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Much like the annual release of the iPhone, we can now count on an annual release for Samsung’s Galaxy S line. The latest model – presumably called the Galaxy S IV – will be unveiled sometime in March. The previous rumor said the date would be March 15, but a new rumor pegs it as one day before.

SamMobile reports that the Galaxy S IV will be revealed to the world on March 14 in New York City. The news comes from Eldar Murtazin, founder of a large Russian telecom Web sites. His tips are reportedly solid so many are assuming that this is the date Samsung has planned for the big reveal.

The Galaxy S IV, much like the iPhone 5S, has been the subject of many rumors and reports lately as people want all the information they can get on Samsung’s new flagship mobile device. The latest rumors say the device will feature a 4.99-inch Super AMOLED HD display with a 1920×1080 resolution, an Exynos 5 Octa CPU, a Mali-T678 GPU, 2GB of RAM, a 13 MP rear camera and a 2 MP front camera.

So, when will you be able to get your hands on the newest Galaxy S? The latest rumors put the launch date at some point in April. There’s no word on how much it will cost, but I would assume it would be about the same as the Galaxy S III.

Speaking of which, it’s probably safe to assume that the Galaxy S III will get a price drop around the time of the Galaxy S IV launch. That means Samsung’s current flagship device will become even more popular, which is kind of hard to believe after its already stellar success.

Another Apple Store finds itself the victim of a smash and grab – this time in Boulder, Colorado.

According to ABC7 in Denver, a yet-to-be-identified assailant used a few rocks to smash through the glass door of the Apple Store before making off with $64,000 worth of stolen goods.

This included Macbooks, iPhones, iPads, and more. Investigators expect to see the devices hit the internet for fast resale.

But the stolen goods weren’t the biggest hit that the Apple Store took – at least not financially.

According to reports, the custom-made glass door at the front end of the Apple Store was worth nearly $100,000. Yikes.

Apple Stores make tempting targets for burglars – and I guess that trademark glass store front just looks like it’s in need of smashing. This Boulder burglary isn’t even close to taking home the prize for dumbest Apple Store robbery. That prize still goes to that guy last who who smashed through the store front in his BMW, left his license plate behind, and was arrested as he attempted to retrieve it.

No, I did not say that Internet Explorer is the walking dead. However, Microsoft’s web browser is partnered with the show’s creator, Robert Kirkman, to bring the original comic book series, “Thief of Thieves”, to life on your computer. In other words geek nirvana — a comic book and a computer. This ranks up there with the Lego Android from last week.

Microsoft’s Steve lake says this will be “an interactive online game based on the comic book series from Robert Kirkman and Skybound, his imprint at Image Comics. The site is a showcase of the new features in Internet Explorer 10, including full multi-touch capabilities and HTML5 support”.

The irony here runs deep. Conrad Paulson, the main character, goes by the alias Redmond, which is “a happy coincidence as that just happens to be the hometown of Microsoft’s headquarters”.

The app is located on the web and the link can be opened using any web browser, but using Chrome, or others, will attempt to prompt you to download Internet Explorer 10, via a link at the bottom of the screen. However the game will still play, or at least it did in Chrome when I tested it. But, Microsoft still refers to it as “a showcase of IE10, including HTML5 and full multi-touch support”.

The new game makes use of some of the newest web technologies to bring all of this together. It also works on touch devices, like the new Surface tablet from Microsoft. The technology is all there — game play is totally up to you.

AMC announced last week that the midseason premiere of The Walking Dead was free to watch online at AMC’s website for a limited time. Then, the network announced the availability of the episode on Android, iPhone, iPad and Kindle Fire.

Today, AMC uploaded the entire episode to YouTube, which you are now free to watch. Presumably, the video will remain watchable for the same duration as AMC’s own video (which is until March 10th).

The episode set a series record for viewers the night it originally aired.

AMC is only offering this particular episode for free, but the one that follows this one is now available to stream online elsewhere for a price.

More The Walking Dead fun here.

Tony Sheridan, who played with The Beatles in the early days and became a mentor for the band, has died of undisclosed causes. He was 72 years old.

Sheridan met the Fab Four in Hamburg in 1960, when they arrived to find work as a club band. He recorded early tracks with them under the name Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers, such as “My Bonnie,” “The Saints,” “Why (Can’t You Love Me Again),” “Nobody’s Child,” “Take Out Some Insurance On Me, Baby,” “Sweet Georgia Brown”, “Cry For A Shadow”, “Ain’t She Sweet”, and “Swanee River.” Sheridan took the lead on most of those.

