Live From Silicon Valley!

Today on The High Tech Texan Show - 

• Live from Silicon Valley at the Samsung Galaxy S25 phone launch
  
• How can you stop AI from taking over your phones, computer, and your life?
  
• Netflix prices going up. At one point do you say NO?!
  

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Is Michael Garfer.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Michael Garfield.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Michael Garfield's joining.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
In the high Tech Texan. Michael Garfield is here with
a high Tech Texans.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
To make life easier, new technology, and Michael Garfield has
something you might like.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Michael Garfield is your high Tech Texans three decades helping
you make magic with your gadgets. Heard worldwide on the
iHeartRadio add now you're high Tech Texan. Michael Garfield.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
A nice warm studio in Houston, Texas, as I do
the long running a high Tech Texans show. What a
week this is. I swear I could be the new
Ted Cruise. And I I say that with respect from
a man who somehow just happens to leave town during

(01:05):
inclement weather, be it a freezer or hurricane. I did
it again unexpectedly in Houston earlier this week there was
a snowstorm. You talk about hell freezing over on Monday
evening early Tuesday morning, the Houston area got pelting. If
you're listening in Houston, if not, if you're around the
state of Texas, I'm sure you are cold too. And

(01:27):
if you're around the country on iHeartRadio, you're probably realizing
it's pretty chilly. But it rarely snows in parts of
Texas and certainly Southeast Texas. I have been in Houston
thirty years or so, and maybe in the thirty years
it has snowed three times, four times of any sort

(01:47):
of accumulation, and I think every time it snowed over
those thirty years, I've been out of town. And I
won't even talk about the hurricanes I've missed too. Monday,
I had an expected for several weeks trip out of town,
and they had already said that they're going to close
The city of Houston said they're going to close both airports,
Hobby and Intercontinental, and I was worried if I was

(02:09):
going to get out of there. I get to the
airport Monday at Hobby, I fly out Southwest, my preferred
airline of choice. By the way, flight takes off at
five o'clock, I believe they shut down the airport a
few hours later. I was one of the final and
last planes to get out before they shut it down
on Tuesday, and sure enough, the snow came in and
I was nowhere near the state of Texas. In fact,

(02:31):
I am still as we do the show this weekend,
nowhere near the state of Texas ladies and gymen, I'll
tell you where I am. I am in the state
of California. Normally I am in socout. I have two
sons who live in southern California, Los Angeles area. By
the way, they are fine with the fires. Thank you
so much for asking. A lot of people certainly have.

(02:53):
But this past week, since Monday evening, I have been
in no count northern California. I used to love San Francisco.
San Francisco is just a beautiful city. It's it's it's
kind of weird. Now it's kind of dangerous. Right now.
I am just south of San Francisco, about an hour
south with traffic, of course, because this is my first time,

(03:13):
believe it or not, the high Tech text in his
very first time, formerly in Silicon Valley, I have been
in San Jose, California. Sing it with me. People, If
you're a Dion Warwick fan, do you know the we
descend whose a? Actually I was a little b backrack
there San Jose, California, because I am here for us.

(03:37):
I've been here quite a bike quite a bit this
week for the big press conference and the launch of
Samsung's brand new smartphone line, the Galaxy S twenty five
three new phones that I am going to spend a
nice portion of today's program taking your questions going over

(03:58):
the new phones that I have and played with and
have one. Actually, I'm sitting here with several phones and
my laptop connected to the World Wide Web, so I
can bring you these dulcet tones of my radio show.
If you hear some buzzing or a phone going off,
it's gonna take me a few seconds to figure out

(04:19):
which one is a buzzing, and I'll shut it down.
But for those of you who are big Android fans
and who are big Sandsunk fans, and you know, if
you're a long time listener, I am one of those people,
guilty as charged, and I was very excited to take
a first hand look, a first look, and I am
gonna rub it in because for all you others ayo
out there that you have not seen it yet, because

(04:41):
it does not hit the streets until February seventh, you
can pre order it as of earlier this week. I
will tell you the difference between the Galaxy S twenty five,
the S twenty five plus and the Monster S twenty
five Ultra. What changes have been made, if any, on
the hardware, and what changes absolutely were made on the software.

(05:06):
Two big letters that you could probably guess as I'm
just two weeks removed from cees that were very prevalent
in the press conference. And the things that I'm playing
with is AI artificial intelligence. Samsung continues to go all
in on AI, as many many other tech companies are,
and some of the features are very cool, I must say.

(05:29):
And again, I've had the phone in hand for about
two days right now, and I'm getting more used to it.
It feels sleek, and particularly the S twenty five Ultra,
which is the big boy. You know. I'm used to
Samsung's foldable phones with the flip phones. Now I'm back
to the big hershey bar, the bar of soap size phone,
and it is quite large, but it is redesigned with

(05:50):
the hardware and the software is pretty pretty cool and unique.
I think you were going to like it. I like
what they have done with the price, because I'll give
you the laws leader right here, I'll bury the lead.
They haven't done anything with the prices. Samsung has kept
the three phones the exact same prices as the three
different S twenty four models last year which we will

(06:12):
go over to. But was able to spend a lot
of time with a lot of my ilk other people
technology journalists, reviewers and YouTubers and influencers who are much
younger than I with their thoughts, and I will kind
of mix that in with my thoughts. But if you
are again a longtime listener, you know generally I am
a big Android guy. I do not own an Apple phone.

(06:34):
Apple who does not know even though I am so
close right now to Coopertino. I am very close to Coopertino.
They Apple has no clue who the high tech textan is,
which is why I don't really talk about Apple products.
They don't send me any I don't get them, I
don't play with them. I'm just not in the Apple ecosystem.
I'm not a hater. It is just a fact. There
are a lot of companies who don't send me let

(06:55):
me test and review, even for a matter of thirty
days or whatever it is that I'm happy to send
products back. Apparently they aren't proud of their products, that
they don't want a big voice and face and TV
and radio to talk about it. Well, then I won't
talk about it then, But I do thank Samsung, specifically
Nicole and Jane and Dale and Michael and a lot
of the folks on the PR side with the internal

(07:17):
and the external parts of the company who were kind
enough to help me get out to the San Jose,
which by the way, should keep a review. Said, let
me give I got to get out of here about
a minute for the first break, San Jose. I like
the weather. It's certainly not snowing here in San Jose,
when everybody was buried in the snow in Houston that
I was got. I can look at the mountains. I'm

(07:39):
in my hotel room right right now in downtown San Jose.
The weather is it's crisp, it's cool. I can dig it.
But I gotta say, this is a sleepy town. Has
anybody been to San Jose. Let me give you the
phone number three four six twenty nine texts and that's
how you can hit me for the next hour and
forty five minutes or so. Three four six two nine Texan.
We've got Collum back in studio. He'll put you through

(08:01):
to me if I want to take some phot calls. Certainly,
I'm on all the social media channels X and Blue
Sky and Facebook and Instagram, where I posted a lot
of videos and photos of these new phones. You can
hit me high Tech text and Hi g h T
E C h T e x A M. Not much
to do in San Jose, I gotta say, just downtown.
It's kind of a sleepy it's a sleepy hood. But

(08:24):
we can get into that later. Michael Garfield is the name.
It is the High Tech Textan show. Gonna have a
fun snapping a lot of reviews. And oh, by the way,
TikTok made some news. You guys back on TikTok. Well
it's I guess people are still scrolling because the doomsday
came and went. So there is a new president. The
TikTok is still up. Netflick has raised its prices, more

(08:48):
controversies in Hollywood with AI, I have got it all
as we do count down to the Super Bowl. With
no Texas teams in there so much to talk about.
On this weekend's edition of The High Tech Text and Show.
You just can't go anywhere.

