Tech Trends & Travel Tips: IFA Berlin Highlights, eSIM & VPN Essentials, and Exploring Berlin

stamped and stamped. But enough time to make it back to htown to do the show, to take your calls, to update you with what is going on in the world of yes technology, but so many products in consumer lifestyle to answer your questions. A few fe a month or so before we really start thinking about the holiday shopping season, We've got a full show. I don't even

know where to start. I've got a lot of notes, as I had a lot of time on an airplane back and forth to Germany last week for what they're calling the world's largest consumer and electronic show that I just got back from. Before I hop on another plane tomorrow to go to London. Not bragging, but uh actually is am? I is not name dropping? Is it city dropping? When you're a traveler? I like that alas Southwest Airlines does not get to fly yet to Germany or Europe,

so I can't take a companion. Actually I could if I really had one and wander one. But we'll get to that. I'm gonta give you the phone number. Callum. Good to see him, Man, did you miss me? I brought you back up. I tried to bring you back some beer from Germany. I was in Berlin, Germany. As you know, callub Calum Reed is on the other side of the glass.

and shower and beer. I mean, it is tough to turn your head left or right without finding a beer somewhere. It was quite good, quite good. Actually, I need to get James Simpson, who does the beer show here on k PERC nine fifty am on Sundays. He I don't know if he's been to Germany, but he knows his beer. But I hang out with him and we could swap some stories. In the meantime, Callum, I did not bring it back Getta beer, but I did bring you a

few other gadgets. I will give you the phone number from my audience and so you could talk to Callum and he'll put you through to me. Seven to one three two one two five nine five oh two one two five nine five oh. That number has not changed in the twenty two years I have been doing this radio program here now heard across the world on iHeartRadio. Speaking of world, I'm going to talk a lot about travel.

I haven't This is the first time I've did I've done some international travel in several years, and I'm very glad that I renew my passport. My passport expired last April, and I'm thinking myself, I said, you know what, you never know when you need it, and I'm glad because it's I'm a stamp with the hell out of it right now. The State Department, I just saw the US State Department just kind of streamline. Believe it or not. They are processes of speeding up the way that you

could apply and get approved for a US passport. You know, there is horror stories over the years, like, oh my goodness, it takes weeks. It takes months to get approved for passports. I remember years and years ago there were only a few cities in the country where you could physically walk into an office and get your passport done, one of which was here at Houston. I don't think you could

do that anymore. I'm not not sure. But now there was a test online a few months ago and they just approved it where you can get your passport reading relatively quick time. I must say. When I applied from my passport to be renewed in was it may yeah, it was May this past year. I think from the time I filled out and mailed it in. Yes, I hadded mail it anks. You have to mail pictures and

sign a form and everything. It took it took maybe nine days till eleven days to actually get the new passport back, which was which to me is record time. So do I get your passports? It's nice to have. You never know when you want to flee this country, which it may be coming to that sooner than later. No politics here. I did not watch. Apparently there was a debate. I did not watch a debate. But I don't know. We may want to leave this wonderful country of ours. I have no clue where it is going.

Would I moved to Berlin, Germany. No, I wouldn't move to Berlin, Germany. Germany is a neat place to visit. There's no knocks against it. It's a very It's a young town. Callum, you you'd live there, you're what you're in your white mid upper twenties. That's a sweet spot. I saw a lot of young people, youngish people there, and I say young people's the kids, you know. I have three boys wro allowing their twenties a lot of twenty and thirty year year olds and a lot of English.

I had no problem with the English barrier. I had my Samsung phones with my AI Translation app ready to roll, but alas I did, actually didn't need to even use that. I did not need to use that whatsoever. There was a lot of English speaking over there, so big city. We'll talk more about that, and I did. I will let me let me lead this two things. The reason I was there, I mean, it started out as business and it's also obviously I did a lot of touring

insight seeing the world largest consumer and electronics show. For the past twenty five plus years that I've kind of been in this industry, cees the Consumer Electronic Show we just held every year in Las Vegas. They always say it's the world's largest trade show or the consumer electronics Show. Well there's another one that allegedly is even bigger. This is what I went for. It's called efa IFA. It's the it's a ifa. It stands for something in another language.

I don't even have a clue what it means, but it is a consumer electronic show. They say this is the world's largest consumer electronic show. This actually lasts about ten days versus the typical three or four days for CEES. Eighteen hundred plus global exhibitors. They had two hundred or so speakers, and they say more than two hundred and fifteen thousand visitors from one hundred and thirty eight countries. That's who attended this past week at EFA in Berlin.

And I'll get into the comparing of how this compares to CEES. There were very few American companies, I must say, not a lot of American based companies here, a lot of home impliances. But the big difference is this has opened up to the public. The public can buy tickets to walk through the show. Versus CEES. It's trade show only. There's media, which is how I get my press pats, and then there's the manufacturers. There's the buyers, the marketers

and whatever. He's not open to the public CEES. This is open. So it's like a car show. Car shows are actually open to the public. There you buy tickets and you can peruse your cars, trucks and whatever to determine what you're gonna buy next. This is kind of the same thing. That's why this is technically larger. In my mind, I did, however, get to meet real quickly Berlin's governing mayor, the mayor of Berlin. He was there on opening day. There was security around. I have no

clue what was going on. His name is Kai Vegner, I believe is his name. I am kidding you, not as I go to break here breaking every one. I'm kidding you. Not his title. He's the governing mayor. But there's another title. I cannot make this up, folks. The dude's name. The dude's title is Burgermeister. I am not kidding you. Burgermeister hi Vegner. Dude, it is a year without you know, the Santa Claus. It was hilarious. I did. How awesome would your business card be if it says

Burger Meister, burger Meister, meister Berger. I'm not get There were a lot of parts of Berlin that reminded me of the old stop motion animation The Year without a Santa Claus. Remember that that was awesome. There I met the Burgermeister fur Led. It was just cool. I'm gonna tell you more about that. Listen, I'm gonna tell you what I saw. I'm gonna give you some travel tips.