After “My Bonnie” came out, the band quickly shot to stardom and went on to record their mega-successful first album, “Please Please Me”. And while they may have left Sheridan behind as far as performances went, the boys considered him a lifelong friend and referred to him as “The Teacher” after their early days together in Germany. He is often given credit for having propelled the band to stardom.

Image: Ellen Piel – K & K/Redferns

Don’t worry, there is no Facebook Jail – although the concept is intriguing. An old viral hoax involving account suspensions and friend requests has morphed to suggest that sending too many requests could land you in this hellish place.

The hoax suggests that Facebook is banning people from the site willy-nilly, for simply sending out too many friend requests. “Nice people are getting banned by Facebook, and it could happen to you!” warns the hoax status.

Although the hoax is wrong and misleading, there’s a tiny shred of truth in it (unlike some hoaxes). First, here’s what you may see floating around your news feed:

Or, you may see the viral message in this format:

VERY IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ: Nice people are getting banned from facebook and it could happen to you, too – the reason is because when you get a friend request, if you click the “not now” button, you will automatically recieve a request from Facebook saying, “Do you know this person?” if you click no, that person will automatically be suspended from group chats, blocked from sending friend requests, and other nasty things for 7-30 days, and if it happens enough – permanently. So please.. if you get an unwanted friend request, just ignore it. If you accidentally click the “not now” button, then ignore the request from facebook asking if you know them – do not respond to it. Please pass this around so we can protect our friends (and ourselves!).

A permanent ban from Facebook, thus “Facebook Jail.”

First and foremost, Facebook does not permanently ban accounts simply because too many people have rejected their friend requests. But, Facebook does block users from sending additional friend requests in this situation:

“If your account is temporarily blocked from sending friend requests, it’s because friend requests you’ve sent have gone unanswered or been marked as unwelcome. From now on, please don’t send friend requests to people you don’t know personally. Facebook is a place for connecting with friends, family, classmates, coworkers and other people you know well,” says Facebook in its Help Center.

Even then, users can still utilize every other aspect of Facebook.

“Your account is only blocked from sending friend requests and messages to people you don’t know. This block is temporary, and you can still use other Facebook features during it.”

Facebook does reserve the right to remove your account at its discretion, if you break the terms of service. These terms include a ban on “abusive” behavior, as well as habitually breaking Facebook law. So, technically, your account could be suspended for spamming friend requests, over and over again.

But it’s unlikely that this is happening to “nice people” out there who are just trying to make new friends. And there definitely is no Facebook Jail.

[Hoax-Slayer via AllFacebook]

Paramount Pictures today released the newest teaser for its upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness, the sequel to J.J. Abrams‘ 2009 reboot of the iconic science fiction franchise. The new preview portrays the movie as an action thriller meant to keep audiences on the edge of their seats, rather than the often cerebral Star Trek TV series or the character-focused original-timeline Star Trek movies.

“The goal for this movie was definitely to up the ante as much as we could,” Abrams says in the trailer. “The action in this movie, the scale of the movie is light-years beyond what we did in the first movie.”

Zoe Saldana, who plays Uhura in the new Star Trek movies, backs up Abrams by saying, “This is the kind of film that 3D was made for.”

Though these types of statements may be exactly what Star Trek fans don’t want to hear, a movie of that sort will be well-positioned for summer blockbuster hit status. If Star Trek fans ever want to see a continuation of Gene Roddenberry’s universe in TV series form again, a successful movie franchise could go a long way to making that happen.

Prosthetic hands have been around for a while, but there have been a number of recent advancements in the field that have made them cheaper and more refined. The latest advancement revealed this week tackles a long sought after result of prosthetics – restoring one’s sense of touch.

The Independent reports that an unnamed man in Rome will be having his hand replaced with a prosthetic later this year after losing it in accident. The hand is unique in that it connects with two main nerves in the arm to bring a sense of touch through built-in skin sensors in the prosthetic hand.

Obviously, this is a huge advancement in prosthetics. The researchers working on the hand say it is “real hope for amputees.” The hand will “be the first prosthetic that will provide real-time sensory feedback for grasping.”

The arm does have a few risks associated with it though. For one, the psychological toll of the arm has not yet been fully tested. The researchers aren’t entirely sure how a patient would be affected by having the arm attached at all times. Those equipped with the prosthetic hand may have to take it off for regular breaks every so often. The other is dealing with how doctors will conceal the wiring in the hand that connects to the nerves in the arm. For now, the wiring will be inserted through the skin, but later versions may lay the wiring underneath it.

