PodcastsVergecastPhones don’t have lightsOn The Vergecast: Meta Connect, Muse, Googlebooks, and more.On The Vergecast: Meta Connect, Muse, Googlebooks, and more.by Jacob KastrenakesSep 25, 2026, 5:42 PM UTCShareGiftJacob Kastrenakes is The Verge’s executive editor. He has covered tech, policy, and online creators for over a decade.Mark Zuckerberg has a new defense of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses: they’re actually doing more to signal they’re taking a photo than phones do. He’s brought this up in at least two recent interviews, noting that the glasses have a light that comes on to signal when a photo is being taken, while phones do not. In one of the interviews, Joanna Stern notes that, while phones do not always emit a light, someone does have to hold a phone up in the air, which is itself pretty noticeable.On today’s Vergecast, we’re talking about Meta Connect, the Muse AI assistant, all the new smart glasses hardware, and Zuckerberg’s response to the privacy uproar around wearable cameras.
First, we spend time diving into Muse, which has quickly turned the vibes around on Meta’s progress in AI by making agentic features vastly more accessible than others have in the past. That ties right into Meta’s glasses problem and the question of whether people will trust Meta enough with their privacy to link all their services up to Muse. Watch | Listen | Get ad-freeThere’s also a ton of hardware to discuss. We have thoughts on the new audio-only Ray-Ban Meta glasses and the new Meta VR Glasses.
Then it’s onto Googlebooks, which arrived this week with surprisingly refined hardware and compelling integrations between desktop and mobile. It’s going to be a big hurdle to convince people to switch from Windows, but the laptops are full of interesting enough ideas that we’re excited to check them out.Finally, everyone’s favorite podcast within a podcast returns after a brief hiatus. And then it’s on to the Lightning Round, where we’re discussing the Paramount settlement, YouTube’s embrace of AI tools, the state of Xbox, and Rode hooking its users up with 4K.If you want to learn more about the stories we discussed, you can check out the links below:Meta Connect 2026: The 7 biggest announcementsMeta Connect 2026 live blog: On the ground at Mark Zuckerberg’s next big product launchMeta’s Muse AI works and creeps me outAmazon blocks Meta’s Muse AI agentMeta ditches the camera on its newest smart glassesMeta’s next VR device isn’t a headset — it’s glassesThese are the first five Googlebook laptopsGooglebooks feel like the first laptops built for Android ownersI got to see Google’s wild ideas about the future of laptopsThe long dream of the GooglebookMahershala Ali On ‘Blade’ Being A Big Failure For Kevin Feige: “100%. He Should Feel That Way”Paramount will need to release way more movies to make this merger workXbox is barely Xbox anymoreYouTube is cooking up new Live features.Free Rodecaster Video firmware update adds 4K support.Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.Jacob KastrenakesPodcastsVergecastMost PopularThe Xbox reset gets uglyMicrosoft thinks its new Copilot ‘super app’ will be as influential as OfficeJensen Huang talks about AI and climate change like a supervillainGemini 3.8 Live with Live Avatar gives Google’s AI a faceIt’s sinister that Meta’s Muse AI mascot is so cuteAdvertiser Content FromThis is the title for the native ad
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