If you're traveling internationally. We're gonna talk about VPNs E, SIMS for your phone, some other neat tricks, and a number of different special guests today to talk about new products. It's a big, big, big show. It's called the High Tech Text Show. Michael Rodfield, We're gonna be right back. You know what, in a kind of good mood. Why don't we give something away? It's radio continued The High Tech Textan Show. Miguel is the name miss Il Michael Garf.

Just don't call me late for dinner. Okay, right over here? Well, why don't we give something away?

router five G home wireless Internet. All you can eat, I think it's like a thirty five or forty dollars a month. It's really it's boy, it's saving me a ton of money versus you know, the O cable stuff. Got a twenty dollars gift card right now, color number nine seven one three, two, one, two, five, nine, five to zero. It's the Victor stores Total wireless. You see some of the stores. I saw some billboards. All I have no clue why I am not on the billboards.

You know, I do endorsements. I'm on TV commercials and I'm on billboards. Need a doctor that's little wireless. If you want to sell some stuff, put my ugly bug on those billboards. Baby, it's spits. I've done it before in this city. But here's your prize, color number nine. You get a twenty dollars gift card to use in any of these stores. We do continue the high tech texts in show back from a World of Traveling to Berlin, Germany. I was there for ifa IFA. It is the world's

largest consumer electronics show. I saw some things. It was very interesting. To kick off the show, I went to a preview night for media only, and they do this at CEES also. It's called Showstoppers. Showstoppers, it's nice. They have about seventy companies and they only invite media, so it's a more intimate situation for me and my ILK who covered the industry, so we don't have to schlep around the hundreds of thousands of square feet of the show floor the exhibits that start the next day. But

it was really nice what show Stoppers done. They had a number of really good companies and some of the products in the themes that I saw. There were a lot of home appliances. There were a number of different the robotic vacuums and robotic mops. There were the robot type. The robot Rock was there. For example, I actually have been using a robo rock vacuum mop in my house I've been testing for the past month or so, which works very well. Then there's the upright Eureka was there.

They had some of their new products that you've that you've heard of. Projectors. Home projectors, I must say, are really getting big. And this is a category that I'm more the happy to answer your questions and give you some some guidance because television's HDTVs have become so relatively

inexpensive from what they started. You know, when they when they first came out in two thousand and two, two thousand and three, there were fifteen it was twelve to fifteen thousand dollars for a fifty inch flat screen TV. Now you can go to Costco, you can go to Sam's. You know, you can get a you know, sixty five seventy five inch four you know, five hundred to one

thousand dollars projectors though, why not use a projector? And I think this is going to be a trend because companies, a lot of Chinese companies, they're making projectors that do show four K, ten eighty p screens that you can project on a wall, both inside and outside. They're becoming portable, they're becoming so much, so much smaller than the old projectors. Listen, I'm gonna, you know again, I'm showing my age over here.

But you know, when ustep projector, you know, these things were like you saw in the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties in school. You had to, you know, put these things fifteen to twenty feet back and they had a very large lens and you had to really darken the room.

And then some of them for televisions. There was the red, the green, the blue, you know light that that converged nowadays, you know, I have one here, I actually have one right now I'm holding this is from a company called x GMI x g I M I and I could talk about this now because I met the x GMI folks in New York a month ago. I did less than a month ago. I've been traveling on and they had me up to a press conference where they launched

a new line. They launched about four to five to six different new projectors that also I saw at EFA. They had a big booth in EFAH that are relatively inexpensive, one of which is a portable one. I'm holding this thing up right now and it looks like a it's a canister. It's a large can of soup. If if I could, you know, just you know, kind of give you an analogy of how big or small this thing is. It's I'm holding out it is less than what is

this a pound and a half or something. So I could take it to a friend's house to plug it in through USB or maybe a small or a mini HDMI plug. I we wright to plug it. We can watch football game we could project it outside to make a big screen. If the kids are having a pool party or you know, some birthday party, they want to show a movie. You know it's a frozen plug it in, you could do this too. But on the inside of your own there are There was a lot of projectors.

I mean there was a number of different ones that I saw at Ifa Was at Yarba. That was another one seven, one three, two, one two, five nine five ozho here Michael Garfield. It is the high tech text and show if you want to ask about that, if you're thinking about looking for a really good home theater experience or outside home theater experience. But computers really really

revolutionized projection technology. It was scout Is probably the early eighties were LCD projectors made home theaters much more accessible. But some of the advantages that I, you know, I think of it. I was taking notes of having a projector at home. It's really but what beyond what a basic TV can give you. You can, you know, customize the screen size because projectors provide screen size variations, unlike

conventional TVs, which are a set a set form. You can get huge images to make you feel like you're part of a live event, you can. You know, projectors refract if you think about it, projectors reflect light rather than transmit it straight. So sometimes it's more comfortable for your eyes than standard screens. It's an indirect light projection. It really it probably can help lower eye strain. The size of projectors, I said, they're very small. They fit

for mounting on shelves or ceilings. They're portable right now. And I think for the value, projectors give a bigger screen size, not a fraction of the cost as big high def TVs. You know which is better value, And so when you're looking for them, just you know a few factors to consider. Look for projectors with high resolution. You want at least ten eighty P four k's ideal for really the best clarity. You want good brightness. Brightness

is measured in lumens, that's what it is. And maybe a high contrast ratio for vivid colors and the deep blackings. As you know, if you've listened to my show for a long time, the most important color when it comes to looking at television screens, it's it's the color black. It really is. Uh, it's the best projectors. Listen, it's I saw so many ex Jimmy was one. I like it because I've really got to actually talk to a lot of the executives there. Yaber y A b e R.