Speaker 4 (09:00):
Stay right there, Fox twenty nine, Texas.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
That is the only school phone number. But then again,
this is an old school show. In the new world,
the new technology consumer lifestyle world. Michael Garfield. It is
the High Tech Texans Show, and if you want to talk,
ask questions about everything from the brand news Samsung phones
that you may have been reading about. I am doing
the show from San Jose, California. I know the way

(09:41):
to San Jose, California, thanks to Southwest Airlines and actually
the nice folks at Samsung for helping me get up here.
I've been here most all week, missing the snow in
Houston and the cold weather in Texas. I'll be back soon.
People don't worry about it. But big Samsung press conference
was held in San Jose on Wednesday, and we got
to play with and I still am playing with in reviewing,

(10:03):
and I'll give you my thoughts on the new Samsung
Galaxy S twenty five series, especially the S twenty five Ultra,
the Monster, the Big Dog, AI enabled everywhere, new hardware,
rounded edges. It's quite nice. Same price as as last
year S twenty fours, which we'll get into should I

(10:25):
I want to hit TikTok here real quick though. Okay,
I don't want to make this all Samsung in phone centric,
even though I'm go yet, You, my dear listeners, you
do provide me everything that is happening with what is
going on? So if you want to change the subject,
I'm your guy. But there was a little bit more
news earlier this week. We got a new president. How

(10:46):
about that. We have a new national champion in college football?
No Ohio State not too happy about that because my
longhorns were not. There. A lot of things happen. I mean, hell, listen,
Trump takes Officehio State wins. Hell Freeze is over in Houston.
I mean, this is this is what we're living with
over here. But then again, in the tech world, something

(11:07):
happened two days before inauguration. It was a week ago,
last Saturday. Because all of a sudden it happened. You
know the old adage, where were you when the lights
went out? Where were you when TikTok went down? And
true to the administration's words, TikTok went down in the

(11:27):
United States. Now I didn't know it until I started
getting barraged with emails and phone calls and screenshots with
that little pop up saying capcut is no was currently
not available in the United States because I don't use it.
I never have used TikTok. I know, I know I'm
supposed to. I am the high tech textan. But it's
so I can only handle so many and I want
to handle only so many social media apps. There's there's

(11:51):
no one reason why I never downloaded TikTok. To me,
TikTok was a little late to the party. I mean,
if I look at Facebook from back of the day
and then Twitter, those are the two big boys that
were launched, you know, way back when the first you know,
big social media is and then I had you know,
obviously I'm on LinkedIn, and then there's What'sapp even though

(12:11):
it's not social media, and it's a blue sky that
I'm playing around. But TikTok when it had launched, maybe
I assumed and thought it was just for the younger set,
and I think it kind of was. And now TikTok
is a major major player when it comes to social media,
certainly for not only people how to dance and you know,
get dressed with me, get ready with me, or whatever,

(12:33):
but also for corporations. Corporates companies use it to great
marketing opportunities. I totally understand that, But I never downloaded,
not really because it was owned it is still owned
to this minute by byte Dance, which is a Chinese
based company, which is the reason for the potential band
that it did go down. I just didn't have it.

(12:54):
So that being said, I didn't know what it went down,
so it didn't affect me whatsoever. Now I know my
youngest son was not happy because my youngest son, he's
twenty four, he is to some extent along with this
real job, he is a social media influence. There. Gosh,
I hate that tar, but he's an influencer and he
makes a good amount of kwan by posting some fun,

(13:16):
fun videos on Instagram and TikTok and so you know,
he was texting me and when we had to talk,
he goes, man, what's he goes, TikTok is down. That's
that's not good for me. And you know, listen, when
it now cuts into your livelihood and your business of
how you make money. I understand that side of the uproar.
I'm all for everybody making moulah in money, all right,

(13:40):
And so I felt bad for that, But at the
end of the day, I knew something was gonna happen.
You just don't kill and stop an app that has
what three hundred million users or whatever it is in
the United States. For so long. But sure enough it
was down Saturday afternoon, but by Sunday morning ish, less

(14:02):
than twenty hours or so, it seemed to ah suddenly
pop back up. And you know who took the credit
for that. But apparently there is now a seventy five
day reprieve and while the executive order to allow the
new administration. And again this is all politics, which I
just don't get into politics, but in this case it
is politics. And so the new administration is going to

(14:25):
give itself an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of
action for TikTok and hopefully create an American joint venture
with at least fifty percent of it being controlled by
US interest. And it goes on and on, and now
we've got people for like Elon Musk and mister Beast
and there, you know, just a rumor of that they
may potentially buy the fifty percent of it. You know what,

(14:48):
I want some media too. Maybe we could start a
rumor that the high tech text and wants to buy
fifty percent of it. Hey, I'll pull my money together
with anybody. You know, I got a few shekels here
and there. I'm more than happy to buy one billion
to one percent of TikTok. That's all I got. So
TikTok was not what affected me though, And this is
to prove to you that I'm not really afraid of
the Chinese steeling my data because I really have zero

(15:10):
secrets to hide. TikTok or Sorry byt Dance owns a
number of other companies another a number of other apps,
one of which is one of my favorite apps that
I have downloaded that they are quote unquote taking my data.
And it's a video editing tool and you're probably familiar
with it, but it's called cap cut. I love cap Cut.

(15:33):
I'm doing more and more videos on Instagram and YouTube
and whatever, and cap cut has got to be one of,
if not the easiest video editing apps out there. I
have long said that since I've been using that well
over a year. My kids use it and what have you. Yes,
it is owned by byt Dance, they have my email,
they've got all my photos that I've uploaded. But dang,

(15:55):
it is easy. Sure enough, that went down also on Saturday.
Now at that point it starts affecting me because I
can't edit my videos using my favorite editor, and so
again I even go to my son, my youngest son.
I said, what are you using to edit your videos?
And he gave me like two or three other free

(16:15):
downloadable video editing tools which are not nearly as simple
as as cap cut. But he goes, this is what
I used to use before cap cut was around, and
luckily I didn't need to make any videos. But I'm
thinking if TikTok was coming up again, cap cut needs
to come back up again. Well, I will tell you
cap cut did not come back until like Tuesday morning,
and so it's funny how TikTok came online, but it

(16:36):
took it two extra days for capcut. As of right now,
cap cut is back and unluckily I'm gonna use it.
So I guess the whole point is this is this
is a government play, and I never liked government plays
when it came to business. And I want to go
back to when I used to work at Microsoft. One

(16:57):
of my first jobs ever was at Microsoft. It was
what was in the nineteen nineties or well, I guess
my first job. It was one of my first few
jobs and it worked in Microsoft. And this is when
Microsoft Windows was had to go up again in court
and they were being lawsuits because of Windows and the
Internet Explorer browser were forcibly being put onto every single

(17:19):
laptop and desktop paper made and blah blah blah. And
to me, I mean, it's not like I was trying
to protect Steve Jobs at Steve Job. Sorry about that,
Big Bill Gates. But here is a guy, Bill Gates who, oh,
by the way, started a company called Microsoft way back
in the day. He a brilliant man. He made it
incredibly incredibly successful company. He was so successful that now

(17:43):
our own government was coming after him, and that really
ticked me off. And that turned me as one of
the reasons. It just kind of I get turned off
with the government, the politics, and to me, it was
a message that Americans and again let's talk about Microsoft,
which is American company. Americans, now what's giving them a
mode of motivation an entrepreneurship of anybody, of making an

(18:06):
incredibly incredibly successful company where your own government is coming
after you. It's a cynical way of looking thing, maybe,
but also I think it's a realistic way that I
started seeing things back in the nineteen nineties. Well nowadays
it's the same thing. Listen, Other than the borders of China,
United States, which it's again that's above the pay grade
and whatever. Are they stealing things data from us? I

(18:27):
don't know whatever, that's not the point. But here's an
incredibly successful company and now we've got governments going, well,
you can't do this or you want a piece of this.
It's like, man, it's just because I'm a pro business guy.
I really really am. I'm an entrepreneurial pro business guy.
But here's where we are. As we get to a
break here at the bottom of the first hour of
the High Tech Textian show, TikTok is back running. We've
got about what two and a half three months before

(18:48):
the administration currently right now, it's going to have to
take a look of how TikTok is going to continue
to run. Is an American company going to get fifty
percent of it or one hundred percent of it? We
don't know. But I'm going to give you the phone
number one more time. People three four six twenty nine
textan Where were you when the lights went out? Did
it affect you personally if financially or did you didn't?

