Hello everyone, welcome to today's lecture on the course remote sensing principles and applications. In this lecture we are going to continue with the concepts of radiometry what we have started in the last class. Just as a recap in the last class we defined what a plane angle is and what a solid angle is. We have done a small problem in calculating the solid angle certain by sun and moon on earth surface. Then we defined various radiometric quantities. We defined what radiant energy is. We defined what radiant flux is that is energy per unit time. Then we defined radiant flux density that is energy per unit time per unit area. If that radiant flux density is coming towards an object we call it as irradiance or if the object is emitting energy we call it as emittance. And also we defined one important property we often use in remote sensing that is radiance. Radiance is defined as the energy emitted in unit time in a given direction per unit solid angle that is what is the amount of energy per unit time that is radiant flux phi divided by in a unit solid angle. So, divided by the total solid angle omega will come in that is divided by the projected area in a given direction. So, the area what you are going to consider we have to project it in the direction in which we are looking at. Why this projection is occurring because as our viewing angle changes as we look different objects in a 3 dimensional space based on the angle in which we look we will perceive the object in different sizes and different shape. As I said as an example in the last class if you are flying in an aeroplane and looking at like whatever is there on the landscape based on the angle in which we look the area on the landscape be it an agricultural area or like some huge circular surfaces whatever based on our viewing angle it may appear as a circle, it may appear as an ellipse but different area depends on in which angle we are looking at which height we are flying and so on. So, in remote sensing normally a remote sensing sensor which is there in space will perceive objects differently based on the angle in which it is looking and that is why this projected area is really important. And also in a small solid angle because all objects whenever we see or whenever a sensor sees an object on the earth surface it is going to subtend a small solid angle. So, what we are going to continue today is we are going to continue today by looking at the relationship between irradiance and or radiance and radiant flux density. So, before actually seeing this we will make one thing clear that is radiant flux density is actually directionless, directionless in the sense when we define we said if this is the area I am going to put a hemisphere around it and whatever energy that is either coming in or going out within the hemisphere is radiant flux density. So, we are not carrying about in which direction energy is coming whatever energy within the hemisphere we are taking it. Whereas in radiance we are interested in see if this is the area if the energy is going in this direction I am going to calculate like with a given solid angle I am going to calculate in this particular direction I am going to project this project the surface area with respect to the normal and calculated. If the direction changes this is further going to change. So, radiance is directional. One more important property is radiant flux density reduces with the square of distance that is let us assume there is like a small source of energy is here. Like let us say this is point P I have kept like a small source of energy there. Let us say it is emitting P watts of power that is some energy in unit time we call it as P watts. Now that is happening let us imagine I have placed a square of 1 meter square area unit area I place it at a distance of r from this point source. So, this is a source of energy I am placing one meter square area of some object and I am going to calculate what is the power from this particular object is going to fall on this surface area. So, if I see it from the perspective of this particular object see now what I am doing I am going back to the definition of radiant flux density this surface area I am lying it flat on a plane the point source is now here point P it is at a distance of r. So, this is 1 meter square area let us imagine only this is the power source if I put a hemisphere around it if I put like a hemisphere around it only this energy is coming in no energy source from another directions are coming only this is the energy coming and falling over it. So, I am going to calculate what is the irradiance E received by this unit square meter of area. So, what essentially happens E is equal to total power P divided by 4 by r square that is the power emitted by this particular point source P is now spreading uniformly in all directions because it is there in a three dimensional space I said it is like a small point source and it is emitting energy in all directions. So, energy in I am placing an object in one particular small area on the sphere. So, what is happening for this particular point P I put a huge sphere around it of area 4 by r square within this I am placing an object 1 meter square object and I am just going to calculate the irradiance on this particular area. So, this drawing and this drawing are kind of analogy for you to understand.  So, what essentially is happening now if I move this to a distance of 2 r that is I move it to a further point this point is now move to like a further point something here. So, essentially whatever this point P is emitting whatever power it is emitting now it is distributing itself over a extremely large area like the area is increased 4 folds because of the sphere surrounding this point is going to double in area this what to say the energy emitted by this object is going to now expanded over a area that is 4 times the initial. So, even if I keep the same a square here the same area of 1 unit meter square here the energy I am going to receive is going to reduce by 4 times. Similarly, if I move the distance by 3 times the energy is going to reduce by 9 times and so on. So, conceptually in order to understand as the distance between the source and the object source and the receiver increases the energy received by the receiver is going to decrease by square of a distance that is the radiant flux density. It is very simple analogy is like let us say there is like a big burner that is burning we are standing at some distance from it. Say if we move closer and closer we are going to feel much hotter if we move away and away we are going to feel little bit cooler not that much of heat will be there because the energy emitted by that particular source is going to decrease as the distance between the source and receiver increases. How this thing decreases by a distance square law that is by square of distance as the distance double the radiant flux density received will become 4 times less. As the distance becomes thrice the radiant flux density received is going to reduce by a factor of 9 and so on. So, this is the