The PlayStation 2 is viewed as one of the greatest video game consoles ever released. Its library of games is a diverse collection of experiences that many consider to be among the best that gaming has ever seen. And while many iconic games were released on the PlayStation 2 back in the day, some games have become rare enough to disappear from the public consciousness. But savvy collectors that know the console well and were able to hunt for those rare PS2 treasures have occasionally added these elusive games to their collections.

If you're like me, you've been anxiously searching for any relief from the Bad News™ and endless stream of AI slop plaguing your feed. Joseph Ricketts' breathtaking wildlife videos could be the antidote. An alligator taking a nap on the floor of a crystal clear spring. Schools of fish glittering in the darkness. A cosmic cloud of burnt orange tannic river swirling into clear blue water. A giant salamander battle on an Appalachian riverbed. Joseph is an ecologist, underwater videographer, and alligator researcher based in Florida. He brings a calming and curious gaze to some of the more obscure underwater vistas through his work as a scientist and wildlife researcher, with his photography and videography skills. With his undersea strobes, he casts light on the mesmerizing behavior of some of the more obscure creatures that lurk below the water's surface, creating beautiful videos while educating his audience on the vulnerable wildlife he finds there. Documenting Florida's natural springs and America's freshwater ecosystems has become a passion project. The Verge caught up with him to learn about his fascinating YouTube content. This interview has been edited for length and …Read the full story at The Verge.

At the beginning of the month, things weren’t looking good for gaming site Giant Bomb after its content was put on hold amid reports of editorial interference from its parent company, Fandom. Today, some feel-good news: Giant Bomb announced it is now an independent, employee-owned entity.“Giant Bomb lives! Fandom has sold the site to us,” the outlet wrote on Bluesky yesterday evening. In a post on its website about the new development, the Giant Bomb says it’s “not serving an algorithm or executives,” and that it aims “to lean into what’s always made Giant Bomb special, and that’s the people you see and hear on our content, and our extremely passionate community.”Giant Bomb lives! Fandom has sold the site to us and it is now fully independent and employee-owned. We'll see you all on Tuesday for the Giant Bombcast.For more info right now, head over to www.giantbomb.com/join— Giant Bomb (@giantbomb.bsky.social) 2025-05-10T23:12:29.217ZThe site also announced a new subscription model, which it says “will go directly towards maintaining and growing Giant Bomb and paying the fine folks that you see on our programming week after week.”Games media has changed dramatically since Giant Bomb launched in 2008, and our new model aims to evolve with the times. We want people to be able to see our content whether they’re able to support us monetarily or not, so the large majority of what we put out will be available for free. That’s how Fortnite works, right? The kids love Fortnite. Dan Ryckert skin coming soon!Giant Bomb sums up its new monthly ($9.99 per month) and annual ($99.99 per year) subscriptions:If you sign up today, you’ll get ad-free RSS feeds for all of our podcasts and access to premium-only Discord channels (like behind-the-scenes, Town Hall Q&As, and more). We are going to launch very simple and we will grow and adjust from there. This all finally came together literally hours ago, and we couldn’t even update the language on the sign up page yet. The perks are a little different from what’s listed there, so If you have any questions, reach out on social and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. For example, our Discord verification process might be slow, so bear with us for now! The news feels like a pleasant combo-breaker after the May 1st one-two punch news of Giant Bomb’s content pause and Verge parent company Vox Media’s sale of gaming site Polygon to Valnet, a media company that’s suing TheWrap over its damning report of accusations of “almost sweatshop-level” working conditions.

The Trump administration has reportedly fired Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter, who leads the US Copyright Office, following the office’s choice to release a pre-publication version of its opinion on the fair use status of AI training data that’s made up of copyrighted information. Representative Joe Morelle, the ranking Democrat of the Committee on House Administration, called her firing an “unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” linking the firing directly to her report, which he says amounted to her refusing “to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.” Among the report’s conclusions is that while the fair use status of AI training “will depend on what works were used, from what source, for what purpose, and  with what controls on the outputs—all of which can affect the market.” The report says research and scholarship might be fair use but says many other AI tools might not be: But making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries. University of Colorado law professor Blake Reid called the report a “straight-ticket loss for the AI companies” in a post prior to reports emerged that Perlmutter had been fired, writing that he wondered “if a purge at the Copyright Office is incoming and they felt the need to rush this out.” Reid wrote that although the Copyright Office generally can’t “issue binding interpretations of copyright law,” courts turn to its expertise when drafting their opinions.Whether the Copyright Office’s release of its findings is the reason Perlmutter was cut loose or is just very curious timing isn’t clear, as the White House doesn’t seem to have commented on it. Copyright law expert Meredith Rose questioned the link, calling the report “113 pages of ‘well, it depends!’” and adding that “people who find that offensive enough to call for her ouster would have to be utter lunatics—on EITHER side of this fight.”Confusing the issue further, President Trump reposted (or ReTruthed, if you like) commentary on news of Perlmutter’s firing by a Truth Social account attributed to Mike Davis, a former legal clerk for Neil Gorsuch who was rumored last year for Trump’s Attorney General pick.“Now tech bros are going to attempt to steal creators’ copyrights for AI profits,” Davis wrote while linking to a CBS News story, “This is 100% unacceptable.” The day the Copyright Office’s report was released, President Trump also fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, whose department the Copyright Office is part of. As NPR reports, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed, without specifics, that Hayden had done “concerning things … in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.” Every book published in the United States goes into the Library of Congress.