The test subject will be outfitted with the hand for a month. If the test goes smoothly, researchers hope to have a fully working model ready within two years. From there, it could be put through more rigorous testing in the hopes of a mass market prosthetic for more people.

For now, why don’t you 3D print your own robohand?

[Image Source]

Fergie and husband Josh Duhamel are expecting their first child, despite the singer’s recent adamant denials that the pregnancy rumors weren’t true. As we all know, as soon as a rumor makes it to the gossip mags, it’s got a 99% probability of truth.

Fergie also confronted rumors of a baby back in September and blamed her tendency to gain weight easily.

“[People ask if I’m pregnant] every time I fluctuate a few pounds. Like right now, I’m a couple pounds up,” she said. “Sometimes I go a couple pounds down and I wear the clothes that are more fitted, but people kind of look at me because they’re expecting [that] it’s that time. We do hope for children and that will be coming up, but it’s not yet.”

The Black Eyed Peas singer hasn’t gone into detail about how far along she is yet, but everyone is sure to be on bump watch after her recent tweet.

Josh & Me & BABY makes three!!! #mylovelybabybump instagram.com/p/V4enzQEDJs/ twitter.com/Fergie/status/…

— Fergie (@Fergie) February 18, 2013

Facebook is working with global retailers on a test of a new version of its Offers product, according to a report from Inside Facebook. This incarnation of Offers reportedly lets users shop immediately or get a reminder before the promotion ends. Brittany Darwell reports:

A Facebook spokesperson says the company is working with a few global retailers for this test, but for now other pages aren’t affected and their offers will continue to appear in the original format.

Facebook Offers launched last year. COO Sheryl Sandberg said last month that offers had already been claimed by 42 million unique users. I would imagine that the format that’s being tested would only help users claim more of them. It will also be interesting to see if Facebook adds Offers functionality to Graph Search, as it expands that to include different types of Facebook data.

In October, Facebook started letting Page admins promote Offers from mobile devices. That’s an important feature for this product’s succes, given that Facebook now considers itself a mobile company.

In recent weeks, we’ve also seen Facebook launch new physical gift cards that store gift amounts from various businesses, roll out the ability to let users pay to promote their friends’ statuses, and test a new “buy tickets” option for events.

A new study has found that excessive TV watching in childhood could portend antisocial or criminal behavior later in life.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, followed 1,000 children between the ages of 5 and 15. Every two years their TV viewing habits were sampled. Those who watched more TV were also more likely to have a criminal conviction in adulthood and more likely “to have antisocial personality traits.” Every extra hour spent watching TV on an average weeknight corresponded with an estimated 30% increase of having a criminal conviction in adulthood.

“Antisocial behavior is a major problem for society,” said Bob Hancox, associate professor in the department of prevantive and social medicine at the University of Otago. “While we’re not saying that television causes all antisocial behaviour, our findings do suggest that reducing TV viewing could go some way towards reducing rates of antisocial behavior in society.”

Children who viewed more TV were also found to have “aggressive personality traits, an increased tendency to experience negative emotions, and an increased risk of antisocial personality disorder” as adults.

Though it was not able to prove that TV viewing caused personality problems, the study was able to rule out the idea that children who are more antisocial simply gravitated to watching more TV.

“Rather, children who watched a lot of television were likely to go on to manifest antisocial behaviour and personality traits,” said Lindsay Robertson, co-author of the study.

We all go through phases where we feel like we’ve seen every possible Kickstarter project that we’d ever want. And then one like Mycestro comes along and reminds us that this is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s a 3D mouse that you strap to one of your fingers and it looks like it could become a huge asset for multi-tasking.

If you think about how you use your computer, be it a desktop or laptop, you know that your hands move from the keyboard to the trackpad or mouse constantly, over and over again. It’s wasted movement for the most part, especially when you see the possibilities that Mycestro unlocks. The only thing left is for it to get funded, because it looks like all of the prototypes work perfectly.

Its founder and creator, Nick Mastandrea, has been tinkering on this project for quite a while, having been featured in Engadget a few years ago, but it looks like it’s ready for primetime. You’ll be able to pick one up for a $79 pledge in white, or $99 with your choice of color. The estimated shipping date is sometime in October of this year, if all goes well.