major thing with radiant flux density the energy received by an object of unit area will keep on decreasing as the object moves away from the source. On the other hand let us take radiance. Now, in the same figure what we are going to do is radiance is defined as like a in concept of like a solid angle. Now, this is again like a point source what I am interested is what is the energy emitted in the solid angle here. Let us call it as like phi or omega or whatever it may be within the solid angle what is the energy emitted. Even as the distance increases even when distance increases we are retaining the same solid angle. As per the definition we have to measure over the entire solid angle itself. So, we are going to increase the size of our receiver in order to collect all the area basically right. That is within the as the distance increases if we want to maintain the same solid angle the surface area is going to increase. So, if I want to place a receiver there at a distance of r I need to have a smaller receiver to collect all the energy at the distance of 2r I need to have a larger surface area and so on. Same thing, but if I keep a larger surface area based on distance I am still going to collect the same amount of energy. So, radiance if you look at the definition of like energy in a given solid angle this will not change with distance.  If I go closer to it I will feel hotter if I go back I will feel little bit cooler why the energy from the burner is spreading across in all directions. If I go closer most of my surface area of my body is encountering that energy. If I go back the energy is now spread across a larger area and my surface area is smaller in compared with the total area. So, the energy I receive is only a fraction of what the object image this is radiant flux density. Now, compared with radiance same burner is in front of me the burner if I treat it as collect a small source or something it will have like a small solid angle towards me right basically. As I move back and back I need to maintain the solid angle which the burner had initially then only the radiance definition will be satisfied. Radiance by definition it is the energy in that particular solid angle. So, radiance is here. So, I have to maintain the solid angle. So, what essentially it means as I move back and move back it is akin to myself has to grow bigger and bigger in surface area so that I capture all the energy coming in that particular solid angle. So, essentially what is happening I am maintaining the solid angle and hence I will be collecting the all the energy coming out of the burner which will remain the same. As I move back the surface area in which I am collecting the energy is going to increase because I need to maintain this constraint of solid angle this thing solid angle definition. That is why with respect to radiance energy is not going to change as long as the solid angle is held constant same amount of radiance we will receive. But by definition of radiant flux density surface area has to remain constant. So, even the solid angle is kept same the surface area will become smaller and smaller as the distance between the source and object increases. This is the burner this is me as I move further and further the total proportional area getting this energy is going to decrease based on distance and that is why we say radiant flux density will decrease with distance whereas by definition of radiance it would not decrease with distance. So, you need to understand this difference between them it may appear little confusing in the beginning. But as you try to sit and think deeper about it you will be able to understand it much clearer. Next what we are going to see is the relationship between radiance and radiant flux density.  We will take it as an example the source of energy I placed it on a hemisphere surrounding it say rather than placing here I place it here yeah now this is a source of energy. Let us imagine the source of energy is going to emit some energy starting from this particular point and it is going to move all along the hemisphere line and come here and stand and say what to say stop. So, what essentially it means this source of energy is going to see this particular surface area continuously and it is going to move from it. So, essentially what is the energy it is emitting in this particular direction we are interested upon. So, as it is moving here it is going to see like this something of this sort. So, after it has moved one full round I say I want to calculate the total irradiance received by the object okay. So, initially I measured radiant energy from one direction that is radiance now the source has moved in the entire hemisphere now I say I need to calculate the total irradiance. So, what essentially the concept wise is I am going to integrate the energy that came from these different points on the entire hemisphere right because by definition of irradiance it is nothing but the total energy within the hemisphere surrounding the object of interest. So, what I want to do? I want to do integration of the radiance over the entire hemisphere if I integrate it over the entire hemisphere I am going to get the total irradiance. So, the irradiance E is equal to L integrated over the 2 pi solid angle integrated over 2 pi solid angle or to be more precise I write it as 0 to 2 pi solid angle that is hemisphere like for full sphere we had solid angle is 4 pi radiance and for a hemisphere solid angle is 2 pi half of it. But here comes one more tricky issue just go back to the definition of radiance and definition of radiance we spoke about projected area that is whatever be like energy coming in or going out the area which is receiving the energy or emitting the energy should be perpendicular to the direction of motion. So, coming back to this particular example that we had. So, if this area is here when the object is here the area should be rotated like this in a direction perpendicular that is this is the original position by angle of theta I should rotate it in order for the area to receive the energy. Similarly, if this receiver goes somewhere here to another position instead of being horizontal I should now rotate it to another angle to receive the energy this is how we have defined radiance the area should be projected in the direction of radiation and hence there will always be a cos theta term involved in the definition of radiance. If you look at the definition of radiance in this particular slide is defined as the in denominator we have d a cos theta because of this in the integration of radiance rather than just using L I should use L cos theta because of the definition difference in irradiance we did we do not care about directionality but in radiance definition we care about direction and hence due to this projected angle difference I need to introduce a concept of cos theta into it. So, rather than just integrating L over 2 pi radian sorry 2 pi stradian I have to integrate L cos theta I am going to consider the entire direction between the vertical and the horizontal starting from 0 