two, one, two, five nine five. Oh when we come back on the other side. The best cheap phone of twenty twenty three, the cheap Phone. I'm here to save you money people, That's what I do. Also, we have a giveaway saw the PlayStation five. They've sold over fifty million units. That's a lot blows away Xbox and everything else. Nice folks at Sony Entertainment have allowed me to give away some games. I'm going to give away a game.
So if you're interested in winning one of those, suck up people, because this is what we do. He's called the TS. You gotta listen sometimes over the next hour. Michael is my name. There is Callum read here on the other side. KPRC nine fifty eight m the final show before Christmas of twenty twenty three. We're gonna be right back. I tex Is Michael Garfer, Michael Garfield. Michael Garfield's joining us in the high Tech Texan.
Michael Garfield is here with a high tech Texans items to make life easier, some new technology. So Michael Garfield has something you might want Texas. Michael Garfield is your high Tech Texan. Three decades helping you make magic with your gadgets occurred worldwide on the iHeartRadio. Add your high Tech Textan. Michael Garfield halfway to a happy hour halfway through the show, the final show before Christmas season twenty twenty three. We're just a day and a half away, or
if you're listening on the repeat, it maybe Christmas. It's a happy podcast day. I do thank you for twenty plus years of your listenership. Michael is my name, Michael Garfield. It is called the High Tech textan show. We talk much more about technology. We have a little fun our number one pack with some Christmas gift last minute Christmas gift items. Yes, you just still get your gift cards, but also beware of the last minute Christmas
phishing schemes or the credit card or the gift card scams or whatever. That is very scary out there. Also ran through everything you should do to protect yourself and your data, you know, as you kind of kind of like
got a lazy, quiet week before twenty twenty four rolls around. If you missed that, well, our good friend Callum Reid here, he's on the other side of the glass Calumn. You're going to post this podcast here within the next hour right thereout it so you can go to iHeartRadio and you can listen to your heart's content and you can share the link so you can get more fun listeners. Gub it up. Maybe next we'll do it the next break give away a we'll give it away a PlayStation five game. Saw this
PlayStation five and that's a good gift. But the thing is, though, there's a lot of people in your life who may already have one Sony PlayStation five. The PS five has sold over fifty million consoles over the past three years, estimated to have outsold the Xbox Series X and S three to one
this year three to one. That's pretty big milestone. And this is, according to Sony's figures, impressive figure because the supply chain issues they kept the PS five in limited supply when it first came out, what was about November of twenty twenty. And it's pretty good. My son has a PS five. I do not have a PS five. My youngest son is a PS five. You can do a lot more than just play games, stream stuff on there. Pretty cool. We're gonna get which which I don't know what
game to do, tay. What we're gonna give away? You know what I'm gonna give away. I'm not now stand by. Next up, we're gonna give away MLB the show twenty twenty three. You know why Major League Baseball. Very realistic. Four K. We're gonna give away thank you again to Sony Entertainment. I'll tell you which callor to be not now though, because this was a very big year in baseball for the state of Texas and
my team, the Texas Rangers, World champion. Very realistic. We have come so far video games for those of my ilk my age, I'm gonna throw out pound for pound without my favorite video game system in my lifetime. Now again, my age, I'm in my fifties. I've been through a number of different systems. We start with Atari and then we can go all the way up to PlayStation five. We've been through Xbox, We have been
through all the Nintendo's Nintendo innes now now there's Nintendo Twitch. There's all this other stuff. But for me, it was a relatively short lived gaming system from the late seventies to the mid nineteen eighties. And they're actually still around. I think they're making comeback. People. Do you remember Mattel in television Boom? Sorry, that's my favorite. One of the first I think to get licensed by the NFL, Major League Baseball and a few of the other
leagues. It was. It was a really ingenious system. But it's just so rudimentary looking at it today. But you'd set it up. Man. You had to have a switcher. You had it turned your TV channel to channel three. But it came with these two wired controllers. Of course they were wired. There was nothing wireless, and it was really genius. So the controllers were numbered pads. Okay, I want you to imagine your cell phone. Imagine your cell phone with a wire coming out of attached to a