(19:15):
Did you take a step back? And I want you
to think about this. Did you take a step back?
You know what? I actually talked to somebody. I didn't
get online. I wasn't doom scrolling. I went out and
walked my dog. I talked to neighbors because, after all,
and I want you to remember this, It's just an app.
It's just an app. For the first eighty percent of
my life I lived without an app. I live without

(19:37):
an app, and I was fine with it. Yes, I'm
kind of addicted some app, addicted to some apps right now.
But where Harway is a society? Do we need this stuff?
Some people do for businesses and they make money. But
if all you do is sit there and doom scroll
to see what somebody had for breakfast, or what lipstick
somebody's wearing, or a beauty tip or a dance tep man,

(19:57):
where are we right now that people freak out to
think of you see more than technology. I'm a think
and a doer. Michael Bardom It is the Hi Tech
Texan Show, right the Hi Tech Texan Show coming to

(20:27):
you from northern California, Silicon Valley. I probably should do
more Silicon Valley people. I probably need to do more
shows up here. Actually, believe it or not. My first
real time spent in Silicon Valley, San Jose, California, maybe
one of the sleepiest cities I've ever seen. I really
expected more. I mean, it's a pretty city. I'm like,
I'm overlooking the mountains and what have you. But downtowntown,

(20:51):
hose old people. It's a ghost town. There's no homeless
people here. There's a few sandwich shops and buildings, a
lot of hotels, a lot of hotels. God to go
into the SAP Center where the San Jose Sharks, for
you hockey folks play. That's where the Samsung Big press
announcement launch was for the new Samsung Galaxy S twenty

(21:14):
five series. Just north of here, about about an hour
forty five minutes an hour, depending on what the traffic is.
They know, by the way, there is traffic here. There
is San Francisco. I'm not far from Levi Stadium where
the San Francisco forty nine ers play, which is pretty cool.
I actually passed that a few days what was it
two nights ago, because I went to the city of

(21:37):
San Francisco. Thank you again to Samsung. They want us
to play around with the Galaxy S twenty five Ultra
and they said, you know, we're going to show you
some sights and let you do some things. And they said, Michael,
you are also one of the biggest sports fans that
we know who also covers technology. We are going to
take you to a Golden State Warriors game. Steph Curry, me,

(21:58):
eighteen thousand other friends got to go to the Chase Center.
It's a pretty new complex, great gorgeous, very technologically advanced
basketball arena in concert arena right there, not too far
from the Bay Bridge. And I got to play with
the phone and I got to see the Warriors play
the Chicago Bulls. Very fun. It was cool. So it's

(22:21):
a lot of very sports centric town, sports centric city
up here. But other than that, you go down to
San Jose and it was quiet. San Jose was rockin'
though on Wednesday at the SAP Center in the morning,
because that is where the I think I say is
the president of Samsung Mobile. He was there, maybe Apollo
of Samsung, A lot of the partners and worldwide media

(22:44):
including Wah We're there and we got to hear all
the new things about the Samsung Galaxy S twenty five series.
I am taking your questions three four six twenty nine, Texan,
t X an Callum Reid he may if he feels
like it, he may pick up your phone calls and
put you through, but I will answer them. Is it
worth it is? What are the prices? Is it easy

(23:09):
to hold? Should I hold off and get this to
an iPhone? I'm not going to sit here and compare
other manufacturers, at least today. I do want to talk
about a lot of news that I saw and learned
about the three new phones of the Galaxy S twenty
five series. As expected, they did announce the trio of

(23:29):
their flagship smartphones really kind of with a one stop
shop approach to AI. Shockingly, artificial intelligence. Every single company
is already hopped on the AI bandwagon. I saw a
lot of new capabilities and some performance improvement that probably
are going to entice new buyers, would be buyers, even

(23:53):
those who aren't even interested in AI, although I probably
will tell you some features that actually work in pretty well.
It was last year that Samsung proclaimed everybody did it.
This is the this is the year of AI. It's
the year of AI, all right, And not because new
phones were AI enabled. It's just I think consumers wanted

(24:15):
to buy new devices because you know, there were new opportunities.
It was about time it was at the economy, whatever
was that they needed a new phone, a new upgrade.
And if you are in the mood of the manner
right now for an upgrade, you may want to think
and consider about the things that I see. Now. I'm
not paid by Samsung. I sure the hell wish I was,
because I've probably sold more Samsung products than a lot

(24:36):
of people who also are in media, because I've long
been a Samsung fan and an Android fan. Now I
play with a number of other Android phones. I just
got finished reviewing the one plus thirteen, which I think
is a really good phone. But I've long been a
Samsung fan because they have been kind enough to, you know,
let me play with them, and so I'm getting very
familiar with them. And I do like, you know, the

(24:57):
Google operating system or Android opera system from Google and Alphabet.
But let's start with the fact that these cameras are
stupid awesome. For the longest well not for the longest time.
I've had the Galaxy S twenty four Ultra Re. It's
the big one and it's almost too large for me

(25:18):
to carry. But for the past year, even though I didn't,
it wasn't my daily carry phone. It has long been
probably the best video camera and photo camera that I've
ever seen, or maybe any company, in my opinion, has
ever put into a smart phone. For the TV stuff
that I shoot on Channel eleven KHOU in Houston, it
is just as powerful, probably as a ten twenty thirty

(25:39):
thousand dollars television camera. I use that to shoot high
resolution videos and segments I shoot photos, and it has
been phenomenal. So I expected everything on the S twenty
five this year's version to be just as big, and
they delivered. There are not one not to but there
are three and four four. There are four rear facing

(26:01):
lenses on the Ultra twenty five series, and certainly this
year the twenty five and one of them has been
upgraded the Ultra Wide format. It was last year twelve megapixels.
It has now been upgraded to fifty megapixels. And so
let's take a count. There's a primary camera two hundred megapixels.

(26:22):
There's a dual photo lenses. There's two of them. There's
a fifty megapixel and a ten megapixel. But that Ultra
Wide went from twelve to fifty megapixel and a lot
and Samsung did a lot of research in whatever they were,
you know, they were blowing smoke or just you know,
you know said, this is the fact that more and
more people are actually using these ultra wide lenses to
actually take you in a more a larger scenery and family,

(26:44):
you know, big family, you get togethers or whatever you
want to do. And I do that too. As I'm
looking outside my hotel window right now, I'm overlooking these
mountains up here in San Jose, California, I want this
big ultra wide photo without you know, using panoramic or something.
And so it's nice that the lenses are better. So
from the two it's it's an edge. Really. If you

(27:08):
look at some of these other phones out there, I
mean Android competitors, they do bundle maybe one or two
or maybe tops three fifty megapixel cameras. And I told
you I want to compare it, but I will give
you this one. I'm the highest niphone, which is the
iPhone eighteen Pro Max. I believe there's two forty eight
megapixel lenses and a twelve megapixel telephoto lens. And so

(27:28):
now we've got something a little better. Now I'm not
even getting into the AI et so let me just
kind of give you the whole everything else is going on.
There is a new processor. There is a new processor.
This is exclusive to Samsung, all right. It is called
the snap Dragon eight Elite for a Galaxy now I know.

(27:49):
Also the one plus thirteen just came out with a
new snap Dragon eight. I believe it's a lead, but
this is four Galaxy. Whether they just slap the name
on it, I'm not sure. But it's a custom chipset
that logs performance an efficiency, and so far in the
two days that I've been played with this film, it
is fast. And snap Dragon is very very proud of this,

(28:11):
so much so that I got a press release from
this thing. Let's see if I can find this for
the snap There it is. It's a snap Dragon eight Elite,
it is, and I'm quoting this from a press release
from Snapdragon, which is nice that they got my name.
It's the most powerful, world's fastest second generation custom qual
Come ori ion CPU. It's a game changing GPUs, so

(28:35):
do I. It has Premium five G WI Fi because
it's got a Snapdragon x eighty five g modem RF system.
If anybody kick cares or connects about that. It is
the first commercial device to feature snap Dragon Satellite and
that allows customers to send and received messages via satellite natively,
that is supported an Android operating system and it is
on device multi modal Gin AI because it has that

(28:59):
personalized AI assistant that does interact with you, that understands
your voice and your text and your images and they
can now see everything through that camera. So there is
your your processor now again next either the next, next seven,
next hour, I'm gonna talk about where you can get
these things. Verizon and T Mobile they're already sending me
stuff of you know what the prices are. You could
do this thing. But the processor thing. Don't sleep on

(29:23):
the fact that you need to have something fast. You
need to have something that processes. Is because if you're
if you're gonna have a conversational chat with AI with
the Gemini AI system, if you will, you're gonna need
something fast, and they do and a lot of the
stuff now it's on board. There's a new user intervace too.
Let me quickly hit about this. The user interface. It's

(29:44):
called one UI, the O n E UI User Interface
one UI seven, and that is the agent that is
the thing that actually does a lot of this stuff
for you. That's the what you see, that's what you touch,
that's what you tap, and it is a little bit done,
and it's really designed to be your assistant. It's going

(30:04):
to figure out which apps to use and what it
needs to do. You can everythink that you press a
home button for a second or two and you could
start talking and ask it a question. And there's something
called the Personal Data Engine and what it does. It
does it's going to learn what you're doing. It's going
to build itself a to do list of what you
want to do, what time you wake up, how you sleep,

(30:28):
what your day looks like, what's the weather look like,
and it's going to do it's it's it's a true,
true smart assistant. It doesn't know me just yet. It's
not it's not waiting for commands though. It's going to
have to use and learn how I use the app.
When I wake up? Is the first thing that I
do is look on Facebook? Do I look on Instagram?