here the vertical all the way up to 90 in this direction similarly 0 here all the way up to 90 in this direction I have to integrate it then only I will be getting the exact irradiance okay. So, just coming back to the derivation so the irradiance E is given by L cos theta into solid angle whatever is a solid angle integrated over 0 to 2 pi solid angles. Now I am not going to go into the detail of this derivation a single solid angle we can divided into two planar angles one is called a zenith angle and azimuth angles and all I am not going to go deeper into it but the final result I am giving out here the final result is E is equal to pi times L that is the irradiance received by an object will be is equal to or will be is equal to pi times the L or if an object is emitting energy in different different directions the total emittance from an object is pi times the L pi times L. So, this is the relationship between radiant flux density and radiance this we will be using repeatedly in various points in the course so you need to remember this relationship always this relationship has a caveat or a like a strict condition what is it? This relationship holds good only if the area is Lambertian so that is given here Lambertian or the source if the area is receiving energy or it is kind of reflecting we call it as Lambertian or if the source is like emitting energy say it is emitting on its own we call it isotropic radiator. So, here we talk about okay we will first concentrate on term Lambertian. So, Lambertian means say I said an object is there now I am going to take an aeroplane fly around an object and look at and measure the energy coming out of an object. So, I have a sensor fitted in the aeroplane I go in like a circle I move in different different directions I move in different angles and so on I fly I fly if I am this angle I then I come closer whatever all possibilities I cover within that hemisphere if that is the case in whatever direction I look if the object is giving out same amount of energy like the particular land surface around which I am flying if it is giving the same amount of energy in whichever direction I look at it that particular surface is called Lambertian it will look exactly the same like same means it will emit the same amount of energy it is not like physically the area will not remain same like as I said the area will project itself but the amount of energy coming out of it will be the same in whichever direction I look that is called like Lambertian. So, Lambertian surfaces it will have like a uniform reflectance properties it will appear more or less equal from all directions. So, only for such Lambertian surfaces E is equal to pi times L the relationship will hold good because the derivate derivation I have not shown you if you want to take the radiance term L out of the derivation we need to treat it as a constant right normally we take only constants out of the integrals you know so out of the integral if you want to take it has to be a constant when it will be like a constant when L should be will when L will be constant is only when the surface is Lambertian that is why I said there is a condition this is like a little bit strict condition because most of the earth surface features are non Lambertian in nature we will see in detail in the coming slides and coming classes but remember this equation as we will be using it often E is equal to L times pi ok I said inverse square law we are going to now see an example of how inverse square law works again we are going to take an example of sun and work around it. So, the question given here is calculate the mean solar irradiance at the earth surface assume equivalent black body temperature of sun is 5770 Kelvin radius of sun 710 power 8 meters and mean earths and distance 1.5 into 10 power 11 meters. So, what is being said it is said sun is emitting some amount of energy calculate what is the energy that will reach the earth surface per unit meter square of area. Let us see how we are going to calculate first step we have to calculate the radiant flux density emitted by sun. We have learnt the law called the Stephen Boltzmann law which says the radiant flux density m is equal to sigma t power 4 where sigma the constant is Stephen Boltzmann constant I gave the value in the initial lectures. So, I am just going to substitute the values. So, m is equal to 5.67 into 10 power minus 8 this is the value of sigma multiplied by temperature of sun 5770 power 4. If you solve this we will get 6.2847 into 10 power 7 and the units is watt per meter square. So, Stephen Boltzmann law will give us radiant flux density what is the amount of energy per unit time per unit area that is radiant flux density. But we all know sun is a sphere big sphere it is not like a one point it has a certain area and the shape of the sun in 3D space is a full sphere. So, this energy that we have just calculated is per unit meter square area of sun. So, what now we have to do we need to calculate the total power emitted by the sun. So, now we have calculated the power emitted by sun per unit meter square of sun. Next we are going to calculate the total power emitted by sun. How are we going to do it the total power emitted by sun is equal to I use the correct technical term the total sorry radiant flux emitted by sun is equal to radiant flux density multiplied by area of the sun. So, here I am sun is like a 3 dimensional figure there in the initial problem of calculation of solid angles in the last lecture we treated sun as like a circle because when we look at sun we are seeing it as a 2 dimensional circle alone but in reality sun is like a sphere. So, for calculating the total power emitted by sun we should treat it as a sphere and take the total value like the total surface area of the sphere. So, here radiant flux density is the m we calculated in the previous slide multiplied by surface area of sphere is 4 pi r square. So, 4 pi into the radius of sun that is given there roughly if you do this the total power radiated by sun will be 3.8698 into 10 power 26 units is watts because now what happened I have converted radiant flux density into radiant flux. So, I have multiplied the power emitted per unit area by I have multiplied the power emitted by unit area with area and hence area terms get cancelled out the unit will remain as watts always have the units written beside your quantities it will help you to cross check whether your calculation is correct or not. So, now I have calculated the total power emitted by sun. Now, let us look at the geometry this is sun as a sphere I have calculated the total power emitted by sun earth is somewhere here at a distance of d. Now, sun is not only emitting energy towards earth it is emitting energy in all direction because sun is there in space nothing there to capture it it is emitting energy in all directions. So, what essentially if I draw a full sphere around it I draw full sphere around it with the radius of d sorry my drawing is not that great but yeah I draw a sphere around it with radius of d and this particular power emitted by sun is actually distributed itself equally in the entire sphere around it because sun is like a sun is what we call as isotropic radiator uniformly radiates energy in all directions. So, if I put like a huge sphere surrounding the sun with radius of d distance between earth and sun it will emit energy equally in all directions within that particular sphere. So, earth 1 meter square on the earth surfaces is actually located somewhere here. So, what I want to do I want to calculate the irradiance at the earth surface that is I have to divide the power within this entire hemisphere for 1 meter square of area that is earth can be anywhere here earth is what is the energy received by 1 meter square area on the earth surface.  