console. But each game, which was a cartridge that you put into television, it came with this little colored plastic overlay that you slipped in on the front of that controller. So imagine slipping, you know, posting something, you know, pasting something onto the top of your cell phone. And if it was football, for example, actually just do baseball. If it was
baseball for example, it had an overlay photo of a baseball diamond. All right, So the baseball diamond, you know what a baseball diamond looks like, and when you push whatever part of the baseball diamond, it correlates to the number pad below it. So let's just say, obviously the catcher is at the bottom home plate, which equates to like the number zero, so you would and so you're never looking at the number pads. You'd just looking
at the overlays. And that's how it worked. And so the batter would hit, you know, a button, and then when you swing, you would hit a button, and if you wanted your your you know, your third baseman to catch it, you would push the third base, which I think Corless said number four. I believe it really was neat. I mean, I lived for this game, and I guess I'm in I'm sixteen, seventeen years old or something like that. I was so into football. I
mean, I was the king of metel intelligence football. I actually had a playbook. I wrote down different plays because I think you could punch in like four eighty six and that was your play where the wide receiver would come out and I would have a third to third down and short play. I mean, I am not kidding you, and I would draw the plays. I have no clue. I didn't get into coaching. I mean, I was
into this stuff, but it was fun. Again, if my kids saw this, and it may actually be in my parents' attic, this matillg I should hook it up and they would spend fourteen seconds playing this game before they would put it down, Like, what is this versus? It was hours and hours per day, if not certainly per week of us playing this thing. So anyway, what is your favorite? Tell you what where before we take a break up here anybody, what is your favorite gaming system of all
time? It again, I think it revolves around your age group. What did you grow up with? Seven? One three two one two five nine five. Oh, you can talk to me if you're too shy to call hit my Twitter or sorry X high tech textan hi g h T e h T e x a n high tech textan, and you can tell me what it is mattel and television. You actually you know what? Feel free to actually give me your your your favorite game and if you didn't play the home
consoles, yes, you could tell me your favorite stand up game. I know you used to put quarters in the machine from this pac Man in Galaga and Donkey Kong. You can go that way. Uh, It's just that's the fun that we talked about in It's just amazing how far that the technology has come. It's pretty pretty cool. Michael's my name, Michael Garfield.
It is called the High Tech textan show. Happy early Merry Christmas to everybody celebrating as we record this, actually do the show two days before Christmas. We will come back and we'll give away a little PlayStation five game, and I'm going to talk about the best cheap phone of this past year that you can still go out and get. Stay by I Tech Text and show saw this. I don't know if anybody cares about this. Anybody ever driven those
electric scooters in and around these cities. These god awful They're the demons, and they're devils that I do not recommend. I don't think anybody ever should ride some of these scooters. Bird was one of these big scooters companies. They just filed for bankruptcy. Good for them. That company is once valued at two and a half billion dollars two and a half billion dollars. They're still operating as normal. But there they were the trendiest thing in the world,
and there were an iceore. They weren't so much. They never hit it big in Houston. It's just because h Town is really not built as a city Number one to really be outside for his long length of time, because it's so nasty, hot and human here but you really can't be Houston so big, and there's I can't think of really one dense spot of town that's relatively safe enough without the traffic that you can ride these things in. They were massively big in Austin. You go to maybe some of the beaches
in California, somebody these other cities to tour. Anyway, my son had a horrific actually two of my sons actually had accident's one was a really horrific incident that luckily he is still around to talk about it. But I do not recommend anybody riding any of these scooters. And so Bird now has a file for bankruptcy. So you know, I just listened. I'd make me no ill will on anybody's job creation. But good for them because hopefully these
things will be gone. That's just to know. By the way, maybe some good or bad things as we wrap up Best of the Year, Worst of the Year. Let's go ahead and do this, because people have been breathlessly waiting talked about PlayStation five PS five fifty million units have been sold three years, very popular game. The nice folks at Sony Entertainment reached out to me that they say, hey, Garth man, all you do is talk tech. Everybody loves you. I bet you want to give away something.