(30:48):
Do I go to X Do I go to my newsfeed?
Do I do I do I read my email? What
do I do? It's going to summarize this for me.
There is a new feature it's called the now button.
The now button, and it's on the lock screen. It's
a little small button and it is going to automatically
build my day for me. He's gonna tell me what's
going on. It's gonna go through things, and so in

(31:10):
terms of intelligence, so far, I'm digging what they're doing.
You may not utilize every single thing of the AI,
you're going to learn to use it. It is a
paradigm shift. And we're gonna continue to talk about this
coming up. I will talk about the price and the
carriers and answer some of your questions because that I
see coming in at Michael at high Tech textsan dot com.

(31:31):
Right now, don't go anywhere. We're gonna talk a lot
more about the Samsung S twenty five series. It's got
some TikTok questions too. And oh, by the way, yes,
Netflix raised its prices. People as a time to kiss
it goodbye. I will tell you my thoughts on that

(32:00):
phone number. I'd be lovely your old nasty phone, while
I'm timp with the two Samsung Galaxy S twenty five Ultra,
but I'm sure your phone still works. It is Michael Garfield.
It's three four six through nine texted three four six
twenty nine textan if you're listening in Houston, shout out
to KPRC nine to fifty am, San Antonio. How about

(32:21):
you WAI twelve hundred am, the Big Blue Torch, Dallas,
the Mighty Mighty eleven ninety. That's just the terrestrial stations
where you've got the state of Texas covered. And if
you're listening on iHeartRadio app or if you're listening to
the show being podcasted, I guess you can't call in live,
but feel free to email me. Because I'm a nice guy.

(32:41):
I don't do anything I If I make a mistake,
it's totally a mistake. I don't do anything wrong maliciously.
I do know that, right Samsung, I'm more than happy
to respond to your emails and give you some the
best of my advice, which I like to think is good.
Coming from San Jose, California. This week, just attended these
Samson sung press conference for the new Galaxy S twenty

(33:02):
five series, the S twenty five, the S twenty five
plus and the S twenty five Ultra, and it's and
I continue to play with the Ultra. I have it
right here in my hand. If you do see me
around town, over the next few weeks before I have
to return this, come up and say, Michael, you mind
a whip it and excuse me while I went this out,
Can I see your Galaxy S twenty five Ultra. More

(33:24):
than happy to show it to you. It has a
six point nine inch display. And what's really interesting about
the display. It's almost, if not the exact same size
as last year's model, but the bezels around the end
are thinner. They're smaller, which may gives it a little
bit more display. Six point nine inch display, and when
you hold it, the first thing I noticed is the

(33:46):
the edges. Obviously there's four corners, if you will, they're
not corners anymore. If you look at last year's Galaxy
S twenty four Ultra, there were corners almost ninety degrees.
Now they're rounded edges. They're more rounder edges. It kind
of gives you a little bit more comfy grip. And
you know, when you're holding it in one hand, you

(34:07):
know sometimes that edge it's a point, and it sometimes
it gives you a callous or hurts your thumb no longer.
Samsung says it is the slimmest, it's the lightest and
most durable Galaxy Ultra device ever, without a doubt. I mean,
every time they're gonna come out with a device like that,
it's always gonna be slimmer and lighter, more durable, and
it has a titanium body. But then again, don't we all,

(34:27):
I've been working out a lot. It's got a titanium
body and to prevent or to have advanced drop protection
and scratch resistance. It has cornings Gorilla Armor two, not one,
but two, the second version of it. And so they're
saying if you drop it, which a lot of people,
a lot of people do tend to drop their phones,

(34:48):
it's hopefully going to crack less and have less damage,
which is nice. Last segment I talked about the phones.
It's now has the cameras. It's got an ultra wide lens.
It went from twelve megapixels to fifty megapixels, which is
pretty good. Talked about the new snap Dragon eight Elite
processor specifically made for the Samsung Galaxy at least in

(35:08):
name only. This does continue the tradition of having an
s pen kind of like the long the old Galaxy note.
They don't make Galaxy notes anymore. They kind of call
them Galaxy Ultras. It does have that pin. This no
longer has a little Bluetooth enabled you remember the old
and I never really used this feature. But you know,
if you if you take there's a pen that there's

(35:30):
a little pin holder that you can pop out and
you can use it as a digital pen. You can
you know, take notes, sign your name, and do anything
on it, which is a neat feature. I personally never
use that pin a lot. But it also was it
was powered. It was a Bluetooth enable thing, and so
you can take it and use it as a baton
like a wand as a remote shutter, you know, to

(35:51):
take take selfies. They took the Bluetooth out of that stuff.
It's that's no longer anyway. Now it's just an actual
s pen. And I don't know if I'm going to
use it. That's me if you use it for business
and you use your or you take notes as a student,
or if you use an Excel spreadsheet or something. Yeah,
and you can draw great drawing and sketching features too.

(36:12):
Not me. I don't use it for that thing, but
it's built in if I know it. The twenty five
Vultra has twelve gig of ram twelve gigs of random
access memory, and it does come in two hundred and
fifty six gigs a five twelve gig And if you
really want a lot of stuff to hold, like all
your photos and videos, it's got a one terabyte storage. Two.

(36:35):
I want to talk about prices right now. One of
the things that I can appreciate is if a company
lowers a price year after year on a similar product. E.
Samsung did not do this, but I will tell you
they didn't raise the price the S twenty five, the
S twenty five plus, and the S twenty five Ultra
compared to the S twenty four line, all three of
them last year. They kept the price the same. So

(36:58):
top of the line. If you want that S twenty
five Ultra, it starts right about thirteen hundred dollars. If
you want the S twenty five plus smaller, not a
lot of hardware upgrades on that, that bad boy write
about one thousand dollars ninety nine. And if you want
the S twenty five, which is even smaller, again not
a lot of hardware upgrades, but certainly it has the

(37:18):
internal processing and the AI features. Starts at eight hundred dollars.
We have an eight hundred dollars model, one thousand dollars model,
and the thirteen hundred dollars dollar model. I'm not gonna
tell you which one to get. It's up to you.
Do you want a six point two inch smaller one?
Do you want a six point seven inch display on
THATS twenty five plus, or do you want the bigger
one of the S twenty five plus. I'm a form

(37:41):
factor guy. I like smaller phones. My daily carry is
a Galaxy Samsung Galaxy Flip phone because the thing flips
over fits in my pocket. I can flip it out,
not fold, but I can flip it out and it
becomes a regular sized phone. I'm going to try to
use this for the next few weeks. Is my daily phone,

(38:02):
the S twenty five. It's a big phone. It's I'm
not going to have a little carrier that's gonna clip
on my wallet, you know, like a clip of my
belt like I used to. I generally keep these phones
in my pocket. I keep them in my front pocket.
But anyway, this thing's pretty big. I may keep this
one in my back pocket. I don't like sitting on
my phones, but I'm gonna try this thing. But It
is a powerful phone. The AI is some cool stuff
I talk to about. The new user interface. The Samsung's

(38:25):
one UI seven, the seventh version of a thing. It's
they put that on top of the Android fifteen. So
it's a new AI integrated OS. It's got the Samsung.
It's got AI because it's got the Samsung Gemini, which
is now interactive. I can have an actual conversation of
this thing. One of my favorite features is still there.
If you want to go see my Instagram, I'll show

(38:46):
you actually use my Instagram or my YouTube. The circle
to search one of the neat things out there. All
you need to do is hold your camera or take
a picture of something, and you press and freeze the
press of that bottom part of that front screen and
it freezes the camera. You take your finger in you circle,
and as long as you're connect to the internet, it
searches whatever you're looking at in so you can identify plants.