So, if we can do this if you divide this particular power P divided by 4 pi d square. So, P divided by 4 pi into d is 1.5 into 10 power 11 whole square if you do this we will get 1368.67 watt per meter square again the unit will become watt per meter square because again we are converting the total power into unit area for that particular distance. So, this is known as solar constant roughly this value 1368 watt per meter square value is what we call solar constant that is on an average taken for all season all places together this will be the average amount of energy that we will receive from sun per unit meter square of area per unit time that is solar constant. So, to summarize what we have learned in this lecture in this lecture we have learnt about the relationship between irradiance and or radiant flux density and radiance radiant flux density will vary with decrease with distance whereas radiance will remain constant as long as the solid angle is kept constant. And the irradiance E E is equal to pi times L the relationship we have seen and also we have saw one example of how to use the inverse distance relationship to calculate the amount of energy received on the earth surface. So, with this we in this lecture thank you very much.


Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners, thanks to all of you including Eric Holm, Carmine Bailey, and Vince Power. Coming up on DTNS, Tim Stevens is here to explain why the Unreal Engine is in the new Mustang, plus is it the end for auto shows and why the matter standard is just, it's got to disappoint. This is the Daily Tech News for Friday, September 16th, 2022 in Los Angeles on Tom Merritt. From Upstate New York, I'm Tim Stevens. And I'm the show's producer, Roger J. Tim, thank you for joining us today, it's good to have you man. I'm really glad to be here. Well, I'm glad to have you alongside. Sarah Lane's out today, she'll be back on Monday, but let's start with a few tech things you should know. Uber discovered a security breach Thursday and has taken several of its internal communications and engineering systems offline. It's investigating the incident along with law enforcement. I'd like to say no customer information was affected. There's no evidence of that yet, but their investigation isn't done. An individual told the New York Times they breached Uber by using WhatsApp to contact an employee and convince that employee to log into a fake Uber site, which then used the entered credentials to log in immediately to the genuine Uber portal. The employee in question apparently authorized MFA. So when they logged into the fake site, the MFA got pushed, whether they authorized it right away or they got tired of it alerting them, it depends on who you ask, but they allowed the person in. So there was a second factor, but they socially engineered around it. Once in, the attacker found PowerShell scripts that an admin had created to automate logging into various sensitive network enclaves and used those to access multiple production systems, Slack management, Uber's endpoint detection and response portal, among others. The attacker may also have access to Uber's AWS and Google Cloud accounts, as well as its bug bounty program, which has since been disabled. Intel first released its Pentium chips in 1993, an acceleron brand in 1998. Chips under those brands will still show up on low-end laptops, often in models of Chromebook. Intel announced it's replacing the Pentium and the acceleron brands, or maybe more accurately, it is deleting them. Processors that used to carry the name will now just be called Intel processors starting with the 2023 notebook product stack. For now, Intel will continue to use the core Evo and V Pro brands for its own processors. That's so silly. Calling your chip just Intel processor, that's like calling a daily tech news show, daily tech news. Truth in advertising, right? Apple warns that there's an activation issue in iOS 16.0 that could prevent iMessage and FaceTime from working properly on new phones, like, you know, the brand new iPhone 14. Apple has patched the problem in iOS 16.0.1. A lot of folks are getting their new iPhones today, though. So if the new phone prompts you to install the new version 16.0.1 during setup, you'll probably be fine. If it doesn't, go update it right away. If you're still having problems, Apple has posted steps to take if the problem persists after installing the patch. Security company Vectra identified a risk in the way Microsoft teams on the desktop stores authentication tokens. Apps built on the Electron framework for Windows Mac and Linux store the tokens unencrypted. That means if an attacker gets access to your network, it could use the credential to impersonate you on apps associated with teams like Outlook and Skype, two which are pretty common apps used for some pretty important business stuff. Microsoft said that it will consider addressing it in a future update as it would require a much bigger breach, i.e. network access, in order to be exploited. In other words, if you have a network breach, you probably got some bigger problems to worry about. Yeah, I'd still like them to patch it. I would too. And promise to patch it? Yeah. I get what they're saying, though. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden is raising the alarm again on the latitude that U.S. Custom and Border Protection agents have to access U.S. citizens' devices at the border. I mean, if you're not a U.S. citizen, they can do whatever they want, but they can kind of do whatever they want with U.S. citizens' devices as well. Border authorities are not required by law to get a warrant in order to access the content of any electronic device. The Washington Post reports that in a briefing with U.S. Congress, CBP said its officials access around 10,000 devices a year, which is a low percentage of the number of people crossing the border, to be honest, but it's a lot of devices. And they add data from those devices to a database. 