Have a look at some of its features, which include touch buttons that allow you to navigate your computer without the need for moving your entire hand to a dedicated area on a computer, thanks to 3D technology and space recognition:

Here are the specs for the 3D Mouse:

– Size of a wireless earpiece.
– Light, weighing next to nothing.
– Internal battery can be charged via USB.
– Battery life is estimated to be eight hours depending on usage.
– Two different replaceable clip sizes.

This isn’t a completely perfect situation though, as you’ll have to re-learn how to use a mouse. The other thing is that if you’re in a coffee shop or somewhere in public, people are going to look at you like you have some issues. The thing is called the Mycestro for a reason; it looks like you’re conducting your own private orchestra. In other words, you’re going to look weird. If you’re okay with that, then the benefits outweigh the public shame and looks you might receive.

The device works from 30 feet away from your computer, thanks to Bluetooth, so you could use this for presentations at work. The touch technology it has reminds me of Google’s Project Glass, which allows you to tap a panel on the side of the wearable device to make things happen, like a mouse or trackpad. The other plus is that it’ll work with any iPad or iPhone, with Android support coming by the end of the year. This could be a nice way to have a lean-back experience with a tablet, or do the driving while someone else holds it.

Check out this demo using it with an Internet-enabled TV:

It reminds me of the Xbox Kinect a little bit, but it’s in your hand and requires no setup.

With 38 days left to go on its Kickstarter campaign, Nick Mastandrea and his team has raised $39,735 out of $100,000. I think if people can look past the Mycestro as a curious oddity and understand how this could make them more efficient on the computer, this thing will get funded, and then some. The team says that a version for lefties will come a bit after the original model. Personally, I use the trackpad and mouse with my right hand, even though I’m a lefty.

So who cares if people think you’re making hand gestures into thin air to nobody in particular. Aren’t people who use Bluetooth headsets already weird? Exactly.

As Russian scientists gather fragments of the 10-ton meteor that streaked across the sky on Friday at 33,000 miles per hour, TED Fellow Hakeem Oluseyi took to the airwaves to weigh in on the event.

Oluseyi is an astrophysicist and teacher determined to bring science to poor classrooms across the world. His work has spanned cosmology, astronomical observation and exoplanets – all of which he shares in the classroom. Oluseyi has also pioneered the One Telescope Project, which aims to bring a telescope to each nation, driven by the idea that space is for everyone — and that understanding it is an endeavor that must be undertaken together, as one earth, rather than nation-by-nation.

On Friday, Oluseyi was invited on NBC’s The Ed Show to discuss the meteor that exploded over the Chelyabinsk region. In the clip above, he explained the sonic boom as well as the fact that another asteroid — one the size of a football field — just missed our planet.

Oluseyi also appeared on the National Geographic show Top Secrets: Doomsday and, last December, was interviewed on Evacuate Earth. Look for him next on the Science Channel’s series Alien Encounters: Are We Alone? which will be broadcast on March 5.

Next Media Animation (NMA) has put out a new video chronicling the big Maker’s Mark “dilution disaster” (which has now been resolved, as the distiller backtracked on its original plans following customer outrage).

NMA, which has taken on the John McAfee story, Star Wars Episode VII, Steve Jobs, and recently, Beyonce’s Super Bowl have time show, tells the story as only NMA could:

In snowy Tignes, France, Guerlain Chicherit has successfully performed a backflip in a car. Yep, a real, unassisted backflip in a MINI – and he actually lands it. According to MINI, it’s the first of its kind. Don’t try this at home. Come ot think about it, don’t try it anywhere.

[MINI via Fark]

Bing’s “Friends Photos” is not new, but today Microsoft’s search engine rolled out a major update to the service that MK Li, program manager of Bing Social, termed as an “experience which makes it easier to scan, discover and explore your friends’ photos”.

So what has Microsoft added? For one, a new look and interface. The service now displays in the “Modern UI” type of format, much the same way as Windows 8 and Windows Phone. The search results in a tiled interface that, according to Li, “marries design and performance, making it faster and more seamless to browse your friends’ photos”.

Second, Bing announced a brand new slideshow mode. Users can click on an individual image and begin a slideshow of the search results. This allows you to easily view all of the photos returned by your inquiry, hopefully making it easier to find what you are looking for. You can also browse from this interface.