(39:07):
It can then it to identify cars. It now can
even listen and identify songs that are playing. That's why
no longer do you need SoundHound or Shazai. That's right,
you can listen to it too. Phones are getting smarter
and I think, so far, in the forty eight hours
that I've had this hands on the S twenty five Ultra,
I am a happy camper.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
I don't know what else I can talk about this thing.
I'm probably gotta get to it a few more times
in the second hour, but questions, I am here for you.
I will be reviewing this more. I'll have it on
my Channel eleven Great Day Houston Show, and then I
don't know what. Hopefully in the next week we can
have two weeks to show it off. But so far,
Samsung as always very happy. We'll do for Michael Garfield.
It is the High Tech Texting Show. Thank you again

(39:47):
to Nicole, so Michael, to Dale, to Jane and everybody
else so for at Samsung, Berg and Rosy for having
me here in San Jose, Sothing. We live to about
one more hour of the High Tech Texting Show, so
you cannot go anywhere. Fuckal up is Michael Garfi.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Michael Garfield. Michael Garfield's joining.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
In the High Tech Texan.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Michael Garfield is here with a high Tech Texan. Items
to make life easier technology and Michael Garfield has something
you might want.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Michael Garfield is your high Tech Texans three decades helping
you make magic with your gadgets. Heard worldwide on the
Iheartwadio Act. Now You're high Tech Texan Michael Garfield.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
That's the beginning of the second hour of the High
Tech Textan Show, which means we are halfway through the show,
saying with me, my longtime listeners, we are halfway that
happy hour. That's a weekend. Come on, man, it's still
cold outside. It's always happy hour all the time. Just
listen and drive responsibly. The phone number here at three

(41:09):
four six twenty nine Texan if you've been listening for
our number one for just joining in. I'm not in
my Texas studio. We are traveling this past week. I
am currently doing the show from San Jose, California. Silicon
Valley is what they call this place. I've been here

(41:29):
since Monday night, believe it or not, for Samsung. Samsung
is hosting or they have hosted a big press announcement
and launch of their new flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S
twenty five, and I have currently been playing with the
new S twenty five ultrend. Go back and listen to

(41:51):
the podcast when we're done. Callum you're gonna put this
podcast up right when we're done, Yes, sir, you can
go to iHeartRadio, look for high Tech Texan or one
of the terrestrial stations you're listening on, and you can
listen from the beginning. I'll continue to talk a little
bit more of the features as I continue to play
with them. But AI is the thing. They're very proud of,

(42:11):
the AI artificial intelligence features that they're putting in. Interesting
note that I that the Samsung had said that said
for at least the next year, all of the AI
features on the phone are going to be free. Don't
really know what that means is that like a teaser meeting,
some of the AI features are not going to be free.

(42:33):
At some point they're going to start charging. And that's
where you really have to decide is this feature worth it? Now?
I don't know which features, and it's it's probably just
not for Samsung. I mean, let's look at the car industry,
which I also cover. I mean, you know, the car
manufacturers now they're trying to charge you know, monthly fees
for you know, you know, automatic steering or you know,

(42:57):
certainly we have the serious you know, you know, satellite
radio that's totally different, but features of the car, and
I don't think the public really pushed back on that.
And that's where I as a consumer, a consumer lifestyle
guy for you. I am out here for you to
find you cool new products and devices and gadgets and
processes to hopefully improve your life, your business, your health,

(43:17):
but also save you some money too. For example, let's
talk a little Hollywood, Hollywood. See what happened to Netflix?
Big announcement from Netflix this past week. Netflix just announced
a record subscriber, record number of subscribers. They added a
ton of people. Guess who's going to the bank, Well, yeah,

(43:41):
Netflix number one. But also you are stand by the
big streaming giant. The big leader they host last year
was big. They hosted a record breaking boxing match with
Jake Paul and Mike Tyson for Good or Bad if
you saw that thing. They hosted its first ever NFL
games on Christmas Day, had a massive Beyonce concert from Houston.

(44:05):
It was it was big. Netflix added nineteen million subscribers
in the fourth quarter alone, and that's a new record
for the company, and that surpassing even when they had
COVID era issues where people weren't going on going anywhere
they were at home. Netflix now has three hundred and
two million subscribers, three hundred and two Now. Interestingly, they

(44:31):
reported ten billion dollars in revenue, operating income of two
point three billion in a margin of twenty two point
two percent. That's huge. I mean, they surpassing their goals.
They're expanding its advertising business and it's only going to
get bigger. They debuted season two of Squid Games and

(44:56):
I'm just reading some of the things that they'd done,
and they previously had. They added five million subscriber subscribers
in the third quarter, three hundred and two million people.
That is a lot of people around the world. But
the thing is what they're going to do. They figured
out they were testing the NFL. They were testing these
live boxing matches. Netflix is going all in on sports

(45:16):
because sports is the number one driver when it comes
to fewing live action. There is nothing like it. The
NFL college football continue to be number one and number two.
That's what people want. Look at Christmas and they hit
a home run. They did a great Netflix really did
a good job. They hired a lot of the broadcasters

(45:38):
a on a one game or two game basis. They
figured out the issues and the buffering issues that they
screwed up with with the with the boxing match earlier
in the year, and they did a good job. Now
they're going to go all in. But it cost a
lot of money for content. It cost a lot of
money to broadcast an NFL game. You've got to go
to Roger Goodell with your pocket and your wallet open.
So what are they gonna do? Guess what? My when

(46:00):
Netflix announced such good news that they have more subscribers,
just this week, they announced it's raising its prices. That's right.
Netflix just announced they're raising its first major, major price
hike since twenty twenty three. Let me give you the breakdown,
and the question is, at what point do you do
you the consumers say, man, this is just too much,

(46:23):
it's not worth it. So the cost of a standard
advertising supported tier went from six dollars ninety nine cents
to seven dollars ninety nine cents, So a dollar more
and I'm gonna round everything up here to make it simple.
So I went from seven bucks to eight bucks, and
you're gonna get adverts, advertisements in there. If you want
the premium tier, it went up by two bucks to

(46:44):
twenty five dollars. The standard plan went from eighteen. It
went from sixteen dollars to eighteen dollars. If you want
to add an extra member on the plan without ads,
it's going up from eight dollars to nine dollars. Prices
are changing US Can to Portugal, Argentina, wherever my radio
show is heard, and they kick in soon they kick in.

(47:05):
I think they already kicked in for new customers, and
they're going to start with the next billing cycle for
you existing customers. This is the first price hike for
this ad supported tier. Now, I have no problem personally
with advertising running in. We're used to that from watching TV.
We watch TV. How is TV free generally? I mean
other than cable that TV is free because it is

(47:25):
advertisers supported. You watch the commercials and you just keep
on watching the game whatever. This radio station, I'd love
to thank my advertisers, my partners, US Coins and Jewelries, Cabo,
Bob's we go on and on and on. This radio
show is free for you. Why because it's advertiser supported.
I don't have a problem with that. Save you some money,
but think how much? And I'm gonna leave you with

(47:45):
this here for the next minute before we take a break,
how much do you play for Netflix now that it's raised?
How much do you pay for Amazon?

Speaker 4 (47:51):
Well?

Speaker 1 (47:51):
I know which pay for Amazon? What is it? What
about one hundred and fifty hundred and sixty bucks a year?
All right, but you do get Prime Video, and then
you have Disney Plus, and then you have Hulu, and
then you have goes on and on and on. At
some point your price, now your bundle may be more
than what you used to pay for just your typical
cable stations. You have to think about it. Sometimes just
don't accept it, and then sometimes just go find a

(48:13):
friend who has Netflix because they did crack down on
password sharing. We're gonna come back where you're talking a
little bit more Hollywood. There's a the Oscars were announced.
I'll go through the annual. How many of the nominated
movies haven't I seen? But osco Also there's a controversy
in Hollywood with artificial intelligence. As we continue to talk
from San Jose, California, Michael Garfield, this is the high

(48:34):
tech texting slash Californian Show. You got to talk about

(48:56):
the Netflix cargazine pricing and it just raise their prices.
They're going to start getting in the game of bidding
wars when it comes to INFL football. Speaking of NFL football,
if you watch those two games on NFL Christmas Day,
they actually did a good job of broadcasting. There really
was no latency issues like they had with the the
Mike Tyson Jake Paul fight earlier this year. But NFL

(49:21):
we wonder, and I am an NFL I'm a broadcasting
sports nut. This it's just a hobby that I follow.
I look at the ratings, I look at you know,
just the commercials and the rates and things. I've done
it for years and years and years, and you know,
at some point we wonder will the Super Bowl be
on on a streaming app or on a paid platform,

(49:42):
because we are now coming to the fifty nine This
is what super Bowl fifty nine, I believe the fifty
nine years it's been over the air, it has been
either on CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox. I mean, that's it.
And actually super Bowl One was on CBS and NBC
together combined on both of those stations. And there's your
history little for you right now. And at some point

(50:02):
they could get a pretty big penny for putting it
on there. But The thing is though, and this is
how it works. Broadcast TV over the air, typical networks
that are not on cable that you can just get
an antenna and watch your television, which is pretty much
limited to ABCCBS, NBC, Fox, PBS, Telemundo, and you got
a lot of the other Spanish Chimp speaking channels. These
are over the air stations. Over the air stations are