2,700 CBP officers have access to that database. Current rules require a border agent to have at least reasonable suspicion that a traveler is breaking a law or a threat to national security in order to copy data over to that database. I cross the border a lot. I'm lucky to say that's never happened to me, but I do always make sure that all my devices have some charge because I know that if they don't turn on, that can cause some problems for you. All right, if you're not subscribed to Stacey Higginbotham's Stacey on IOT, and you care at all about smart home stuff, go now. Subscribe to StaceyonIOT.com. Her latest newsletter is called Five Ways Matter Will Disappoint Users at Launch. It's an excellent piece because it sets you up to understand that the promise of matter is not lost just because it's not all there at the beginning. She explains what will and will not be there. If you read it, you can get ahead of most of the complaints people are going to have after matter launches. A lot of people are going to be lobbing softball bombs at this thing. The short version though is that the Connective B Standards Alliance is trying not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And they're going to push out a 1.0 version of the standard that's more limited than what the promise of matter has been up until now. Here's the short version of what Stacey says. You're going to be able to turn light bulbs and smart plugs on and off real easy. That's going to work great. Everything else is where the problem comes in. First of all, some stuff is not included until a later version of matter. So video cameras, appliances, video doorbells, vacuums, robot vacuums, none of that stuff is going to be in version 1.0. That is not going to be part of matter. And of the stuff that will be included, your smart plugs and your light bulbs and such, matter is not going to support all the advanced features. So if you have a smart plug that does electricity monitoring, that's not going to be supported by matter. If you have some sophisticated recipes for mixing and matching, the garage door goes up when you come home and then the lights go on inside. That stuff's probably not going to work. Multiple brands of devices in a complex routine, probably not going to work. You're going to need an app a lot of the time. In fact, you're probably going to need the devices app for installation at this point too. And while you technically will be able to use matter on Google, Amazon, Apple or Samsung hubs, the features that will work across those platforms are going to be limited. If you want those platforms more advanced features, you're going to still need compatibility and stay all in the same universe for a while. Adding a light bulb or two should work great. But if you add a lot of them, you may also hit a limit of what it can handle. Now, none of these are permanent. This is not the way matter is designed to work. Matter is going to update to solve these problems over time. It's just going to be limited when it launches. It's capable of doing more. It just needs time. As an educated consumer, I know you and I out there understand that standards evolve. USB is more capable now than it was when it launched in 2001. So it doesn't surprise me that matter is going to be the same, but not all consumers are going to think that way. Tim, what do you think? Can matter survive what looks like might be a disappointing launch? Yeah, I definitely think it can. I've actually worked on a few standards bodies over the years back in my software days, and I know that it's really difficult to get these things moving at all. So I do think it's important for them to get something to market and then to continue to evolve with the market, because otherwise they run the risk of having the market kind of just continue to run away without them. Frankly, I think that matter doesn't really have the kind of awareness within the general consumer base at this point that it's going to disappoint that many people. Certainly for folks like us, we're going to be a little bit disappointed that it's not going to be amazing out of the box. But I think as long as expectations are being set and as long as they can continue to evolve and so that Amazon and ZigBee and everybody else are engaged in developing the standard, then yeah, I think this is a good thing. But absolutely, Stacy's piece is really fantastic. Everyone should read it if you're interested in this. And frankly, I think they should print this out and put it in a box of every matter of the device because I think people should definitely have their expectations in the right place. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. It's a great point that there's going to be a lot of loud talk in a small area about the disappointment of matter. But the fact is that a lot of folks out there aren't going to realize what it is. I think the only danger they run is if people see the matter logo on a box and someone explains to them like, oh yeah, matter, that means it'll run on anything. It'll all interoperate and then they get it home and they have a problem and it won't do a thing that they want. I may not trust that in the future as it does get better. But I'm with you. I don't think that's going to be fatal to it. I think you're going to have a lot of people writing very long reddit threads about how disappointed they are with matter and that might be the worst fallout. Yeah, absolutely. And apps will be updated. I have smart devices that their apps haven't been updated in years so I'm not surprised too that this is going to take a while for everything to proliferate. Yeah, it may take a while. That may be the biggest downside is I want it now and it really may be five or more years before it really gets to the point where it delivers on all of its promises. Nick with a C in our chat room is pointing out Wi-Fi A sucked at launch. No one remembers Wi-Fi A. Everyone remembers 802.11 B, not 802.11 A because 802.11 A didn't work very well. So yeah, this is not new. This is new and I don't think it's as bad as it sounds but Thursday, Amazon announced a new feature for its smart devices called Customers Ask Alexa where you can have brands answer your questions. That might sound bad. Like if I ask how to get a pet stain out, is it just going to be the Bissell vacuum manufacturer telling me use the Bissell vacuum manufacturer? It's not unlike crowdsourced answers that Amazon has provided since 2018. If you don't know, there's something called Alexa Answers and in that one, users of Amazon add answers to other users' questions. It's crowdsourced. In this new Customers Ask Election version, it's the brands themselves providing the answers. It's just a special way for brands to be able to see questions related to their products and offer answers. Brands that register with Amazon Brand Registry can see frequently asked customer questions and then provide answers. Brand answers still go through content moderation just like any crowdsourced answer would to make sure that there are viable answers that are useful. Answers are also attributed to the brand and the brands are not paid for providing answers. This is merely a way for them to service the customers. It's not at this point a revenue-generating thing for Amazon or for the brands. Customers Ask Alexa will launch in October in a limited rollout. All eligible U.S. brands will get support later next year and then eventually