I saw those folks over at as showstoppers. They were in they were in Berlin too. There's food listen, a lot of Chinese Japanese companies do food. Doughties and Tupetros and did these are brands with you know, truth be told, I'm not familiar with I've never heard of. But go look at the prices of some of these things and think of how you may want to use it. Maybe you want to use it for the holiday season, the

football games. It's they're they're really good. So anyway, those are some of the things that I think I saw that that kind of I'm not gonna say took over IFA in Berlin, but it was one of the bigger categories that I saw along with some of the home appliants. The home appliants says, you know, I saw hair, hair brushes, I saw some high tech hair brush and of course, you know me and the hair I wanted to sample these things. But but I think that that nice lady

working at believe she couldn't understand English. Uh she didn't, so I got her card, said yeah, I don't know. It's going to help grow your hair. I do not need help them growing my hair. But there's hair brushes, there's high tech hair dryers, there's there's there's there were window cleaners that that that automatically stick on your window.

It's like a robotic window cleaner. Imagine taking your robotic vacuum cleaner and it vertically sucks and sticks onto you the outside, over your windows and it cleans your windows. There's another dish. I'm a check out my YouTube channel and check out high Tech text in dot com and without a doubt, my Instagram high tech texts and and you can see it. I'm gonna continue to post some of this stuff as we continue the High Tech text and show. Coming up, we're going to talk about travel traveling.

I was on an eight hour flight minimum, I think, from the United States to Brulin, and I'm gonna tell you everything that I brought on there, some things that made me comfortable and some things that I actually discovered to make traveling internationally a lot easier. And if you're an international traveler, I want you to enjoin in. This is a radio show that we want to hear from you. Seven one three, two one two five nine to five

zero bottom of the hour, Michael Garfield, congrats. We do have a word for the twenty dollars gift card to the Total Wireless US stores here in and around Houston. Actually, you can use these things whatever. There's a Victor v I C t R. A Victor owned store that is total wireless. You can use it to you, you know, all over the all over the country. If you happen to win that gift card, stand by, we may have a few more diveaways, because that's what we do in radio.

We did high tech texted. That is how you can find me on Instagram and high tech textan dot com or back. Jet Lags are real thing, people. Jet lags a real thing. It was a seven hour time difference between Berlin, Germany and Houston. Berlin where I was last week to go to EFA. I f A EFA Berlin, the world's largest consumer and electronics expo and trade show. First time I've ever been to Berlin. Had a really, really nice time. I stayed in the center of this city.

I do want to thank the folks from EFA and Berlin and everybody from Chryl to Steve Leon and the folks at Showstoppers for getting me over there and hosting me in a number of my ilk in the media so we can cover it. Some of the EFA has been around for it. This is the one hundredth year, one hundred year. What was technology like one hundred years ago?

I would love I don't know that. I can someone find a does someone have a YouTube channel one hundred years ago to actually have some video or some raw footage of what products were displayed one hundred years ago at the very first EFA conference. I mean, think about this, It was nineteen twenty four, nineteen twenty four of the very first year that was before the When was the Berlin Olympics? When that nineteen thirty six, the Jesse Owen Olympics.

I mean, who created a technology show in nineteen twenty four? I mean what was it? Was? It was that a horse? Was it a carriage? I have no clue anyway, but there were eighteen hundred plus companies from all over the world does showcasing their wares. I'll go get at the Board of Berlin. It's well, I'll tell you what. Let me give you my quick thirty second sixty second Berlett. Berlin. It's a it's an incredibly historical city. It really, really

is it. The weather was actually very eustony ish it was. It was hot, it was toasty. It was ninety or so degrees and there was some humidity, and I'm thinking, I, you know, I I imagine Germany is hills and mountains and snow and you know, you know, Christmas and the whole thing like that. Not this time of year. People. It was it was a little toasty. I do to understand. It's like Houston. I think it does get a little

cooler October November to sever. Easy to circumnavigate. Subway. I got a week long subway pass on the what's called the BVG. Very easy to get around. I stayed right in the center of the city. Ritz Carton Ritz Carlton Hotel probably one of the nicest hotels, I mean, without being a Bridgewart resort hotel that I've ever stayed in.

The customers, the customer service and the way they take care of people at at at hotels or even restaurants outside of America or just I'm sorry, they blow America away. I mean they were just so nice. Germans loved their breakfast too. What is up, Calum, You would have loved their breakfast. I could have sat there at this The breakfast is included in a lot of the hotels. I believe in Germany that they had it. They had an all you can eat breakfast buffet, which I wouldn't even

call it a buffet. It was the most high end flud that you could just keep going in and going. That was my only meal of the day. I mean I could have sat there for three hours. Then they knew exactly my name. Hell on, mister Garfield, take it that it was your day. They knew what I drank. It's like, you know, hey, I know you don't drink coffee, sir, or tea. Here's your Pepsi Max Pepsi because it's a ritz. Carlton, because it's a merry out company, could not have been nicer,

very easy to get to. I stayed in the pots demmer Plots, which is it's a famous part of the city walkable to. I saw the Brandon Gate, I saw Checkpoint Charlie, and they left up a very large section of the Berlin Wall. There's a two hundred yards or so with a really interesting museum, I'm a memorial in terms of history, there's there's to me. I'm listening. It's

incredibly old city. But in the last one hundred years we've got the Hitler error, which we want to forget, and then there's the Cold War and there's remnants of both of those everywhere. And there was a really moving outdoor display and I'm not going to call it a museum of for to commemorate of all the Jews who perished during that horrific period, you know, about ninety years ago,

and it's very, very moving. If you've been to Berlin, it's there are just hundreds and hundreds of not thousands, of these these stones and that you can walk through that very claustrophobic, and it just gives you the sense of what it was like to be Jewish and living in that time, and it was it was very moving.

But it's I think Germany has realized that, you know, what we really I don't know, do we really want to take responsibility and we're kind of embarrassed for what Hitler did there We're going to commemorate and realize and and hopefully tried to make amends and of what should not have happened. Oh, so many of the gooes, and and there was a lot of museums, and it really was touching, it really was moving. And so should you go to Berlin, please make time to go to some

of these commemorative places. Just you know, when the wall came down, I don't know a lot about history. History. It was not my thing, and it's still not my thing. I stayed probably somewhere. I don't know if I was on the east or west side of Berlin, because the wall was zigzagging you everywhere. And where I was staying that was at Checkpoint Charlie. That was one of the places where you could walk between the east and the west side. It just I learned a lot, really really did.