(50:26):
generally and almost guaranteed they're going to give you higher
ratings and more eyeballs than anything on cable. So give
you example college football playoff this past Monday, Ohio State
versus Notre Dame. It was seen by quote unquote only
about twenty two million viewers because it was on ESPN only. Well,

(50:48):
of course it was on ESPN two and a few
other things. It was not on its sister over the
air station ABC. It was not in the contract. Now,
if it was on ABC, which means anybody with an
antenna more sports bars could just typically turn it on,
easier to find and access, there would be a lot
more viewers. No, they decided not to do it. It
was just ESPN only, and that's why the ratings were

(51:09):
not as high as they thought. Also, was not a
great game and the Longhorns won. And there. I mean,
I can go on and on. I did see next
year college football. They're putting it on ABC and ESPN,
so guaranteed that's where the number is going to go up.
And I'm talking about this it's because I do cover
the streaming industry and what we watch and what we
listen to and how much you pay. And at some

(51:31):
point you have to determine is this worth it? What
are we going to pay? I mean people are already
up in arms like, oh my goodness, no, we have
to have Amazon Prime, we have to have Netflix, we
have to certainly have ESPN. If in we if we
want to even watch every single NFL football game right now,
then that's a lot of cash so versus back in
the day, if we had an over there antenna, we

(51:54):
can watch every single NFL game. And it's gonna change now,
I will tell you this. And here's some related news
when it comes to the when it comes to watching
the Super Bowl, this year's Super Bowl will be televised
by Fox, which means you are going to get a
whole three or four hours of you were Tom Brady,
who is going to be doing the color analysis for
the game. But it is going to be in New Orleans,

(52:17):
all right, shout out to New Orleans over there. Fox
announced last week that this Super Bowl not only will
be on over the air Fox, they're going to stream
it live on t B tub I. Now, if you
don't know what tuob is, that is a free, ad
supported streaming service. So this coming February ninth, if you

(52:37):
want to watch it and for some reason, I don't know,
you want not to watch it on Fox, you can
go to two B if you have two B and
you can watch it. You're also going to be able
to stream the game in four K for free. Now,
don't take that statement lightly. We heard the turn. Let
me tell you, let's talk a little TV, little video
right now, most every single television that you're gonna buy

(53:00):
is four K capable, if not even more. Oh, I know,
there's eight K capables everything. The problem the issue is
very very few shows content are shot and broadcast in
four K. Odds are you've had a four K TV
for a while. Odds are you've never seen an actual
four K broadcast. Just doesn't work that way. It costs

(53:23):
a lot of money, a lot of camera, a lot
of compression a lot to look at things in four K.
Fox is actually doing it. This is going to be
in four K. If your TV and your you know,
your two B service can actually pick up four K,
you're gonna have to do some digging to do that.
This is the first time, actually the Super Bowl is
gonna be available on to B without a doubt. It's

(53:46):
gonna be the biggest live sporting event yet on two B.
Fox owns two B. They bought it at about that
about five years ago. And this is about ninety seven
million monthly active users online for this two B thing.
So it's I'm interested to see and I'm probably gonna
find it because I want to compare the best TV.

(54:07):
You know, what's the best reception. And by the way,
if you've ever compared a let's just talk about a
football game. I'm by most everything, but it's a live
football game of what a cable broadcast looks like. Look
at the look at the pixels the screen, and then
you quickly look at an over the air antenna. So

(54:29):
say you're in Houston, Okay, you're on Fox. You're watching
Fox twenty six over the air with an over the
air digital TV antenna, which it's they're broadcasting right now,
all right, you can Dallas, San Antonio wherever you can
hear me right now, and then you look at the
similar thing on cable there. It is unquestionably so much
better when it's over the air because the video signal

(54:52):
is not compressed, and it's also not delayed as much
when you're watching something on cable, Like I'm watching an
ESPN football game and I'm texting with my boys, and
sometimes I get things twenty seconds they're commenting before I
see something like I'm using Exfinity here in Houston, and
it's just a delay over the air. There's a relatively well,

(55:17):
there is always a little delay, but it's a shorter delay.
So I always tell people, listen, if you're sick of
paying for all your television, if you're picking sick of
paying for cable, there is a way to continue to
get your entertainment in your news without paying a freaking scent.
Cut the cable cut, the satellite cut, the streamers cut, everything,
the cut the internet. If you have an actual TV,

(55:41):
you buy a TV, you plug it in, and you
do have an antenna, you do need to go get
in and antennas nowaday. You can get an antenna for
fifteen bucks. You can get a really nice one for
thirty dollars if you really want to make sure. And
there are websites, and I think there's something on my
high Tech text in dot com website of how to
correctly tune and find the best play in your house
or just outside of your house. To put an antenna

(56:03):
so it picks up, you have to aim at you know,
to where the you know, the the the antennis sticks
are in your city, and then you are set. Now
you're gonna watch over the air. You're gonna watch ABC, CBS, NBC,
Fox and all this other stuff. You're not gonna get ESPN.
You're not gonna get Fox Sports. You're not I mean
Fox Sports itself. You're not gonna get MSNBC. You're not
gonna get all all the other stuff. Certainly not at HPO.

(56:25):
But if you want to save some money, you want
some you do like live sports, and you want to
watch the local news and some of the thing, you
can do it that way, if not literally, just see
if you can steal somebody's password and go from there.
I didn't say that. People absolutely did not say that,
what's whatsoever? One more thing about? Uh yeah, I have

(56:45):
a few minutes over so we're gonna talk. We're gonna
get it back to tech. But this is something over here.
The Oscars. The Oscar nominations were out this week. Did
anybody see it? I used to see so many movies
as a media member over here. I get invited to
a lot of movie screenings in a given year. I
get invited to time. But in a given year, I
don't know what it is. And it's not COVID. But

(57:07):
maybe because things now we could stream them, we can
watch them on our TVs. But I could probably count
on one hand the number of times I went into
a movie theater in twenty twenty four, and that's about it.
There was a few of them. I don't know. And
so the movie the nominations come out for Best Pictures,
and let's just quickly run through them, and I'm going
to give you the ant or a thumbs up or
down of what I've seen. Okay, here's something called Honora.

(57:30):
Never heard of it. The Brutalist heard of it. I
heard it's long, didn't see it. A complete unknown. Bingo
ding ding, that's the Bob Delan epic with Timose shallow May.
I did see that. Conclave, never heard of it. Dune
Part two didn't see it. I think shallow May was
in that too. Emilia Perez never heard of it. I'm

(57:51):
still here. Never heard of it. Nickel Boys heard of it.
I don't think it's worth five cents the substance. Never
heard of it. Wicked, didn't see it too long. What
I heard I saw a complete unknown. I saw it
in the movie screening. I saw it three weeks before
it was released to the public. I'm not a Bob
Dylan if I gave him a review a month and
a half ago. I'm not a Dylan fan. I don't

(58:12):
like his music, but holy crapola, what a great movie.
Timothy shallow May. Unbelievable for what is he a twenty
seven to twenty eight year old kid? He is Bob Dylan.
That is huge, without a doubt. And then a little
controversy before we get out of here. I talk a
lot about AI. I'll come back and we're going to
talk even more about artificial intelligence. But this movie I

(58:33):
called this I mentioned it's called The Brutalist, all right.
It stars what's his name, Adrian Brodian over here, there's
a little drama of AI editing. He's an actor in
a leading role and I think he got an Oscar
nomination for that. It's a period drama. I don't even
know what period they're in. I don't know it's Hungarian
or something like that. But he speaks an English and
Hungarian and apparently the director said that they used technology

(58:58):
for Hungarian language dialogue editing, specifically for certain vowels and
letters accuracy. And there's a lot of people, a lot
of centophiles, they really are kind of reproachful about the
use of AI and film, and they're saying that AI
is speeding up standard industry industry processes. Does it matter

(59:19):
to you, Listen, we have seen let's go back to
Star Wars and more. Listen, we know that imagery and
computer graphics and things. AI is a little it's a
little different though, so these when I got back from CES,
the two biggest letters what I saw, I told you
were AI. There's gonna be a lot of controversy. It's
a lot's a little bit of scary, but I'm here

(59:40):
to talk you down off it. Anybody mind AI? Are
you turning everything off? Because let me see if we
get figure thought to turn off AI from some of
these smart phones too. Michael gar at the bottom of
the hour, I tech text and show Here in San