it'll expand beyond that. Users will see responses in the Amazon search bar starting later this year and then it'll come to Echo devices by the middle of next year. My first reaction when I saw this, Tim, was like, oh, great, we're going to get a bunch of useless answers telling me to buy a product, but it sounds like maybe it won't work that way. I think this could be helpful in the long run. You mentioned moderation and I'm glad that they're making that kind of front because when Alexa Answers launched, there were some definite breakdowns when they came down to moderation. There were a lot of very, very bogus answers that go through and some of them were even dangerous, so I'm glad that'll be part of it. But honestly, I mean, at this point, if you watch any given DIY program on PBS or whatever else, there are always products being injected into all those explanations of how to do anything. So I think people are pretty used to it at this point. It doesn't necessarily have to be a hostile thing. And from a brand standpoint, it actually could be really useful data for them to see what kind of questions and problems people are having. And I can even see this expanding into like how to put together your new table kind of thing where you're getting guidance from the manufacturer or something like that. So I think there are some interesting applications here. I'm glad that for now it's not a paid thing, but I will be shocked if within six months Amazon doesn't flip the switch on that. Yeah, as it is set up right now, I will give them credit. This is the best of both worlds, right? Yeah. If IKEA wants to let me be talked through assembling the Billy bookshelves, that's fantastic. That could be amazing. Or even with an Echo show, you know, give me some diagrams and help like that. Who is better able to tell you about their product than the maker of them? And manufacturers benefit from helping you get the most out of their products. So they're invested in giving you good information. That said, Amazon is invested in selling you things. And yes, providing you great support through the Amazon Echo will probably have a halo effect of making you want to buy more things through Amazon. But Amazon would also like to sell you more things directly. And I can't imagine there won't be some change to this policy down the line that changes that. My only hope is that wouldn't devalue the answers. If the answers stay quality, I'm even okay with some money changing hands. But it makes it harder for those answers to stay quality once the money starts flowing around. Yeah, at that point it becomes whoever's got the deepest pockets will be providing the quote-unquote right answers, even if they're not the best ones. And really, you may roll your eyes at that out there. But if Amazon does that, then the Echo won't be as valuable and people won't buy the Echo. And thankfully, this is a competitive marketplace. There's Google Home, there's Siri, there's even Samsung Bixby could make a comeback if Amazon got really bad. So there's pressure for them not to be bad is what I'm saying. Does that mean there's still hope for Cortana? I don't think so. I feel like Microsoft turned a corner on Cortana and they're willing to sell you that to put in your product. So I guess in that respect, there might be more manufacturers take advantage of Cortana, but it feels more like it's an enterprise service. I'm still sad about that. At this point. Yeah, I know. I had high hopes for Cortana as well. It worked, it still does. Folks, we would like to hear what you would like us to talk about on the show. I would say a majority of our top stories at the top of the show were from our subreddit today. So thanks to everybody out there who are submitting those stories. You can join them. Submit stories and vote at dailytechnewshow.reddit.com. The Ford Mustang has been an automotive icon. It went into production in 1964 and we are about to see, in fact, Tim just saw, the 2024 model that is 60 years later. You got a chance to see that model. There's some interesting tech going on in the new Mustang, for instance. Why is it running the Unreal engine, Tim? It's actually pretty interesting, the tech that they built into the dashboard. There are two displays, a 13.3 and 12.2, if I remember correctly, inch displays that are kind of integrated within a unified bezel. And in the middle display, kind of the infotainment display, which is tilted toward the driver that they kept saying is a fighter-influenced design.  Whatever your adjusting suspension brakes, engine performance, those components within the car are highlighted with the kind of a cool a racetrace design. It looks really good, actually. High-res graphics inside of the center console are pretty cool. And then also on the gauge cluster behind the steering wheel, they've actually recreated the FoxBody Mustang gauge cluster in 3D. And you can project that onto the gauge cluster to make your fancy new Mustang look like a 1980s-era Mustang. And presumably, I would be shocked if they don't offer other gauge cluster packages for purchase down the road. But right now, anyway, there's FoxBody in it. So I think that's a pretty interesting application of this consumer-grade technology, gaming software in a car. And it looks really, really good. I'm actually impressed with what they did. It's a compelling pitch to say the setup screen from Forza, where you can pretend to own a race car can be in your actual car that is also kind of a race car. Yeah, absolutely. And it looks just as clean as it would on an Xbox or PlayStation. Yeah. Now, we talked recently on DTNS about the desirability of physical switches versus touchscreen controls. Sounds like some of those are going away. Yeah. Ford is keeping some of the major controls with physical buttons and knobs. There is still a volume knob, for example. HVAC controls for your temperature, your climate control modes. All those have now been absorbed up into the touchscreen. There's no way to get to them through buttons. Ford said they did this to free up room in the center console, so there's a little cubby now below the display with wireless charging, which is nice. But if you want to adjust your heated seats, that kind of thing, you're going to have to go tap and through a couple of menus to do so. This is commonplace. This is what everybody's doing. I still like buttons in a lot of places. And again, there are still a fair few buttons in the Mustang, but many fewer than there were in the sixth gen in the last-gen Mustang. Is there any voice control in this Mustang? Is it all console? There is a bit, yeah, but it's fairly straightforward. It's nothing really advanced, like a Google Assistant kind of thing, like Volvo has in their cars, for example. But you can do navigation through voice and a few basic controls, too. Now, I see you hearing us talk about the Unreal Engine in the dash, says, when do I get to steer my car with a game pad? Well, you could park your car with a joystick, apparently. Why does the parking brake, the handbrake, look like a big joystick? So the handbrake is inspired by drift culture, basically. And so what they wanted to do was to give the car a modern handbrake. And pretty much every handbrake on a modern car these days is digital.  