The Friends Photos originally rolled out last year as a way to search through your friends Facebook photos via the Microsoft search engine. Before the privacy advocates get worked up, let me point out that Scott McNealy, formerly CEO of Sun Microsystems, before it was purchased by Oracle, famously told us all that “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”

As it turns out, we have taken his advice. According to a 2012 survey from Pew, which points out that “46 percet of adult internet users post original photos or videos online that they themselves have created”. It goes on to tell us that 41 percent share images and video found online and, in fact, 12 percent are on Instagram — a service made to share your photos. In other words, McNeally may have been ahead of his time.

Bing has considered those implications as well. Li was sure to mention that “Bing respects your Facebook privacy settings. Your Facebook friends will only be able to see the photos you have made viewable and your photos will never be shared with the public”. Are you relived by that or worried about the implications nonetheless?

Rock Band isn’t as popular as it once was. Heck, the entire rhythm/plastic peripheral genre is a mere shadow of its old self. That being said, Harmonix deserves a lot of respect for keeping weekly DLC updates for the titles alive all this time even after the genre all but died out. Everything must end, however, and Rock Band is finally climbing the stairway to heaven in April.

Harmonix announced today that Rock Band will stop receiving weekly DLC updates on April 2 after five years of non-stop updates. The existing 4,000+ songs will remain active for those who want to keep buying songs for their existing copies of Rock Band 1 through 3 and Rock Band Blitz. Just don’t expect anything new in the future.

Here’s the word straight from Harmonix:

As you may have seen in our recent announcement regarding the release of Rock Band Blitz tracks as singles, Rock Band DLC production has gradually slowed over the past 5 years. We’ve managed to maintain a consistent release schedule for a staggering 275 consecutive weeks, releasing over 4,000 songs for the Rock Band Platform, but in recent months we’ve scaled production down as we’ve transitioned resources onto other projects. With several new titles in development and developers needed to usher these new games along, April 2nd will be the last weekly DLC release for Rock Band.

While there is no content currently scheduled beyond April 2nd, we still have DLC releases lined up for the next few weeks, including the remaining tracks from RB Blitz, several Pro guitar upgrades, and a handful of artists who have not yet appeared in Rock Band. We’re incredibly proud of the DLC milestones we’ve set, especially producing the largest music library of any game available, and we wouldn’t have been able to release as much outstanding content without the support of our amazing community. As thanks to the community, we’re going to continue the ongoing DLC sale of 50% off over 1,100 songs so fans can continue to build their personal libraries from our back catalog.

We hope that you’ll all agree that this has been a tremendous run, and you should know it’s a ride that we at Harmonix have been thrilled to be a part of. We’re going to continue to support the forums and RockBand.com and hope to still see you rocking out online, in photos of Rock Band parties shared on Twitter and Facebook, or here on the forums. Whether you waited in line for a midnight release of Rock Band over 5 years ago, or you just joined the party with Rock Band Blitz… whether you’ve downloaded every single song we’ve ever released, or you’ve just played on disc songs until your neighbors moved away… whether you’re a metal shredder, or a bubblegum pop singer… thank you for being a part of our band.

It’s not too surprising to see Harmonix end DLC support for Rock Band. Many, including myself, thought they would give up on the title years ago after Dance Central proved to be a huge hit. Still, it’s gratifying to see a developer stick with its dwindling number of fans this long after a game ceased being relevant.

We’re sure going to miss you, weekly Rock Band update. You made the boring PSN updates of 2011 slightly less boring.

Rene Ritchie’s excellent article on iCloud and Dropbox has forced me to examine how I use iCloud and other cloud storage. When iCloud launched in 2011, I had hopes it would be a single-source solution, but over the years it’s become apparent to me that for my uses, no single cloud-based storage fulfills all my needs. Instead, I rely on a few different solutions based on the strengths of each platform.

Here’s what I use for storing documents related to my freelance business, as well as the voluminous amount of research data for my hobbies.

iCloud

iCloud’s biggest limitation is the app sandboxing model. By that, I mean, a document stored in Pages can only be accessed in the Pages app on iOS and OS X. While I can “Open in” another app on iOS, that creates a separate copy; changes made to that copy aren’t reflected back in the Pages’s version.

I’ve made my peace with this.

The bulk of my freelance and personal writing is done in Pages ($19.99) and Numbers ($19.99). I have found these two apps sync the best, with the fewest formatting issues. Oddly, I have an Excel document with graphics that opens fine in Numbers for iOS, but QuickOffice and OfficeHD do not display it properly on my iPad. My day job files need to stay on my company-supplied laptop, so I’m not as worried about keeping those files in sync.