There's there. The shopping was fun. There are high end shops, large avenues, large museums, and again a lot of youth, a lot of young people, twenty and three year olds just walking around. Everybody spoke English and they were they were they were quite friendly. It'd be nice to actually to go back again, maybe in the winter. So a quick travel thing. So I popped over. I hopped over there, and uh, sadly, Southwest Airlines Southwest Listen, Texas based company.

I'm a longtime shareholder. I'm an a list preferred I'm a companion path. I know you go to Mexico. I know you go to a lot of countries kind of down south, you know, Jamaica. You really should go Europe would be nice, be nice to actually have my companion pass actually worked at Europe. But when traveling on an airplane, I I kind of overpacked. I brought compression socks. I did. Somebody told me to do that. There's Wi Fi over

the ocean right now by the way. If you're a Tea Mobile customer, which I'm not a Tea Mobile customer, United as a deal with T Mobile that you actually can get free Wi Fi. That was pretty cool. If not, I think it's at eight dollars. But there's the flight that I was on. They had in the seat in front of you. They had the video screens and you

could watch hundreds of movies and everything. Everything. Now, when you bring your own Bluetooth headphones, the particular aircraft I was on, you couldn't connect your Bluetooth earphones to the video that you're watching. So you know, I also brought a tablet. I brought my aceus's laptop and so I was watching movies via the Wi Fi through this, so I can have my Bluetooth headphones. They do give you the little corded old fashioned headset that you have the

wire to plug in. But a dude sitting next to me on the flight back, he was using this gadget that it was really brilliant and it's a this particular company, and I haven't I reached out to him, and I need to try a sample. It's called Airfly AI r fl Y and what it is. It's a it's a Bluetooth device that has a three and a half millimeter phone jack, a headphone jack, just like your old phone

from years ago had the little headphone jack. You plug the headphone jack into that video monitor because planes they have those little headphone jacks, you know, they still do what it does then it allows a little tiny that gosh's only like one inch one and a half inches long. It's a Bluetooth connection that takes the audio output from those airplane video monitors and allows you to connect your Bluetooth headset. So now you can watch those video monitors

on an airplane through your Bluetooth headset. I think they're a fitting where between forty to sixty dollars. So I thought that was pretty cool too. Other few things that I tried out over there. First time I've ever used an eSIM and e SIM. Do you know what at e SIM? Well, when you travel across to another country, how do you use your cell phone? Do you light up your international plan for ten dollars a day or whatever it is? Or do you get do you buy a SIM card? And again this SIM card SIM it

stands for Subscriber Identity Module. It's that little tiny plastic card that you probably never see, but it's in. You could pop it out of your phone. It's the size of your pinky fingernail, if not even smaller than that. That's actually your phone number. That's how you change your phone number. That's all your dat. You could switch from phone to phone to phone. You just move your SIM card to other phones. But now there's an eSIM, which is like an electric or SIM. It's not a physical card.

Newer phones, your iPhones or Android phones, they have the ability to add an unphysical or a number if you will, another phone number that allows it to connect internationalist. So no I bought an ESM and I think I bought like five gigs of data. Generally, when you buy these a SIM cards, there's so many companies. Gigsky is one of them, Errol is another, and we could talk about this later. If you've got your favorite one and they

you could. Some of them are ten dollars. I think I paid forty dollars because I knew I was going to have to stream the Texas Michigan football game. How about them orangs by the way, And it worked, It worked quite well, and so I bought it before I went, before I traveled. It was on my phone. As soon as I landed in Berlin, I switched over from my traditional United States phone number to this e SIM and I was able to receive calls and text and everything,

even though I still did use WhatsApp and whatever. And they work pretty well. And so before you travel, do your research. Make sure you pop in, you know, go to go find a company put in the country you're going to pick your plan, how much you're going to use. It just takes a matter of minutes to actually to scan it maybe a QR code, and install it on your phone. The latest iPhone models, they have a capability to store. I think up to eight different eSIMs simultaneously,

so esim's actually at work pretty well. When we come back, we'll talk about VPNs, why it's important to use a vp a virtual private network when you're traveling, and plus your phone call seven one three, two one two five, nine to five. Out here Michael Garfield, it's high Tech Texan Show. Back at it, Michael Garfield. It is the long running what we call the High Tech Texan Show. But we talk about any damn thing I want to

talk about. I've done it for twenty two plus years here on kp ORC nine to fifty AM across Houston and iHeart Radio all across the state of Texas and around the world. We do thank you for tuning in just a few minutes before twelve o'clock net, which means it's lunchtime. Joe joins me right now tavern by Hearsay.

sixty units above us. There's another luxury condo building across the street from us that have another three to four hundred units in it, and it's perfectly located in the heart of the theater district. Right around the corner is a couple of theaters that drives a lot of tragic

to that downtown area. So we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of the location that was available, but we needed to come up with a different style concept so that we didn't capitalize or we didn't cannibalize the market share. So we decided to do is create a concept called Tavern by Hearsay. We have a core about twenty five to thirty percent of our regular gastro lounge menu items on the Tavern menu, but the other seventy percent is an elevated version. It's a lot of British influence.

We have fish and chips. We have some Indian influence as well. We have a phenomenal Tandory chicken sandwich. We offer Tandori pizza, we have a curry and then we have some of the staple we have a filet and some of the other stable dishes that we have at the other locations as well, but we needed something a little bit different to capture and draw a different clientele based.

but the Indian inspired selections. Great call, but that that's kind of out of the blue. I mean, how did you kind of like narrow down that Well, when you think.