I say, yep, I say, can we give away a PlayStation five? Nope, but we can give away some games. So they gave me a few games to give away. I'm gonna do well one here do a few on my Instagram and x so if you follow me high tech text at hi g h T E h T E x am, we're gonna give away. How about this a new copy. It's a downloadable copy, so we can send you a code. PS five MLB The Show twenty twenty three Major
League Baseball Realistic Baseball Game color number nine. Right now, callum, sir seven one three two one two five nine five H two one two five nine five Oh colling them nine because we are kp PRC nine five Oh callum, just kind of tell me my ear who's the winner is and we will get you that. We'll do this until well we got a few to give away. Somebody would give away another next week two at the end of the year. So thank you to the Sony Pepes, which is a very very nice
of them. I will see Sony and many many other companies in about two weeks. I will be at CES that is used to be called the Consumer Electronic Show that is in Vegas, that is where the mecca of anybody who's anybody in the world of technology, and a lot of ancillary industries too. They will go out. This will be my twenty well other than COVID. Well they actually stopped it during COVID. This is at least my twentieth year, twenty twenty one, twenty two years. I've gone out there and I'm
I'm a jaded person. Whatever you do in life, I think you do become jaded, whatever your expertise is. And yes, I have become jaded in technology, which I think is a good thing for you, because I I'm not the guy who's got eyes wide open and going googga on everything that's released, going this is the greatest product in the world. You gotta get this. No, I actually I'll look at it, I'll study it. I realize doesn't work, isn't worth it? Is it worth the money?
Who's it for? What? Demographic? Kids? Adults, teenagers, men, women? Is it good for travel? Is it a home type of thing? And so I am jaded. So I gotta say it has been a while since I have been blown away by any product or service or anything I've really seen at CEES. I mean, let's go back to the two thousand and four, five six, when I first started going out there where flat screen TVs are. High definition TVs were the thing. I mean that
was. It was unbelievable. I mean, they filled the Las Vegas Convention Center with nothing but rows and rows of TV. They had Sony and they had Magnavox, and they had I mean just companies that are not ha Tachi Fooji things, the companies that don't even make or not even around anymore. Now there's what is it TTCL and all these Samsung certainly still out there. But they had so many TVs. I would walk down the aisle and I would joke to myself, I'm gonna get a sunburn because there's so much light
that is being displayed on the TVs. They were the biggest Greens. I remember the big Oh my goodness, I can't believe there's a fifty five inch, there's a sixty five inch I one time, I remember there was a one hundred inch that really I think they were selling it for one hundred thousand dollars back in the day. And you know now, now there's roll up, rollable, there's roll up televisions, there's foldable televisions. They are fun to see, but it you know, to me, it's like, okay,
I literally can go get a TV right now. I can get a forty three TV. And I saw this at Best Buy for one hundred and twenty nine dollars. It's forty three inch. It's decent size, fifty five inch. You can get a nice one for two hundred and fifty bones. I paid my first fifty five inch flat screen TV two thousand and three, twelve thousand dollars. It is now two hundred and fifty dollars and it's lighter than a feather. This is how fur technology is going. So what do
I expect. I am getting inundated by emails because I'm registered and all the companies are out there. Hey, Michael, so you're coming to see Yes, come to my booth because you're going to see this, and there's a happy hour here and you can meet the owner over here, and I want you to interview this person. I will have a radio booth on site. I will be taping a lot of my stuff and so you will listen to me January January Saturday, January thirteenth, I will come to you plausibly live
from Las Vegas. The following week, I'll be on Great Day Houston that I usually do, and I'm going to bring on some the I guess, cooler products that I'm able to grab to show you maybe some of the trends that will be happening in twenty twenty four. In terms of trends, as I mentioned last last hour, I think the augmented reality, virtual reality glasses, like what Meta has doing with RayBan there, I think going to be
a trend. I think as the prices continue to go down, I mean, I still think three hundred dollars that's a relatively okay price for a cool piece of technology that's got cameras built into the glasses. I think that's pretty cool. I think I'm going to see a number of those. I see battery power, wireless battery chargers. I don't see a lot of phone. Samsung will be there, and I'm going to one or two of their events or their receptions or private media parties there. I think they're going to show
the new I'm not going to give out any trade secrets. But I'm guessing, let me put it that way, the Samsung Galaxy S twenty four that they will be releasing at some point, I'm under embargo as soon as I see that stuff, so I can't talk about this. Really isn't the phones thing. There's a separate phone, big international release. I think it's MWC that comes out. Where's that in Germany? I forget where that is.