I’ve also made a decision to focus on Pages/iCloud for my writing because I don’t have to worry too much about a third-party developer either ceasing support, or worse, having the app pulled from the App Store. For writing apps, it’s unlikely they’ll get pulled, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I figure if Apple were to drop iCloud/Pages, I’d likely have bigger problems. That said, I do routinely back up my Mobile Documents folder so I can access them if something bad happens to iCloud.

Most importantly, other than some initial growing pains when iCloud was launched, I haven’t had any memorable issues in the last year or so. I open the iWork app and it automatically downloads new or updated files. I have yet to see that completely seamless action with other third-party storage options.

Dropbox

My Dropbox usage can be be simply summed up with this: any document that the sandbox model flatly doesn’t work with, goes into Dropbox. I’m also a musician, so I have several gigs worth worth of sheet music, scanned music magazines (that I’ve scanned myself) and other reference files. These documents need to be read on either my iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC or Android device. Obviously for my cross-platform needs, Apple’s sandboxing won’t work.

I also have crucial folders from my Documents folder moved to my Dropbox folder. This way, I can access them remotely as well as have another backup if they are deleted (I use CrashPlan for my online backup). Dropbox’s ability to restore files has come in quite handy.

So, what would it take for me to forgo iCloud and just use Dropbox?

Better Office-type apps, for the most part. For my uses, Pages remains the best word processor on iOS. I’ve had just enough “hmm, that didn’t work the way I thought it would” moments with QuickOffice and OfficeHD. Sometimes it didn’t refresh the Dropbox folder fully, or the document open with the formatting a mess. While these overall percentage this occurs is small, I don’t want to risk it.

What the future could hold

The biggest change that could happen to my workflow is if Microsoft ever releases Office for iOS. This will likely result in yet another cloud service (Microsoft’s Skydrive), I’m OK with this. SkyDrive works similar to Dropbox where I can get file level access if I need to.

What I expect to remain unchanged is that a single-source of cloud storage will likely never be possible for my uses.

I can live with that.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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Two brothers in Kansas managed to blow up their house on Friday after winning $75,000 in the lottery; officials say the brothers bought weed and meth to celebrate their win, then attempted to use butane torches to light their paraphernalia. The butane leaked out into the air and connected with the pilot light in the furnace of the home, causing an explosion.

The two men haven’t been identified, but one of them was taken to the hospital with second-degree burns on his arms, neck, and chest. He was reportedly dropped off there by his girlfriend, who left the scene and is being sought by police. The other brother was arrested on drug charges. The injured man is in serious but stable condition.

America at it’s finest. i can’t believe people like this actually exist. foxnews.com/us/2013/02/18/…

— Erica Chang (@echang2012) February 18, 2013

What a PSA this is going to make: Brothers blow up house while celebrating lottery win with drugs fxn.ws/UxAnpK #oops #tcot

— Sean(@massSNAFU) February 18, 2013

They won the lottery AND the Darwin Award. fxn.ws/UxAnpK Brothers blow up house while celebrating lottery win with drugs

— V the K (@VtheK) February 18, 2013

Proof that people cannot wait #BreakingBad to start again. fxn.ws/UxAnpK

— NYPostTV (@nypostTV) February 18, 2013

With Sony‘s big announcement of its next-generation console just days away, rumors about the device are running rampant. Just this weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that the PlayStation 4 (or whatever Sony ends up calling it) will offer backwards compatibility with previous PlayStation systems through cloud gaming service Gaikai.

Now, The Times of London is reporting that Sony could sell its next-gen console for as little as £300 (about $465). That would be a huge shift from the PlayStation 3, which began selling at €499 (Pricing in the U.S. started at $499). The high cost of that console initially led to slow sales, and was a large factor in Sony falling behind in the early part of this console generation. £300 would not necessarily mean a $465 PlayStation 4 launch in the U.S., as the pounds-to-dollar conversion of video game pricing is rarely one-to-one.

If the rumor is true, it would seem that Sony learned its lesson from the PlayStation 3 launch well. It’s unlikely, though, that any pricing or SKU announcements will be made at Sony’s February 20 presentation, at least for the upcoming console. The prevailing assumption is that the company will play pricing options close to the vest until Microsoft has announced its next-gen console.

There may, however, be an announcement about a price cut for Sony’s handheld console, the PS Vita. The price of the portable console has just been reduced to the equivalent of $215 in Japan.