Happy 2019! We’re back with our daily coverage of tech, gadget and gaming news!

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PlayStation 5 and Xbox Two MUST Be Backward Compatible

With new Xbox and PlayStation consoles on the horizon, backward compatibility with older games seems like not just a hope, but a must-have feature. In earlier console generations, this backward compatibility was common, but by the time Sony released the PlayStation 4 there was simply no built-in support for PlayStation 3 games, and the Xbox One didn’t have backward compatibility at launch either.

Hackers Hijack Twitter Accounts Using A Simple Text Messaging Trick

Security researchers have discovered a new way to hijack a Twitter user’s stream, and they’ve done it using a seemingly old-school method. They did it by sending SMS messages. A team from Insinia Security managed to post tweets (with permission from the account holders, of course) without having to directly access users’ accounts. It was done without logging in and without having to intercept a two-factor authentication code.

This clever AI hid data from its creators to cheat at its appointed task

Depending on how paranoid you are, this research from Stanford and Google will be either terrifying or fascinating. A machine learning agent intended to transform aerial images into street maps and back was found to be cheating by hiding information it would need later in “a nearly imperceptible, high-frequency signal.” Clever girl!

9 things Google Assistant can do that you may not know about

So to make sure you’re making the most of your trusty voice-activated partner, we’ve gathered together nine handy but not necessarily obvious Google Assistant features that will help to make it genuinely useful in loads of situations you might not have expected.

Arpanet Designer Larry Roberts Dies at 81

Lawrence G. Roberts, the man whose work would eventually allow us to send each other cat GIFs and get into arguments in comments sections, has died of a heart attack in his California home. Roberts was a major force behind Arpanet, the direct precursor to the internet. He was 81.

Windows 10 finally overtakes Windows 7

It’s been a long time coming. While other analyst firms, such as StatCounter, have shown Windows 10 overtaking Windows 7 sometime ago, NetMarketShare has consistently shown the new OS to be lagging way behind the aging fan favorite. In December though, NetMarketShare finally has Windows 10 taking first position.

Epic Games wants to take on Google and Apple next

Now that Epic has launched its challenger to Steam, it’s apparently gearing up to launch a similar war on mobile. Epic is said to have plans to launch an app store all its own, again with the main selling point being that it takes a smaller cut of each sale than Google and Apple do. Unfortunately, Epic’s plans are rather vague at this point. The company only tells The Wall Street Journal that it will begin selling Android apps at some point in 2019, with the same 12% fee it charges developers and publishers on its PC storefront. Apple and Google, for the record, take keep 30% of each sale, just as Valve does with Steam.

2018 has come and gone. So where is Apple’s AirPower wireless charging mat?

During its 2017 announcement of the iPhone X, Apple didn’t just show off its vision of what the future of iPhones would look like, it also announced a new way to charge them. Called AirPower, the charging mat was meant to charge up to three devices at once including a new iPhone, an Apple Watch and a pair of AirPods (with a separate, optional wireless charging case). In its announcement, Apple promised that the new charger would be “coming in 2018.”

SouljaGame Console Has Been Removed From Store Due to a Potential Lawsuit

The SouljaBoy game console saga was one of the most confusing to watch in the gaming scene this month. The story began with the rapper selling “a game console” that included pirated ROMs of games. Fast forward until today and it seems like the time of reckoning for the rapper has come as the SouljaGame consoles have been retired from sale.