You know, there's a lot of high end hubs and taverns, you know that you'll see in the UK, and we were really inspired by that and we wanted to create more of an elevated intimate feel something a little bit different than the Gastroroounde's location and the space is very small, it's about seventy five seats, very intimate, and we wanted to do something a little bit more elevated, a little bit more higher and and we wanted to bring that local kind of cheers vibe that you would see at

your regular bar and tavern. We want that type of feeling experience, but with an elevated decore and with an elevated cuisine.

beautiful smoker. We added the pizzas as well in the Leady Park section and that gave us a little bit broader of an audience than the other gasual lounge locations. And then here over at Tavern, we wanted that a little bit of Britain in that little bit of Indian influence, just to capture a little bit wider of a demographic.

fifty one and fifteen. The hearsay is you've got a wonderful, wonderful group of restaurants and very soon you're gonna have a wonderful, wonderful batch of brown water at the courtesy of me.

a dinner. We've definitely made it as easy as possible for people to join us.

the world. It was in Berlin, Germany. I was there for about six days last week, first time in Berlin. If you podcast this, which by the way, Callum, you will put this up on our iHeartRadio podcast less than an hour. Once the show is ova, you can go back in here our number one with my Bible thoughts on and actually touring around Berlin. It's it's a very interesting city. It really is. At some points. He should go check it Out's a lot of history, fun shopping,

very young city. But if you're a history buff between the I guess the Hitler era which we don't, which we want to forget about. But there's a lot of history and museums there and the Cold War. The wall got to go up and touch and pieces of the wall that are that are that are still in place over there. But your questions and phone calls, that's what we do here. Seven one three, two one two five

nine five. Oh, I did see some interesting technologies over there. Obviously, this is not doesn't take the place of cees which happens in Las Vegas every January, which this will be probably my twenty third year coming up that I will attend, but uh not. A lot of American companies were showing their year off. This is much more of an international trade show. A lot of Chinese companies when it comes to household products, robotic vacuums and mops and chitchen gadgets

in what have you. There there's some TVs. I did not no no phones really per se. I think the phones kind of took their own They had their own press conference this week. Apple had their iPhone sixteen announcement. If anybody cares, they're coming out, I guess another week or so, they'll have the sixteenth version of the iPhone.

Sixteenth is coming out, several different versions of that. And speaking speaking of phones, wasn't speaking of China on the same day that Apple announced earlier this week it's iPhone sixteen. There's a Chinese company that's it's kind of controversialist. It's not too big here in the United States. It's called wah Wai. And you probably don't understand or maybe heard of it, but you may have seen it when it's written out, but it's h u a w e y

oh yeah, yeah, but it's pronounced Whahwei. Huawei announced Get this a trifoled phone, a phone that folds out, not just fold like, because you know there's foldable phones and flipes all you nine iphoners. This is a triple fold phone, if that makes sense. And it's big and it's massive. It's it's basically in a transformer that fits into your pocket. I mean, it's like science fiction. It's called the mate xt.

It folds at not one, but two scenes to allow for three modes of operation, a regular sized phone, a larger square phone, and then a tablet, and when fully expanded, fold out, fold out the screen measures ten point two inches diagonally, that it's got everything from your messaging and your photo editing and your translation. The price tag. If this doesn't turn you away, twenty eight hundred dollars went

e eight hundred dollars. Apparently it hasn't turned too many people away because the company, whether you believe this or not, they have said they already have five I have a million free orders. This is from Huawei, so I cannot verify if they're actually five million orders. Now that may be pre orders. Are they actually going to turn into qualified sales. I'm not sure, but you know, for years

I said, there's some controversy. For years, the US has tried to really stemy Hua Wai's growth with sanctions, but the Chinese tech company, which is really big in China, they fought back. I mean, the company has reported double digital revenue and profit growth last month, and it's really giving Apple a run for its money in the Chinese market. And that's coming out. But there was not a lot of phones announced at EFA, But there was a lot of phone news this coming week. If you want to

talk about phones, I am here for you. Use your phone. You can call me seven one three, two, one two, five, nine to five. Ho as we talk a little bit more about travel too. I used I don't use a VPN a lot here at home private network when I'm connecting on a computer, and I really didn't plan to use one when I was in and when I was traveling internationally. But I needed one. And let me tell

you why VPNs. The more I talked about it, and the more I just antadotally talked to people from America who I was, who were there in Germany with me covering the ETHA technology vension, why they use a VPN. A VPN, by the way, it's an application that runs in your computer, but it also runs in your phone, and it encrypts your data, and it can conceal your location. It hides your location, It confuses servers to not let

them know exactly where you are. What it does that makes it harder for hackers to steal your passwords and all the other data that you have. But it also allows you to access websites that may be blocked in the country you're visiting. Russia, China, Iran, they heavily restrict and they ban VPNs. But I see the stat only forty one percent of Americans use a VPN, and whether you want to use it now in the United States, but when you're traveling you may want to let me

tell you quickly. I got about them in two minutes for the break. Why I started using a VPN last week. I'm in Germany, so it's Saturday morning, and well it's Saturday afternoon, seven hours ahead, and I wanted to watch arguably the biggest college actually not arguly the biggest college football game of the season, my Texas Longhorns versus the

Michigan wolver Raines. Well, I have and I have the ESPN app, and I can watch pretty much anything that's on ESPN when I'm in the United States because ESPN has the rights to broadcast Well that specific well actually was Fox, but it was on Fox. But I watched the ESPN College Game Day. I wanted to watch point Is, I wanted to watch TV United States TV, but I'm in Germany. Well, you can't just snappily do that. So

what I did is I downloaded a VPN. There are free VPNs, which sometimes she may want to stay away from because they're free with all the ads popping up, and there's some that are reputable that you have to pave on an annual basis, Nord VPN and a number of those others. But the thing is I had to install a VPN. I found a VPN that has a United States based server, so I think it was like it pretended I was in Chicago. Once I downloaded and

turned the VPN on, even though I'm physically sitting in Berlin. Gervity, the world and anybody surfing them from my computer and my phone thought I was logging in from the United