It's not like the old ones where you pulled up and it ratcheted into place and you pulled a button. And so Ford wanted to bring a modern parking brake to the Mustang, but they still wanted you to be able to pull the handbrake and get the car sideways if you wanted to. And so they created this thing that's basically like a joystick that's shaped like a drift-style handbrake. When you go into race mode and you pull on that thing, it locks the rear wheels and will kick the car sideways, letting you slide it around and make big, smoky burnouts, basically. So they wanted to give you drift power in a silly-looking joystick on the center console, basically, is what that is. So, I mean, you tell me as someone who's covered cars for a long time, how do they adjust to that line of like, this is an illegal thing that you can now do with this feature? It's actually very surprising to me that they would put this feature in this car that exists only for the purpose of getting the car sideways. There's no other reason to have this. You can option that into the car.  And so I'm surprised. Yeah, there's really no legal way to use that. So it would only be really on a racetrack. But then again, the last generation Mustang had a line lock function, which is designed explicitly to help you do big smoky burnouts. And that was the last generation. So they do have a history of doing this kind of thing. Well, when you take your new 2024 Mustang out on your private ranch and do smoky burnouts, let us know how it goes. Now, among all this tech, you have not mentioned that this is an EV because it's not. This is gasoline power. Right. And that's actually a little bit surprising. We had fully expected this to be at least a plug-in hybrid. The rumor or word on the street was that it was going to be some evolution of the Explorer's plug-in hybrid technology or something else that would basically turn it into an all-wheel drive car with an electric front axle and then traditional gasoline-powered rear axle, a combination of gas power and battery power. But just a few days before the unveiling, the word kind of broke that that was not going to be the case. And so what we actually have here is a pretty minor mechanical evolution of the old Mustang. Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, says they're doing this because they think that as everyone else goes to electrification, that the Mustang might be the only gas-powered sports car left in the markets. I think that's maybe being a bit optimistic for them either running into some unforeseen engineering challenges or more likely them simply deciding that because they have the Mach-E Mustang, which is fully electric, that they've kind of got their green cred in on that side so they don't really have to worry about that so much on the Mustang anymore. I don't know for sure, but that's just me speculating. And the Mach-E is very different than the traditional Mustang, so maybe they don't want to have to try to compete and merge those two lines with that. Yeah, it's entirely possible that there's still a lot of debate raising whether the Mach-E is an actual Mustang and I don't think we really need to get into that. But yeah, certainly the Mach-E is a crossover SUV versus the Mustang, which is a two-door sports coupe. So probably the more that they keep them differentiated in the product portfolio, probably the better for them. And for Star Trek fans, we're saying Mach, M-A-C-H-E, not Mach-E, not the Rebellion in the Badlands. Absolutely. You saw the new Mustang as part of the North American International Auto Show, right? Yeah, which is interesting because that show has been evolving a lot. The New York, excuse me, the North American Auto Show used to be in January. It was right after CES. It was really struggling for years because CES was kind of drinking its proverbial milkshake as it were with more and more auto companies choosing to go to Vegas instead of Detroit. So it had been a few years. It moved to the summertime to avoid the kind of the CES bump. And then COVID happened, which was not great for the North American International Auto Show. So this is really the first big North American auto show we've had in a couple of years, and it was not as big as it used to be. There was a lot of empty space on the show floor, which was kind of sad to see, and just a lot of manufacturers chose not to be there. It's similar to what we've seen at CES and E3 in the past, but it was a pretty dramatic example of the shifting tides for the auto show right now. Yeah, it is similar in that you see car companies doing their own announcements now. The way that Apple and Sony and Microsoft do their own announcements, Samsung, it has not led to the total demise of CES. It certainly has put E3 on the brink. We'll see if it makes it back. Do you think this is it for auto shows? Are they irrelevant now? I wouldn't say they're irrelevant, but they're struggling. Auto shows traditionally have served three audiences, and those three have kind of been like the legs on a wooden stool. On one hand, there's the media. We go there to see new car launches. So car companies will unveil their new whatever at auto shows and we'll write about it, and that's good for the industry. They also serve the consumers. Unlike your average CES or E3, auto shows are typically open to the public. So whoever wants to buy a new car can go to these auto shows and check those out too. And then also they serve the industry. So if you want to partner with a new supplier for some sensory car, you go to an auto show and you sign that deal. Now, though, consumers are largely shopping and doing the research online, so they don't necessarily need to go to an auto show anymore. And because like you mentioned, manufacturers are following the Apple Q and doing their own events off-site, that also diminishes the impact of these shows for the media. So that means that really they're only serving the industry and the industry can just have those meetings on Zoom. So it is unfortunate, but the auto show's importance is whining for sure. You would think that the ability to get in a car would make it more resilient to that, but it would be interesting to see. Are showing a willingness to buy a car site on scene much more so than we've ever seen before. I bought a car in 2020 from Carvana that was delivered from Atlanta, Georgia to my house. I never went to a dealer. There you go. Yeah. Tuesday this week, LA police were called out to high school on what turned out to be a hoax, but while treating it seriously and investigating, they put up crime scene tape to deter bystanders. TV cameras had to stand on the other side of the crime tape, so they weren't too close to any possible incident. Again, nothing happened. However, a serve robotics delivery robot, which makes deliveries for Uber Eats, rolled right on up to the crime scene tape. One of the camera operators standing there watched it hesitating and flashing red lights and eventually raised the tape for it. I think it took pity on it and let the robot roll right on into the crime scene right past the cops going along its merry way. Autonomous robots are almost always supervised by humans. Any of these sidewalk robots usually have somebody over viewing them. They can over view multiple robots at once, but the idea is to intervene if there's a problem. Serve has a policy that their robot should not cross police tape, which is why the robot autonomously paused. However, a spokesperson for serve robotics told Gizmodo that the robot's human supervisor mistakenly thought it was being waved through and so gave the robot the go ahead. My guess is, this is not what they've said, is that when that camera person raised up the tape, the supervisor, maybe they were distracted, maybe not, just looked at that and said, oh, I guess they're letting it through. Okay, great. And let it roll on through.  