That's in February. And then every company Apple does their you know, their iPhone announcement what in Septemberish, Samsung does one generally in February, and that you generally folded one in July. And so don't expect me to come back with, oh, look at these coolest phones over here. This is just more about wearables, sports, sleep, health and everything. It is fun,
it's it's fun to walk around and see some of this stuff. It's it's certainly one of the it's it's the mecha of what I do, and it's a great schmoozing and get to meet more and more of these companies so I can play with their products, or they can tell me what's going on, so I in turn can give them to you. Then, speaking of giving to you. I think we have a winner of the PS five. Stop calling. We have a PS five game. It was MLB the Show
twenty three and that goes to Jeffrey K. Last name. I'll just put a K Jeffrey K. Jeffrey K is in pair Lansa. Thank you so much. May have time to give one more way this today. If not tune in next week the last show of twenty twenty three, we'll give some more of those. Check out High Tech Texts and Hi g h T E C h T E x A N on the socials and we'll give a few away on those, all right when we come back, maybe some of your calls. Also some Apple news. There's another Apple iOS software update, three
or four days after the last one came out. I'll tell you why. Actually you should download this. And if you if you bought an Apple Watch nine a few days ago, congratulations, you're the last person ever to buy the Apple Watch nine. A lot of issues going on with that. Stand by, I'll tell you not that, Michael Garfield. It is the HTT High Tech Text Show thirty minutes to go. You could suck that up.
People, can't you come on your bucket here for an hour and a half, gave away Sony PlayStation five game Who Knows, I may throw in another your question's final few thoughts as the Christmas Hour becomes Dick Dick, Dick, Dick Dick ticking around. Garf is my nickname, Michael Garfield. We've been doing this for well over two decades. I'd like to think we have some fun. I thank you. I think everybody here at KPRC nine point fifty.
That's am amplitude modulation that's in the Southeast Texas area, Houston based, and now that we can broadcast around the world, I heartrighted. My son is in Australia right now and he said he tuned in, which is interesting because Mike, I have three boys and they never listen to this show. They know exactly what I do. They've been in the studio, they've watched me record the show from home, the whole thing, but they actually never
listen. The kid is God love him. He's he's my oldest. He's traveling alone for three weeks in Australia and he says, Hey, I was listening to iHeartRadio. I heard you, I heard you great. Feel free to travel the world. Then you can listen to what's going on back home. He actually has the old one, the oldest one. He has an Apple. There are there are two of my three kids have iPhones. My middle son took after me. He's he's an Android. He's an Android kid.
I do need to make sure that both my sons and all of you know who do have iPhones. There has been another iPhone software update. If you already didn't get it pushed or reminded to you on your phone. It was just a week after Apple issued a pretty substantial software upgrade for their iPhones and the iPads, and they did it again. About a week ago, was December eleventh. Apple released iOS seventeen point two, and it added a
few things. It added this new thing called the journal app, some functionality for cameras on the higher I fifteen models, and a few other things. Seventeen point two. Whoops, wait a minute. A week later, seventeen point two point one. It's a security update, and it's it's needed for I'm quoting Apple here important bug fixes and is recommended for all users unquote. That's according to Apple. They didn't list any other security issues specifically, you
know, to update addresses on the site but they pretty should you. Really, they're very quy on details. They don't disclose to discuss it, confirm security issues until an investigation has occurred, patches or releases are available. I'm not sure. I can't. I don't even want to speculate. But the point is, every time you see these things, a lot of people are like, man, do I really want to update some of this stuff? Some of this stuff you do need to update, especially when it comes to
the third number, seventeen point two. Well, I don't know if I want to do seventeen point two because I really like my color of the background. When you get to the point one's the point to seventeen point two point one, seventeen point two point two, there's little tiny numbers I guess on the third decimal point. After the second decimal point, it's kind of a security update. So yes, go ahead and do that. Go ahead and do that. Speaking of that, who has an Apple Watch? I do
not have. I don't have anything max, So that's not a big deal. But it's not a shock there. Apple watches have sold quite well over the years. They really have. The latest was it the late is it the Apple Watch nine? Yeah, you ain't getting at anymore. I thought this was really interesting. It's made worldwide news too. Apple stops selling actually two of its smart watch for at least smart watch models. I guess it's at least for the time being, the Apple Watch Series nine and the Apple
Watch Ultra two no longer available for purchase here in the United States. Apple dropped the devices from its websit site last Thursday and tomorrow, I guess December twenty fourth, as we did the show live here, they're pulling it off their retail shelves. They launched in September. Now why you ask, after three months they're pulling it out. Well, there's a little legal issue over here. The US International Trade Commission. It determined that apples there's a feature
on the Apple Watch that measures your blood oxygen. They're saying it violated medical technology patent rights. There was a company called the Massimo. There's a medical technology company called Massimo. They had the patent on this. Of course, Apple it's bringing its lawyers into the phrase, saying it it tends to appeal the decision to the federal circuit. They're saying that a pause on sales can negatively impact users who rely on Apple Watch safety and health features and whatever.