States because I used a VPN. Well, knowing that I'm in the United States and I'm using air quotes, I could do anything I wanted to, Like I'm in the United States, so I was allowed to watch the ESPN app for College Game Day, I got to tune into Fox Sports app to watch the actual game, which, by the way, Jack's Longhorns slot the hell out of the Michigan Wolverines VP or a big Do you use a VPN? Talk to me? Seven one three two one two five nine five. Oh, it's also how you could probably listen

to me all around the world. Mostly around the world where VPNs aren't banned. You could download the iHeartRadio app I remember going to Mexico. I've done my show from all over the world. I remember doing my show in Mexico and people were listening to me while they're standing I'm doing it from the resort and they were standing right in front of me on their phones listening to iHeart Radio. That Mexico. There's just one country that actually you can you don't need you know, that allows you

to listen to the United States. Sometimes when you travel though, you need to pretend you're not there. That's when some of the ways you should use a VPN. And if you are traveling abroad, howd of recommend a VPN Virtual Private Network? All right, anything else you got, We're going to take a break right now. Our number two continues here right here on the Hot Tech Texan Big Shodow.

Yes a few uh about twenty minutes after the hour, Thank you tuning in Michael Garfield, the long running high Tech Texan show kp ORC Radio nine to fifty AM here in and around Houston and also around the world on iHeartRadio, and he were talking about some news Earlier this week, Apple announced the sixteenth iteration of its iPhone, the iPhone sixteenth for all you Apple bands out there.

If you're a longtime listen, you know I'm kind of an Android person, just because the Android operating system is much more prevalent around the world than the iOS. But that's okay. But it didn't stop one particular gentleman in Houston, Texas, one talented man, one talented artist, from paying homage to arguably one of the greatest inventions of the technology era, the iPhone. There is an art show that has something very closely to do with iPhones, and I wanted to

get to the bottom of this. The famous artist here, John Slavey, who has been in Houston for thirty years, incredibly talented man. He is exhibiting an art show right now that goes through the early part of October, which is called Adam and Eve and the iPhone. I know Tim Cook must be very happy. John Slavey joins me here for a few minutes, what they can brow pay homage to the iPhone? And here in Ust it will have to start with an apology.

so many different pictures and variations. Tell us about the display and how it came about.

taking a photograph of something. And that gave me an opportunity to paint an image on these little iPhones, and I decided to select an entire range, a wide variety of images that kind of exemplify how we see the world. We see the world through the iPhone. We see the word through our smartphones in general, really, and everything that we experience we record on our phones, and we learn and experience all kinds of things on our phone. So I have all kinds of objects, all kinds of images

rather on all of these phones. So I have landscapes and sea scapes, I have food and beverage, I have life and death. I have war images, I have babies, I have old people, you name it. Everything that we would normally use an iPhone to record is here. So the ensemble itself becomes a kind of an encapsulation of

the human experiences seen through the smartphone. And I've done some other larger paintings that are much much bigger than phones, that might go as high as four feet that have the icons replaced with other imagery to exemplify what we use the iPhone for, how it affects us and so forth. So all of this came about because I use phones a lot. We all use phones, and in my last show, I'd done some paintings about the phone, and I just decided to go.

we capture everything. And when I talk about and I recommend and I review phones, I have to remind people that it's called a smart phone, but I think the most used app on a phone is the camera. It's more of a I use my smartphone as a camera

more than I do anything else. Really, I take photos, I shoot my videos, I edit my videos, and we see life as you're right, John, through the our smartphones Thane, and I guess that's what inspired you to say, hey, listen, this is what we're living now in the twenty first century of how we view the world.

guys don't do that. I don't ever do that. So that's allowed me to add that to the to the library of images. I also downloaded about maybe about a dozen image is off the Internet, and that's where the war images come from. So mixed in with all these so called banalities of our you know, everyday experience, mixed in with all of that are pictures from Ukraine and Gaza, some really horrific scenes. So it really as to a high drama of when one looks at the Entyrenants ensemble, the.

connect with a lot of these different images. So that's what makes it so powerful.

I don't know. I can't know about that one. We'll get well, ye, we'll see if we can get some of a sponsorship for my man, John Slavey. All right, we're gonna get did you the High Tech Taxi show right after this don't go Anywhereah, just about thirty more minutes left here this show. I'd love to hear from you seven one three two one two five nine five zero thanks to artist artiste John Slavey here with his iPhone art exhibit. iPhone Art exhibit. You know what it's

I'm not the greatest painter in the world. Maybe I should do Uh, I'm gonna do an Android art exhibit. You know. Take that. Get a sponsor. I'll get wild wide at sponsors. I don't know if Samsung doesn't want to, So we continue the the High Tech Textan Show top

of the hour. I was talking about using VPNs and e sim with for your phones when you travel internationally and someone it actually someone just sent me this about traveling with gadgets and gear to Mexico and I had to do some quick research here during the break, So bear with me. And if anybody has had issues with traveling with gadgets and iPads and laptop devices to Mexico and has come across this, I would I would love for you to call in seven one three two one

two five nine five M see if you can verify this. Okay, I'm not trying to spread rumors, but and I'm gonna in so much so I have to cite my source. This is on Yahoo Life. There is a writer, Jony Sweet. She just wrote this a few days ago. And I did a little bit more research and I did see a few articles about this about thinking twice before bringing laptops and iPads to Mexico because it could cost you money.

Apparently there Mexico has a tax on extra technology gadgets that you bring into the country that tourists are allowed. And I'm gonna quote this now. According to the Mexican Consulate General in Montreal, I'm just reading this, tourists can bring only one laptop, notebook or other portable computing device

into the country with out paying taxes. Does anybody know about this, and if you exceed these limits bringing more iPads and laptops on your trip to Mexico, you may, and I use the word may, you may need to pay hundreds of dollars when you go through customs at the airport, and you can face a fine. And the writer here, the author of this article, has a friend of hers. She landed in Cancun, and I'm reading this on Yahoo life. Was that iPad in a MacBook Pro?