In this case, it was the human that didn't deal very well with it. Yeah, this is very different than the typical trolley problem that we're always debating. This is a case, yeah, where the human operator clicked the button and said, yeah, go ahead and it went right through. But this really deals with the question of contextual cues, which human beings are very good at reading and which robots are really not so good. So, you know, we're talking about autonomous cars. How often have you been at an intersection waiting to turn? You see a pedestrian. You make eye contact with them. The pedestrian assumes you see them. They go ahead. Or maybe you use your hand to wave somebody to go through the intersection, that kind of thing. Robots can't do this and they, by default, can't really understand what you mean. So, that's why some of the companies fall back to human operators. And when the human operator screws up, yeah, then things get kind of comical and satirical. This reads like kind of a jokey episode of Black Mirror to me like the delivery drone rolls through and scoops up the murder weapon secretly and attaches it to the bottom and then continues rolling on with like tire tracks of blood behind or something like that. That's all I could picture in my head. Thankfully, that's not what happened, but I could absolutely see a Black Mirror episode like that for sure. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Rick wrote us an email called, does tech gate keep labels? Good morning, DTNS team. First, I'd like to say thank you for the concise and understandable proof of work explainer. It helped a lot on a topic I was peripherally knowledgeable on. Thank you, Rick. I'm glad you appreciated that. It got a lot of good feedback on that episode. Second, I finally started seeing articles comparing the Apple Watch Ultra to some of Garmin's offerings in earnest. Some of those reviews make some sort of remark that the Garmin isn't actually a true smartwatch, but rather a fitness tracker. I feel like this occasionally happens with developing tech segments. Do you think this is simply a result of a market leader establishing an ideal of what a product category is and that sticking, regardless of how muddied the waters get for a while, unconsciously or not, is it a result of marketing? Is it even a bad thing? These are great questions, Rick. Tim, what do you think? Yeah, they are great questions. I remember when the iPhone first dropped, there was a debate about whether the iPhone was a smartphone because it couldn't do a lot of things that you could do on Windows Mobile or whatever. But yeah, to me, it's ridiculous that because Garmin is a fitness-focused device that therefore it isn't a quote-unquote smartphone, you know, you can do a lot of incredibly smart things on a modern Garmin device. So yeah, I think it's an interesting thing, but ultimately, I think it's up to the owners of these devices to kind of tune that stuff out, frankly, you know, if the device does what you need to do, if it's smart for you, if it's improving your quality of life, which Garmin devices would do for a lot of folks, then who cares what the label is personally? That's what I think. Yeah, I think what happens is the reviewers are trying to be fair, and so they may not be trying to throw Garmin under the bus so much as saying, well, Garmin isn't meant to be a smartwatch. It is meant to focus on fitness, whereas the Apple is meant to be a full smartwatch. So there are things that the Garmin doesn't do because it never needed to do those, to capture its market. I think that happens. And it's less gatekeeping and more like trying to say, well, these are coming from different areas. Expectations for adding that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Well, Tim Stevens, thank you so much for being with us today. I know you've got a new sub-stack out there. I've been enjoying it quite a bit. Tell folks more about that. Thank you, yeah. I'm just kind of stretching my legs a little bit on the writing side and trying out some new things. So yeah, check out my sub-stack, TimStevens.substack.com, talking about everything from electric cars to management techniques and that kind of thing. And then always on Twitter, Tim, underscore Stevens. You can find me there too. And thanks to our brand new boss, Sergio. Just started backing us on Patreon. This could be you on Monday. But today it's Sergio. Sergio getting all the love for backing us on Patreon. We're always very appreciative of our long-standing backers and our new backers alike. So thank you, Sergio, for being along for the ride. Welcome to the club. And stick around, Sergio and all patrons for the extended show Good Day Internet. We'll be talking more with Tim about stuff. You can also catch the show live Monday through Friday, 4 p.m. Eastern, 2,800 UTC. Find out more about that. DailyTechNewsShow.com slash live. We'll be back Monday with Lamar Wilson. Talk to you then. This week's episodes of Daily Tech News Show were created by the following people, host producer and writer, Tom Mann, host producer and writer, Sarah Lane, executive producer and booker, Roger Chang, producer, writer and host, Rich Strothelino, video producer and Twitch producer, Joe Coots, technical producer, Anthony Lemos, Spanish language host, writer and producer, Dan Campos. News host, writer and producer, Jen Cutter. Science correspondent, Dr. Nicky Ackermanns. Social media producer and moderator, Zoe Detterding. Our Mods! Beatmaster, W. Scottus 1. BioCow, Kevin Kipper, Steve Gruderama, Paul Reese. Matthew J. Stevens, A.K.A. Gadget Virtuoso and J.D. Galloway. Mod and video hosting by Dan Christensen. Video feed by Sean Wei. Music and Art provided by Martin Bell. Dan Looters, Mustafa A. A-Cast and Len Peralta. A-Cast ad support from Tatiana Matias. Patreon support from Dylan Harari. Our contributors this week included Terence Gaines, Scott Johnson, Tim Stephens and Chris Christensen. And our guest this week was Max Scoville. Thanks to all our patrons who make the show possible. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.