I'm not going to go to the he said, she says type of thing. But it's an Irvine, California based Massimo company. But they accused Apple of using blood oxygen tracking technology that infringed on its patents. Now, Apple's blood oxygen feature that first launched gosh, what was that back in twenty twenty the Apple Watch series six. Well, Massimo filed the complaint back and then back twenty twenty one, and now Apple is also accused Massimo of infringement patents.
They're going back and forth, you know what. But you know who actually can get out of this? The White House, the freaking with Joe Biden. The White House. They have until Christmas Day to review the ITC's the International Trade Commission's restrictions, but Apple went ahead and pulled it. So,
by the way, let's recap again. The blood Oxygen app is available on the Apple Watch Series six or later the Apple Watch se That'll still be available for purchase if you want an Apple around Christmas or after on Apple's website stores. And then that's it. To give you an idea of how big this wearable is. Apple's wearable and their home and accessories. There's you know, things like that other than their iPhone, other than their MacBooks, and
brought it in more than nine billion dollars last quarter. That's about ten percent of their total net sales. That's pretty big. So I love these features on watches, but blood oxygen. I actually went out to sea was it Walgreens for twenty dollars or whatever? What's twenty five bucks? I bought a blood oxygen monitor. Now, listen, it doesn't I can't wear it on my wrist, but it's a little tiny device that fits in my finger that I can put it on. I can check what's going on. Blood oxygen
is important, especially during the COVID time. I mean, listen, I'm not a doctor. I played one on TV in General Hospital. Actually I didn't apply. I was on General Hospital. I didn't even play a doctor. Point is it measures the oxygen in your blood, which really should be I think ninety five, ninety six, ninety seven certainly that percent or above. And when this came into the forefront, we worried about it during COVID because when COVID came in affected their lungs, we you know, we didn't
have as much oxygen flowing through our body. Man, there was a rush during COVID. There was a rush on blood oxygen monitors. There was a rush on thermometers and all of all of these things. Now they're all over the place, but it's the same type of technology. I use it to show these things are effective. So a week ago was ago week ago, I was in Utah in the mountains. I was sixty four one hundred feet
up, well over a mile high in the Utah Mountains. We're obviously oxygen thinner, and I brought my little blood oxygen a little monitor up there, put my finger in there, and sure enough, Man, sometimes it was like eighty eight percent, eighty nine percent. I'm like, damn, get me out of here. Then we hiked five to seven miles a day and I lived to tell about it, at least for now. So these things actually do work. I've not really tried the blood oxygen monitor on a watch,
but I've tried the beats permitted. I've tried heart rate monitors on the watch. That's really neat to say, Listen, do are these things one hundred percent accurate? No, I would go in. I would trust a doctor, but for an oh By the way as a baseline, if you use this, if you use a blood oxygen monitor, or if you use a beats permit a heartbeat you know monitor on your phone, on your on your watch, well you know whatever, that normal. And I use the
air quotes of normal numbers they're supposed to be. Now they could let's just say your normal heartbeat is about fifty two beats permitted, kind of like what mine is resting. Well, let's just that that's what it is from a doctor. Well let's just say my watch does it's sixty. Well, as long as it continues to say sixty sixty sixty six on my watch, at
least there's a baseline normal. But then seriously, go trust a doctor, which is one of the reasons I had a doctor on my show about it now to talk about getting yourself checked up part issues and cardiology issues in that. You see, I'm not a doctor on TV or the radio, but I actually bring the real things here on my show. So there there's your Apple Watch series. Final thing. I've been teasing this all show. I want to talk about the best cheap phone I got about a minute before the
final break, and then we'll come back after this but listen. I had a really interesting year with the phones. I got to travel to Soeul, South Korea last July for Samsung. I covered the Samsung launch of the Samsung Flip five, the Samsung fold five. Got to tour the Samsung manufacturing plant. Really impressed and actually to see another part of the world. And I like those phones they use. Those phones. They are not cheap phones.
