Month: September 2025

YouTube wants you to go live

YouTube is the most powerful platform in entertainment, and as such it has outsize influence on what kind of entertainment people make and watch. When YouTube adds a mid-video ad break, videos get longer to accommodate it. When YouTube tells podcasters to make video, podcasters make video. And for its next act, it appears the company is prepared to turn all its creators into livestreamers. On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Mia Sato takes us through all the news from last week’s Made On YouTube event, and explains why live content is so important – and so hard to cultivate. YouTube’s…

GoPro Max 2 review: There’s a new 360 camera contender in town

In a break from tradition, GoPro hasn’t announced a new Hero Black camera this fall. Instead, this year’s flagship is the much-rumored Max 2 360 camera ($500). The Max 2 lands at a time when spherical video is having a mini renaissance, taking on Insta360’s X5 ($550) and DJI’s Osmo 360 ($550). Perhaps surprisingly, GoPro’s Max 2 is the most affordable of the three, suggesting that the company might be looking to gain ground on its rivals and, hopefully, make the creatively warped world of 360-degree video more accessible. With a mix of pro features like Timecode, GP-Log (with LUTs…

Google is turning Gemini into a gaming sidekick with a new Android overlay

Google might have found a way Gemini could be useful while you're playing games on your phone. The company is introducing a new software overlay today it calls the Play Games Sidekick that gives you access to Gemini Live while you play, alongside a host of other gaming-focused updates to Google Play that could make the app platform a better home for gamers.Sidekick exists as a small, moveable tab in games downloaded from the Play Store that you can slide over to show relevant info and tools for whatever game you're playing. By default, that's things like easy access to a screenshot…