(01:00:06):
Jose Samsung Unpacked twenty twenty five. We just saw the
presentation the big launch of the new S twenty five series.
I have my thoughts, but I actually wanted to get
the thoughts up. An analyst who covers this industry quite frequently.
His name is Bob O'Donnell. He is with Technolysis partner, saying,
you have done this for many, many years, and your perspective,
my friend, obviously, is a little different than mine, because

(01:00:26):
you cover the industry. First of all, initial thoughts of
the launch, the information that Samsung just threw out us,
you know, I thought they'd get a great job.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
I mean, look, one of the challenges, you know, I
go to all these events every year, and it's like
every year it's kind of they have to rehash the story,
and some years, you know, they don't really fly. This year,
I feel like it really did fly because what I
saw today thanks to the collaboration, the closer collaboration between
Google and Samsung, was like the first real iteration of

(01:00:56):
AI that I think will be meaningful to a lot
of consumers because all of a sudden, I can do
things that I used to always hope that I could
do with previous digital assistants, right, but never really work
that way. Now we're finally getting at and even beyond
just asking an inquiry about a strange topic, which of
course we've been able to do that. The cool thing

(01:01:16):
was the ability to integrate things like hey, asking about
information about you know, a ballgame or something else, and
then actually put it in my calendar. And that's there's
been a barrier between my personal data that's on my
device and this cloud information. And what Google and sam
Sung did is work together to break that barrier. Plus

(01:01:37):
you combine that with the fact that Gemini is a
very powerful digital assistant and works pretty damn well, and
then that level of integration they're bringing together. It shows
me like, Okay, now we're starting to get to that
promise of what AI I think a lot of people
hoped would eventually be.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Okay, so let's talk about AI.

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
I just came from CEAS where those letters work for
every word. Yeah, and I always tell my audience of
it AI is it's not a product you can't feel
or touch out because people want to say, and Michael,
what's the coolest phone, what's the television like? And so
AI it's built at We heard a lot about AI
and over the past year or two, since you know,
the S twenty or in the flip bones, we've seen
you know, the gem and I and everything. But they
are taking this to a different level at the consumer level.

(01:02:20):
Are we at the point in time right now where
the consumers not, I can understand that, but they're going
to use it on a daily basis because it is
a paradigm shift, it really is. Are they they're ready
to hit that paradigm? I think they're.

Speaker 3 (01:02:32):
Getting really really close because you know, here's the thing,
like you mentioned, what we've seen up till now, is
there's been a number of devices that have had AI features,
but you had to go out and look for them
and find them, and frankly, the discoverability for the average
person has been almost impossible, so people aren't really using it.
What they've really done here is they've brought these capabilities

(01:02:54):
to the surface to the main UI. You literally push
a button on the side and you talk to it
and it does stuff like it doesn't get any simpler that.
Even as simple as that is, it's going to take
a little while for people to change their habits. They're
used to doing certain things. They go and do a
Google search and they do it. Now you're going to
just be able to start to interact with your device,
change your settings, do all these kinds of different things,

(01:03:17):
have conversations on various subjects, all within a very simple experience.
So the beauty of it is there's enormous complexity underneath,
but they've hidden that bit behind a simple Hey, push
a button and talk right, okay to listen. You covered
the industry, so you see a lot of other mobile
manufacturers and there's so many other.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
You know, AI agents. So if the chat gbts of
the other world like this, why has Samsung? What has
Samsung done with this? And outfit of the S twenty
five series that really takes it to the next level
that you're seeing that that stands out a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Well, So they did a couple of things. First of all,
to their credit, Samsung said, look, you know they originally
they did Bixby, and Bixby didn't exactly set the world
on fire, right, and they haven't given up on Bixby,
but they did do is they said, you know what,
we can use Gemini as kind of our front layer assistant,
but we're gonna still use Bixby because Bixby can do

(01:04:07):
all this cool stuff on the device, and it can
and then take advantage of the Knox security all this stuff,
so I get that personalization that they talked about, which
is gonna be really powerful, although it won't show up
until you've used it for a while, but it will
secure it. So but what they've done is kind of
again they broker that the world of Internet search data

(01:04:29):
with my personal data, and and even though that seems
like a small gap in terms of how you actually
do that, it's huge. And we saw the start here
with some of the integration with Samsung apps. Eventually they're
going to integrate with other people's apps. So again, my
whole experience of how I'm going to use the phone
is going to slowly start to evolve. And I'm not
gonna think about apps anymore. I'm just gonna think about

(01:04:51):
things I want to do with things I want to achieve.
That's not again, not gonna happen overnight. But what they
laid the groundwork for is the ability to start thinking
that way, and that in and of itself is a
huge change from what we've seen before. You talk a
lot about AI and some of the other features. I
think that consumers really, really, what really really use is
this camera. Yeah, listen, I'll go back and I'll say

(01:05:12):
this also I've said it on record. You know, Sam
sungy S twenty four Ultra, without a doubt, best camera
on the market, because you know the camera. To me,
it's the number one most use that on a smart
phone that shouldn't even came a smart phone that Chicota
actually a Snart and smart camera. You can feel fair
to use that over yet, Well, what.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
We've seen from the S twenty five Ultra, what the
camera is over here with a new fifty Megapitts Ultra Wide.
What are your thoughts on the camera aspects of these
new filled The camera aspect is great, and you're right,
I mean the junk to fifty megapixel on the Macro
and Ultra Wide is just physically obviously a huge improvement
over what they had before.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
But more importantly, it's these additional capabilities. It's things like
you know, I do photography, my wife does a nature
photography professionally. It's so I understand the value of aperture
settings and being able to change that dynamically after you've
taken image, can totally change the picture, adjusting the lighting
AI capabilities and all of a sudden, you know, when
there's three people in the picture, of one of them

(01:06:03):
blinks and it's smart enough to grab the photo where
the person has their eyes open and combine it with
the other eyes open people, so you get the best
of all, you know, in a single image, whether having
to edit it or find all these photos, all of
those little steps just are gonna make the quality of
the pictures that you take with this phone significantly better.
And then the video stuff takes it even further. HDR

(01:06:23):
support Again, most people don't care about that, but what
it means is I get more vibrant colors. And even
for the professional videographers this, you know, love video support,
you know allows them to do color matching and all
this kind of really cool stuff. But the net net,
bottom line is, like you said, S twenty four old
was great and they kicked it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Up a notch. Yeah, no, it it seems because cameras
are really you know, one of the key things of
how does this look? You know, every time I hold
up my Samsung versus everybody else hold their competition is
like what phone is that? And I'm like, is the Samsung?
So I think they've actually hit her home run with
this way. And last question, Listen, we've talked about the AI,
We've talked to a lot of the camera features. I'm
really interested. I actually I think kind of people skirtovers
is the price the price where these three remain the

(01:07:01):
exact same from last year? We listen, people are very
cautious of their spending and what's going on. I gotta
PLoud and give them a little daft Samsung for not
raising the price for those different three levels right at
twelve hundred, one thousand and eight hundred gas on that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Yeah, no, and you're absolutely right. I mean, there was
a big question on whether or not they would raise
their prices because you're going to presume, you know, given
some concerns they've been and discussion of tariffs, are they
gonna have to pre building in price increases, right? So yeah,
there was a lot of question about that. So the
fact that they were able to maintain the same price
I think is going to be important obviously to the
pocket puts of a lot of potential buyers. All Right,

(01:07:33):
his name is Mabo Donde. He is the TECHnalysis, the analysis.
He covers this industry quite well. I appreciate your thoughts
over that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
I know you've got a lot of people on line waiting,
and I know you're gonna go get your hands on
these things. Sim that feel good, So I appreciate the time.

Speaker 4 (01:07:44):
Hi, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
All right, signing off for San Jose It's Unpacked twenty
twenty five. It's Michael Gorefield the high Tech Texit home Stretch,

(01:08:10):
final segment from San Jose, California. Again, we appreciate the
nice folks from Samsung their PR agency for getting me
and my ilk lot of tech journalists and media out
here in Silicon Valley this week to go over and
understand all the features of the new Samsung S twenty
five series, their new smartphone, and also playing around with

(01:08:33):
the S twenty five Ultra. It is a beast by
the way, this portion of the show we are brought
to you by Total Wireless. This is a perfect segue
for some reason. You do go get a Galaxy S
twenty five or any phone you can go to a
Total Wireless dore and you can utilize their service unlimited data, talk,
and text. It's covered by the Verizon five G network.

(01:08:54):
They're price guaranteed for five years. There is absolutely zero
contact contracts. I'm looking at this right now. They have
everything from you know, fifty dollars per line for an
entire month of they're unlimited. They have got a forty
I like this. It's the Base five G unlimited forty
dollars per month unlimited data. They got a five G hotspot.