Last week? She was asked to step aside for a bag search through customs. Customs a just discovered devices they demanded and that's reading what she wrote. They demanded she pay about one hundred and ninety US dollars in duties for bringing the extra laptop or it was going to be confiscated. So how many devices? Has anybody heard that? Seven?

One three two one two five nine five zero Find me on x also high Tech Texan HI g h T E c ht E x A N. Has anybody ever been busted in Mexico for bringing too many devices? Because let me help you out. Well, if he just tuned in, I just came back from Berlin. I was in Germany for this big technology convention. If they taxed me on everything that I brought in and actually took out.

I mean laptops, bluetooth headphones, several cameras and phones that would have probably cost me more than the flight itself. They have made me. No, they could have helped me capitives over there. They need to read this sort of about Mexican customs is strict about your gadge account. You're allowed just one tax exempt hortable computing device per person. We have been to Mexico most all of my life. I mean I don't go regularly, but the resorts can't.

I mean, I've traveled across the border here in Texas, I the Cancuns, the world. I mean, I don't ever ever heard of this nineteen percent duty on the estimated value of your extra device. But they say they don't check everybody. There are travelers online who claim this laptop rule as a myth, and they've breezed through customs, probably me one of them, because Mexico customs officers don't search every bag you so you may get lucky, so you could hope for a free pass, but if not, if

you get busted, it's it's gonna be. It's gonna be it's gonna cost you some some pesos, baby interest. I did not know this. I don't know, I think cal I'm will tell you what you know, what we need to do. I think we need to go to Mexico. I think you know I have done my radio show for Mexico no less than three or four times, several different cities, beautiful resorts. I think we need to go again, don't you think? So? Next month or two, set up shop at at the pool and and let's just bring

all our gear. I mean I travel with radio gear, which that I mean that technically is not a personal gadget to do shows over there. I've I've never heard of this. This is this is kind of I again, I can't confirm this. I'm trying to get behind this, but I've see several things online, including an article written by Joni Sweet on Yahoo life, uh yahoo dot com slash lifestyle. So that's what I got. Anybody can confirm that? Please let me know seven one, three, two, one two

five nine five. Oh where else do you want to travel? That's that? That is absolutely crazy? Hey, Garth, Yes, I've been to Berlin and I've been to Germany many times. I'm glad you had a really nice experience. This is not the best time of the year for the weather. Weather does get much better and cooler come November through February, not unlike it is in Houston. Were you able to walk around and see some of the it's actually going too fast. Were you able to walk around and see

some of the nicer clothing shops and shops. I know you're a clothes horse. I know you're always looking for great deals. Where your thoughts on shopping is that a good place to buy? This is from James. James is in Parentland. I wasn't able to shop there. There was it. There was a store if anybody's been to London, the probably the biggest store in the world, the one of the most famous stores in the world, which I love. It's Herod's. It's six or seven store. In the basement.

They have got this food hall which is bigger than I don't know, it's bigger than a shopping mall of a high end food and everything. There's no Herods in Berlin, but there is something very similar to it, and it's called how to v Ka Dawe's called kata v High end District. I took the subway to get there. Absolutely gorgeous.

I mean it is. You walk in and everything. They've got your Louis Vaton's, and they've got the Balleenziegas, and they've got the Cardier's, and then you go up and they've got they got the men's section, which I did not buy anything of that men's section. It was not the cheapest thing, even with the euro conversion of the adults. But on the top floor they had a food hall and I wanted to live there. This was so cool they I mean you talk about the neatest and highend.

First of all, you could oversee the whole city of Berlin. Highly recommend if you go there, go to the store called Kada v just they was it Vove through Champagne my way Shandon. They've got a champagne area. They've got oysters over here, They've got sushi over here. They've got a beer Stein's over here, They've got chocolate, chocolate, chocolate, They've got candies over a was to. It was fun. They have you talk about universals. I love shopping at Zara.

I love Uniclo and if you don't know what Unicloe is, Ladies and gentlemen there's Unicloth coming to Texas in about a month or two. It's gonna be a Memorial City mall. And for my Dallas people, it's gonna be the Dallas Gallery. I finally Texas is getting a Unicloth. It's a Japanese clothing store. There's another one that I'm a fan of. It's called Prime Mark, and I went to my first one in Chicago this summer. But there were several Prime Marks over here. This is like ready to wear, and

I think it's from Japan. Also, this has got to be the most inexpensive clothing I've ever seen. It was awesome. I mean, I've got I got really nice T shirts, cool dress t shirts for three dollars and thirty cents US dollars. I mean, it is stupid. In Chicago this past summer, I got a bathing soup for three dollars. Did you not so? Yes, I appreciate that. Yes. I did go shopping over there too, brought back a laptop.

I did get to go again. I was there for IFA, which is a very the world's largest consumer and trade technology show. Two hundred and fifteen thousand people went through the gates. It was in a very big convention center called Messe Berlin e SSE. It was just walking and walking. You know, I was doing twenty twenty five thousand steps a day, which was you know, typic typical when I go to cees in Vegas and January. But I did go to Assist Computers as US. They weren't on the

show floor it is I did. It's a computer company, monitor company, but they released they had a partnership with Intel, and I went to a press conference over there and they released some really cool new computers locked. It's actually the laptops really cool. I've been using an ACIS computer. I like these things and I recommended. I was on Great Day Houston. I did my kind of back to school guide about three or four weeks ago. I showed

off a really very lightweight, nice as US computer. They also make keyboards and mice and all these other things, but when it comes to laptops, they're really taking a really kind of stronghold of how small, how light, how functional they can be, and the design the way they design these things. They have the outside is not just metal or aluminum. It's Sarah aluminum, cere aluminum. It's a new type of lightweight design thing which well looks pretty cool.

Saw a ton of things. One more segment, last chance for phone call seven one three, two five zero, before we wrap up this week's version of the High Tech Detection Show. Before we pack up again and get my passboard stamp to London this coming week. It's the High Traveling Texan gif made it people almost made it. Final segment of this week's show. Not an international show. Between

international shows. I got back from Berlin at the Big ETHA Technology conference last week and then off to London, England tomorrow for a few days to do research on some laptops and actually check out and explore the city. Haven't been to London in When was the last time I went to London? The last I went to London was just awesome. It was two thousand each, I believe it was two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight. You think has has London changed in sixteen years? You think, anybody?