They're anywhere between one thoy to eighteen hundred dollars for those foldable phones. A lot of these fold this was this the year of foldables. There's a lot of foldables released. And I will tell you, Okay, I'll tell you what. Here's the teas. When we come back, I'll tell you a great cheap phone at inexpensive phone. I will tell you my phone of the year that I am using right now, and it is my favorite of mini phones that I've tried out. And believe I get to try out a lot
of phones and guess what, and ain't got to be an iPhone. People, there's the teas right there. Hang on. Final segment coming on after this. Won't give out the phone number because this is our final segment, so I will just have you listen to the dulcet tones of all the fun voice that I comes out where I give you some really neat information. Callum
Reid listen. I want to wish you Merry Christmas. Everybody else here at iHeartMedia based out of h Town, Eddie Martinez who runs the host show, Mark Sherman, Brian Erickson, and all the people who all the people back there behind that window, I have no clue what you do. What do you do? I know you do more than me, But you're pushing buttons. You're doing stories that it's great. From KTRH to seven ninety Sports, to everybody else that we have here at our eight restore radio stations in Houston,
Merry Christmas to you. I plan to be here next Saturday. That will be the final Saturday of twenty twenty three, That'll be December thirtieth, before I take off to go to the sugar Ball in New Orleans to cover the University of Texas Longhorns. Can that team do it to get to Houston the next week for the Natty? We shall see so fun sports, a lot of bowl games coming up. We also, whatever you do get for Christmas next week, it's the it's the fun show where you call in and
you go, I hate what I got for Christmas? Michael, I got this headphone? Are these the right headphones? They don't fit me? Give me another idea. I need to return these. What do you suggest? It's the Return Suggestion edition of the High Tech Texting Show. Generally an annual fun event. Pull up some hot chocolate, Missile, and we will sit down together and have some fun. Next week we do this shizzo. All right, let's talk phones, best cheap phones. Let's talk about some cheap
phones. Phones got very expensive. Phones are very expensive, but those are the only phones you mostly hear about. There actually are some relativetively affordable phones. I've seen phones that start around one hundred and sixty dollars or so, and they're not bad whatsoever. The best cheap phones in the market market. They do offer a lot of the smartphone essentials, but you don't have to pay that big price tag. Of all the flagship competitors, I say flagship
like right now, let's look at Samsung. Samsung's flagship phone, the Galaxy S twenty three, the iPhone fifteen, the more advanced models. Okay, I'm gonna call it mid price five hundred dollars the upper ends of those flagships. Yeah, they're one thousand dollars eighteen hundred dollars for the foldable phones. But there's some cheap phones and one of the best ones out there. Let's call it the best cheap phone of this past year going into this year,
Google Pixel. Now Google, Google makes phones, well, they don't make it, but they brand their own phones. Google Pixel is a very solid phone, good camera, the model that's relatively it's a endless I'm also gonna kind of concur with c net dot com the Google Pixel six A six A the letter A six A best cheap phone of the year three hundred and forty nine dollars because a lot of the features, like a top of the line camera, a fast processor, years worth of software support with upgrades, they're
all included. And the six A from Pixel they do provide a lot for a lot less. Now you can look at Google's Pixel seven A that's about five hundred dollars. It's a pretty good value. But the six A still takes some good photos for its price, neat design, neat features in the software photo editing. There you go, good value, good Android phone. The Google Pixel six a Yes, you're gonna sacrifice maybe a few things. Maybe the video quality isn't good as the still photos, maybe the display is
not as bright as the others. But it's it's very nice, it said three hundred and forty nine. It's certainly worth it. If you're looking for I'm gonna use the word affordable, the most affordable iPhone, and I'll give this. This is this, according to c net dot com, most affordable iPhone, the Apple iPhone SE that came out in twenty twenty two. It's kind of a mix of an older design, It's got some new smartphone features, good chip support, five G support, four hundred and twenty nine bones.