I've been a handheld gamer for decades, since the Game Boy, Game Gear, and Atari Lynx blazed the trail. Since then, I've had about half a dozen Nintendo handhelds, a couple of PlayStation Portables, and most of the recent PC gaming handhelds in my hands for long periods. Out of all of them, the PSP was the one that got my attention, as it showed me what a multifunction handheld could be.

Back when Apple used Intel chips on Macs, it was rather easy for anyone to boot Windows on a Mac using Boot Camp. However, ever since the brand switched to using its in-house ARM-based M-series chips, macOS bid adieu to Boot Camp -- resulting in no native way to use Windows. Some time later, though, third-party apps like Parallels came onto the scene, letting you use Windows on an ARM-based Mac. The catch? Parallels is expensive, so not everyone can get access to it. If you're a student and you want to use Windows to run a specific app, shelling out hundreds of dollars isn't a wise option.

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 82, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, hope you're caught up on Andor, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I've been reading about AI prophets and ChatGPT cheaters and the lives of NFL prospects, watching the new season of Taskmaster and a whole bunch of Mulan, playing PGA Tour Pro Golf on my iPhone and the original Mario Golf on my Switch, finally getting into Barbarians at the Gate, and doing a lot of eBay shopping for vintage gadgets. For work, I swear.I also have for you a great new gaming controller, a podcast about emojis, a new super-high-end fitness tracker, a whole bunch of GTA VI content, and much more. Fun, gadgety week this week! Let's get into it.(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you watching / reading / playing / listening to / learning on the harpsichord this week? What should everyone else be into right now, too? Tell me everything: [email protected]. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, forward it to them and tell them to subscribe here.)The DropThe Backbo …Read the full story at The Verge.

The choice of file system matters quite a lot when it comes to storing data, especially when you're working with a lot of it. Your typical network-attached storage (NAS) may use EXT4 or BTRFS, and while these are excellent filesystems to store data and run operating systems, I opt for ZFS on my NAS and home lab hardware. That's largely down to its ability to create snapshots, which are invaluable for backups, rolling back to earlier save points, and recovering data. Think of them as save game crystals in Tomb Raider on PlayStation.

Setting up complex passwords filled with cryptic characters is one of the best ways to keep hackers off your tail. After all, a 15+ string containing weirdly-arranged alphanumeric strings and symbols is a lot more effective at thwarting brute force and dictionary attacks than awful, easy-to-guess passkeys. The downside is that you’ll have a hard time recalling your wacky passwords, especially if you have different login credentials for all your accounts.

Windows 11 is a very complex operating system with a ton of features and things packed in you may not even be aware of. Even beyond the surface-level things you see when you first set up a PC, a lot of services exist in the background that you might not know are running.

The Star Wars galaxy is full of many kinds of heroes and villains across different eras. And while fans know about the main female characters from the canonical films and series, not everybody remembers the important women from the Star Wars video games. Taking the stories beyond the scope of the established Star Wars canon, the presence of these ladies from a galaxy far, far away was felt in very big ways.

This screenshot does not involve the twist. | Image: Sandfall InteractiveClair Obscur: Expedition 33 is my favorite game of the year so far, with an exhilarating battle system, excellent exploration, and a haunting soundtrack. But I'm not the only one who loves it: the game has become a huge hit, with more than 2 million copies sold just 12 days after its late April release. "It feels very surreal," says Guillaume Broche, Sandfall Interactive's CEO and creative director.According to Broche, the game is performing "far beyond expectations" and that the team was not expecting it to "blow up" as fast as it did. "We are still in denial, basically" he says. Lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen adds, "I'm going to wake up tomorrow and this is all a joke, right?"A major part of Expedition 33's success is its gripping story. It kept me coming back to the game every moment I could just to see what happened next. The opening hits you with a gutpunch. Playing as Gustave, voiced by Daredevil's Charlie Cox, you learn about the tragic circumstances of the world, its characters, and the annual "Gommage" that makes everyone of a certain age disappear in a flurry of petals when a giant being called the Paintress paints a new, lower number on a giant monolith.Gustave …Read the full story at The Verge.