Phones don’t have lights

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-free There’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 announcements * Meta Connect 2026 live blog: On the ground at Mark Zuckerberg’s next big product launch * Meta’s Muse AI works and creeps me out * Amazon blocks Meta’s Muse AI agent * Meta ditches the camera on its newest smart glasses * Meta’s next VR device isn’t a headset — it’s glasses * These are the first five Googlebook laptops * Googlebooks feel like the first laptops built for Android owners * I got to see Google’s wild ideas about the future of laptops * The long dream of the Googlebook * Mahershala 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 work * Xbox is barely Xbox anymore * YouTube is cooking up new Live features. * Free Rodecaster Video firmware update adds 4K support.