Hello! This is The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of The Verge... and your life. Every Friday, Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn make sense of the week's tech news with help from our wide-ranging staff. Join us every week for a fun, deeply nerdy, often off-the-rails conversation about what's happening now (and next) in technology and gadgets.

Pixel 11 gets in on the digicam trend

August 21, 2026 1:17:22 13.57 MB ( -13.58 MB less) Downloads: 0

Smart phone cameras have been getting better and better at capturing flawless, true-to-life images. But is that what the people really want?
David Imel joins Nilay Patel and Jake Kastrenakes to talk through the Pixel 11's Camera Looks. They're Google's nod to the trend of retro digital and analogue cameras, and alter how a photo is processed on the sensor level. At the same time, its super zoom is still hallucinating text and making stuff up.


Then it's a supersized Brendan Carr is a Dummy, with increasingly infuriating tales of how Brendan Carr is being a Dummy, culminating in the FCC's quest to make sure your internet connection remains slow.

Plus, we talk through the confounding AirPods camera leak, the Fairphone, and YouTube's new method for counting views.


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