(01:09:15):
But then I'm on on their home page over here,
get fifty percent off when you bring your own phone.
So let's say you get your own new phone instead
of paying forty bucks. Now it's twenty dollars a month
for one line on a Base five G unlimited plan.
That's pretty cool. Check out Total Wireless dot com specifically,
if you're in the Houston area or some of the

(01:09:36):
other areas, there are specifically other Verizon type of stores
owned by Victor v Ictra. You can actually look at that,
and I want you walk into those Victor stores and
uh tell them you heard it on the old High
Tech textan show. And that's the dude twenty bucks a
month for one line on unlimited five G. That's that's
pretty strong. Now. Speaking of which, also, and I've did,
I've had also got some press releases because people have

(01:09:56):
been emailing this entire show. All right, I've got some
calls also, Hey, my we'll working. I know you said
it's February seventh coming out. What if I have Verizon,
what if I have Team Mobile, what if I have
Total Wiles?

Speaker 4 (01:10:06):
Whatever?

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
So to be sure to be safe over here, let
me give you some prices. My good friend George, what's up, George?
He is the pimpot Verizon and Galaxy S twenty five Ultra.
As we know, it's thirteen hundred dollars retail, but you
can put this on a thirty six month plan for
about thirty six dollars a month. But they also have

(01:10:28):
some deals too. Current new customers, they get a new
Galaxy S twenty five plus or Galaxy S twenty five
on them. Verizon's gonna pay for the S twenty five
plus the S twenty five or one thousand bucks off
the S twenty five Ultra. That's pretty strong. It's pretty strong,
all right. Some of the new perks and another five

(01:10:49):
G stuff let's roll up the T mobile. Galaxy S
twenty five also free. It's this the S twenty five
plus also free, or up to a thousand dollars off
of any in the S twenty five series when trading
in any eligible device on any condition on go five

(01:11:10):
g next. All right, so this is so a lot
of but as you shop and people do get freaked
out and scary, Oh my goodness, thirteen hundred dollars for
S twenty five old, check your carrier out because odds
are they're going to give you some deals and trade ins.
And that's just you know, pretty much how this how
this industry works. I talked about the Snapdragon eight Elite

(01:11:31):
mobile platform for a Galaxy, and that's the chip set,
and again that's it's an incredibly powerful Uh it's incredibly fast,
they say, the world fastest second generation custom Qualcom Ryan
CPU and GPU. That's the chip that is inside specifically
all of the Samsung Galaxy S twenty fives. For the
two days I've been playing with it, I've been uploading

(01:11:53):
some video and you know, recording some audio and playing
some games to some extent. Gotta tell you, it's pretty strong,
no lag whatsoever, and so that's really good. So again,
in building and producing a phone, you have to have partners,
internal partners like like when I say internal, like literally
internally inside the phone itself. You have to have a

(01:12:16):
process or something like a Snapdragon eight Elite mobile for
Galaxy specific and then you also have to have a
data plant. Now it doesn't matter, you know, you go
to your current data plant, but it may be time
to switch. And listen, I gave you some other prices
from some other carriers. I do know the fact that
I do use total wireless, and you can't save a
lot of cash that way. It really does go far.

(01:12:38):
Look it through some of the emails over here, Michael,
hope you're having a good time. Hen San Jose, there
is a really neat text mex Taco spot. But since
you're from Texas, you don't need these things. But there's
a lot of good California calimes. Is that what it's
called here? I guess text Mexus Texas Mexican food and California,
which does have some pretty good tacos. Taco Tuesday, I

(01:13:00):
guess you call it Cali Max. You wouldn't call it
text max and Cali like that. Well, Anyway, I can't
wait to get home because I'm heading to Cabo Bob's.
It's the longest I think I've been. I haven't had
Cabbo bob since last Saturday. I think four locations in Houston,
one in San Antonio, and several in Austin where they're from.
So go check those out. Fresh Tortilla's unbelievable chips. Oh man,
I'm getting hungry right now. Man, getting on Southwest airlines,

(01:13:24):
you need to start serving some Texas. You're a Texas
based airline, which I love a less preferred people. How
about you know, some partnering up with the Texas based
restaurants or more snacks or something like that. How awesome
would it be if it's just there's like a build
your own taco bar on a on a flight, on

(01:13:45):
a Southwest flight or something like that. That is so Texas.
That's beautiful. I would love I would love doing something.
I know. Way, thank you, thank you for that email
that we got. Uh gave some super Bowl information of
how to watch it next week. We actually by the
end of this weekend, we're going to know who is
playing in the super Bowl and the super Bowl will
be in New Orleans. This could be a good time

(01:14:06):
for you to be purchasing a television. You're going to
see some TV deals out there. I will be peruising
some of those. You know. I always tell you this,
a lot of people start thinking about a new TV.
It's like the Friday before the Super Bowl Sunday, and
I tell people, listen, if you're really proficient in schlepping
a TV home from a big box store, setting it up,

(01:14:27):
hooking up your cable or your antenna pretty quickly, and
you feel comfortable of having some people over to watch
as you host a super Bowl party, go ahead. But
if you're looking at a TV, I would go ahead
and either order one, get it shipped several days, if
not a week, at least a week before Super Bowl
so you could test the thing out, hook it up,
mount it on the on the wall, whatever you want

(01:14:49):
to do. If you need any one on one information
with that, this is what I'm here for, find me
Michael Garfield at iHeartMedia dot com. That is actually one
of the other, you know ways that you could do
it too. Oh here's another. Hey, speaking of so I
just sent me this. You see this, I say it
on the radio comes out here and you send me
something over there? Not a jet I don't know. Is

(01:15:11):
jet Blue still around? I have never flown jet Blue,
never flown jet Blue? What is this? Jet Blue is
now taking Venmo? What is this person trying to say?

Speaker 3 (01:15:24):
The uh?

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
On the jet Blue website, US customers can scan a
QR code at checkout. It takes you to Venmo, where
you can buy upgrades like aisle seats and whatever with
your Venmo ballance. I dig this. I dig that. I
like it because I have been and this is not
a commercial for anybody. I'm not I'm definitely not pimping
jet Blue. But I use PayPal and Venmo and my

(01:15:48):
little digital wallet more and more right now. And I've
got it. I've got a decent PayPal balance. It's just
it's like an updated It's it's cool. I will tell
you this. Here's a little tip for me to you.
You know, on Venmo, sometimes you could see every single
one of your friends of what they paid. Oh, here's
four dollars for a slice of pizza. Lost a bet

(01:16:09):
to Jennifer. Now I have to pay her one hundred
dollars whatever. Turn that stuff off. I really don't care.
And I don't want to. That is almost too much.
That's hippa, that's too much information. The first time I
ever downloaded Venmo was my youngest went to college. I
didn't know what it was. And this is about six
years ago because Venmo's just came out just around them.
He didn't want a bank account, he goes Venmo. So anyway,

(01:16:31):
I had to download the Venmo app and that's how
I transferred money to him. And then I figured out,
I'm like, I don't want anybody seeing who I pay.
I mean, you know, if if I do a door
dash at two in the morning, or if I you
don't want to go to Hoggin DAWs, you know and
get a double triple scoop or something like that. I
don't need people, you know, giving me, you know, any
stuff going. You know, what are you eating so late for?

(01:16:52):
Michael turn Off? Who can see your Venmo paper? Actually,
I wouldn't want to see. I wouldn't mind to tell
people I'm flying jet anyway again, I'm a Southwest guye
Jet Blue hasn't posted an annual profit since twenty nineteen.
I guess it's trying to lure back customers with ease
of checkout ninety million people in the US, especially the

(01:17:15):
young spenders. They used venmo Or. I think more more
places actually shooting Janio. I was in London and bert
Lang last year. It's unbelievable how many people use these
digital waller I mean I credit cards. I just almost
apen of the past. This is the stuff of the Cubo.
I talked about this TECHNI page again. If you wrap
it up here from San Jose, California, thank you Samsung

(01:17:37):
great being able to actually to hands on experience like
a Galaxy has twenty five series. I will have the
Ultra for the next I don't know month, month and
a half. If you see me come up, I'll show
it to you. If you want to buy this through
the week, I Tech Texting dot Com. Check out the
social media, more videos and also my website on behalf
of everybody callam Reid, Brian ericson Eddie Martini and everybody. People.
As we wind up in the middle of January of

(01:17:59):
twenty twenty five, be safe, stay warm until next week.
This is the high tech conection. I am Garth and
right now my show from Cali is over.