You get that at Apple. Not bad for an Apple. If you want, oh, I have to have an iPhone, well, you know what, you don't need to go out and get the iPhone fifteen or the Max and the Pro. Feel free to settle in for you know, one or two years behind. But let's look at last year, the twenty twenty to the iPhone se. That is the most affordable iPhone. If you're looking for something that other phones to consider six hundred dollars the iPhone thirteen. It's
not I wouldn't consider that cheap. But you compare it to the fourteen fifteen, the fifteen pro Yes, the iPhone thirteen is very cheap. I think the iPhone thirteen it's a good Apple phone, typical six point one inch screen, good rear cameras, dual real cameras, good battery life. And still look at that. Listen, it gets confusing. How do you buy these good cheap phones? Number one? Would you try it before you buy it? Try to walk into a store. Hold it is it heavy? Is
it light? Does it fit your purse? Does it fit youre? What is it fit in your pocket? You also have decide whether you want the android phone. Do you want an iPhone? What apps do you have? I listen as big of as an Android guy I am. I am never going to try to convince someone to come over to the Android side. I'm never gonna have an argument with Apple fanboy because I will lose. Okay,
you do you, I do me. But I know that seventy plus seventy five percent of the world, and I'm gonna say in the world's operating system they use Android. Fact, there's a lot of iPhones. But let me help you out. You look at all the phones, all the manufacturers, from Samsung to Google, to Motorola to LGED, but they all use Android versus one company uses iOS, which is Apple. That's why there's more Android software out there in the world, and I do. That's why I talk
about Android a lot. I want to talk to the masses out there. Also. Pick the most important feature. What's important to you? Is it the screen size? You want a big phone, you want a small phone. Is camera quality awesome to you? You want better battery of life? Those are going to help narrow your choices. And with that I will name my favorite phone of the year. And for years, I cannot remember the last time I picked a non on Samsung phone as my favorite phone of the
year. I always don't go for the flagship phones. It's not like I have to have ooh, the Galaxy S twenty three, the S twenty two, the S twenty one, any of those stuff. Sometimes the flips I think I love flip phones. I love the I love the form factor of the flip phones because they're relatively small. I think the fold phones they fold out, they're great become they come like a little tablet, a little fablet. Sometimes they're a little heavy. Twenty twenty three. Michael Garfield, The
High Tech textan show My Favorite phone not a Samsung My Favorite phone. Was able to get one of these to try in September, about a month before they were even released. I had to keep my mouth shut. If you see me walking around, ask me and tell me to show you excuse me while I whip this out the phone I am caring. I am carrying a phone from a company called one plus. It is the one plus Open. It is a foldable phone. It is relatively light, certainly lighter than the
Galaxy five fold phone. It is form factor when you hold in your hand. It is about a typical size of any iPhone or any other phone that you have. But voila. The panels are thin enough you open it up like a book. Now you can sit there and almost watch television. You can have a little tablet type size type of thing. I think the software is good. It runs a different software than a typical Android software because Google one one plus makes it. I wasn't too familiar with the company. They
have been around for a while. They are out of China. They are not cheap. This one is about eighteen hundred dollars. It's got a feature I don't like. There is no wireless charging on this thing, but when you do plug it in to charge it, it has got a rapid charger that comes with it, and so this thing can fire up full blown in about twenty to forty minutes or so. One plus Open that is what it's called. You do have to order it, I believe online. Go to
n E plus. This is not an endorsement whatsoever. I wish they would pay me, but nope, OnePlus dot com and I think you can go to Best Buy. I do not think you can go to any of the carriers, the verizons of the AT and T S or the T mobile stores to get it, but they do. They are unlocked, and so you could put it on any of the services. There it goes my favorite phone. And with that, let's start widening this thing down. I do wish everybody Mary Christmas. Do you ho ho ho. I'll see you next year.
Wax upbe we'll talk to you next week before we turn the calendar on. Behalf of everybody who has been a part of this show, including you, my man Callum read. Thank you guys so much. Be safe, enjoy the family, and we'll talk to you next week where you can rag on all the bad photos and the bad family stories you had to endure this Christmas season as we ride into twenty twenty four. Thank you so much. My name is Michael the High Tech Text and Show, and right now my Christmas Special is over.