I'm not sure. This will be my third trip, third or fourth trip to the London, so I'm actually looking to explore that and next week on my High Tech Textis show, I will give you updates, more travel tips, and I do thank you It's nice knowing that people actually listen and contribute to the show via phone calls or emails Michael Garfield at iHeartMedia dot com if you're too shy to call. Also an x also on Instagram, and I talked about your trials when you travel internationally.

Do you use an e SIM versus your your regular international phone plan? Do you use a virtual private network, which I do recommend highly, especially if you want to watch United States TV. You need to use a VPN to confuse the servers, to let them think you're in the United States, so you can watch football games on the ESPN app or or Amazon apper or whatever. A lot of travel tips that we talked. If you do want to go back and you want to listen to

the podcast, which callam Reid, thank you. You're going to put it up here at about ten twelve minutes, you can go to iHeartRadio dot com or download the iHeartRadio app you come up from Michael Garfield or kp RC and listen to this two hour show at at your heart's content. And we do appreciate that they just sent me this too. Michael saw this at about international in different countries. The countries that swear the most, that swear

the most, I have no clue. It's amazing you can find anything on the Internet and you don't know what to believe. But I guess it's onnimplefloss dot com and using a database of one point seven million English language location tag tweets, this website tremmd extraneous words from users posts about who swear the most? Any clue? Play a little game over here what country swears the most swear words?

And I would love to tell you some of these swear words, but we are at least over the year, we are bound by the fcc of I'm not using swear words. If this was a solely a podcast, I can use any word that I want to. When it came to the most foul mouth countries in the world, does it surprise you if I say the United States was found to be the country that swears the most number one. You know what I'm getting for glynt that's awesome.

UK has number two, followed by Australia, New Zealand. In Canada, anybody cares, we swear the most at least online and by the way, the most profane city in the US. So they're breaking this thing down. The most profane city Baltimore, followed by Baton Rouge, I see u lsu Fans Atlanta, Detroit, and Jesse goes in at number five. Eaterston freaking Texas. Gotta be proud of that. Gotta be it. John Whitmark, something to hang your hat on. John Whitmeyer is the

Burgermeister of Houston. If you've listened to the top of the show. I ran into it. I saw and I got a picture of the Mayor of Berlin. His name is Kai Kai Wegner. He was at the IFA show. He was surrounded by security. Did not know this guy is from anything. I asked, who is that? Somebody said, that's the Burgermeister. His title is the Burgermeischer, which I translates maybe to the mayor of in Germany. I met

the Burgermeister Meister Berger. I love that. I want a business card with my name burger Meister Meister Garth, the high tech Burgermeister. I needed trademarks, something that is hilarious walking around the show. That is my final thoughts of IFA Berlin. It's different in many aspects than cees that Consumer Electronics show Number one. This one in Berlin, which had two hundred and fifteen thousand people from one hundred and thirty eight countries attend. It's a longer show. I

think it lasts. I don't know, six seven, eight, nine days CES only lasts really as an exhibition, probably four days. CEES is trade show only. You have to be either the media to cover it. You have to be a buyer. You have to be a manufacturer versus the if of the Berlin one. It's open to the public. Publican buy tickets to go look at all these technology products. It's

gone like a car show. There were not a lot of American companies displaying their wares at this ETHA Berlin, where you'll you are able to see a lot of American company startup companies, Mama pop companies, neat ideas at CEES. However, I'm walking around and I see a big, a big booth, massive booth at the Berlin trade show and it's Tesla, and I'm thinking, now we go because I did not see one automobile display at ETHA Berlin versus CES has

into a defecto car show. Almost every major auto manufacturer has a massive booth. It CGES Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas in January. So this is the first car. So I walk up, and not only is Tesla a car, it's a Texas based company. Badquarters are in Austin. Now I'm getting excited. I'm looking around. I see TV's in the wall. I don't see a car. I go up to the ladies. She speaks German in English. Hello, I said, Tesla Texas. I'm from Texas, and she looks at me

like I'm a freak. Yeah. I said, aren't you from Texas and she says, no, we're not the car company. We're a technology company based in Serbia. I'm like, what, ladies and gentlemen. Apparently there is another Tesla company that is not associated associated with Elon Musk's car and battery company, but it is a it's a manufacturer of hardware, of

television or whatever, based in Serbia. So the first thing I tell this lady is like I'm sniffing a lawsuit, and she laughs she has no, We've got patents and trademarks on this and that. So Tesla new to me. Two different companies. If you want the car company, I'm not endorsing the Tesla car company or the Tesla Serbian technology company. I just thought I thought that was interesting,

very interesting. Did not know that maybe there's another Google around the world, diet Maybe there's another high tech Texan that is outside of the United States. Because I hold the trademark inside the United States. I need to do some research on that. Absolutely, I gotta wind up the show over here, Callum Reid listen. Thanks for holding down the fort while I was gone. Thank you for posting this on our podcast. Appreciate everybody calling in. I've got

our guest over here, John Slavey. Go check out his iPhone art exhibit here in Houston that goes through October third. Congratulations to all the winners, to all the giveaways from Cabo Bob's to Victra Total Wireless. If you're looking for a new and build, less expensive way to get your cell phone or data plans or five G home internet over the ear, check out Total Wireless. Also US Coins and Jewelry, Campbell's Compounding Pharmacy, and dystownswith the ziastowns dot

com if you're looking for website creation. Their base right here in Houston are in American Company. For all of us who have been a part of the show, thank you so much. Check out my Instagram for another foreign trip with Michael. Michael Travels. I need to come up with the Michael Travels dot com. This is the High Tech Teching Show. My name is Garth. We'll talk to you next week when we come back again from London. Until then, my show is OVA.