Get ready for the Galaxy S5: Could be unveiled in January 2014

Numerous reports have suggested that sales of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S4 have fallen well short of the company’s internal projections, and Samsung might not be confident that its universally panned smartwatchand new curiously curved smartphone can pick up the slack. According to a recent report from South Korean news site Naver, Samsung plans to launch its next-generation flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone well ahead of schedule. The site claims the phone could be unveiled as soon as January 2014 ahead of a release in February. Samsung’s Galaxy S III and Galaxy S4 each debuted in the second quarter.

Naver says Samsung is rushing the phone out because Galaxy S4 sales have been weak, and the company hopes the various new technologies in the Galaxy S5 will help turn the slump around. Of course, Samsung just posted record-shattering unaudited third-quarter earnings that included at least $9.2 billion in operating profit, and Galaxy S4 sales certainly had a lot to do with the company’s monster quarter.

The report also makes mention of a 64-bit, eight-core Exynos processor for the Galaxy S5, as well as a 16-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization. Earlier reports suggested that the Galaxy S5 might finally feature a metal housing in place of the flimsy-feeling plastics Samsung typically uses, which would absolutely be a welcome change.

Facebook policy change opens users to the world

Facebook users who prefer to lurk in the shadows will not be terribly pleased to learn of a new change toFacebook’s privacy settings that is currently in the process of being rolled out. Facebook users until now have had the option to hide their accounts from the website’s search service. Enabling the setting would mean that their profiles would not be included in search results even when people search for them by name. This will no longer be the case once Facebook removes the privacy option in question, however. Facebook says that the new change will only impact a single-digit percentage of its user base, but we’re not sure how comforting that is. Considering Facebook is currently home to about 1.2 billion users, that means this change could impact more than 100 million people around the world.

Robot walks, breathes with artificial parts

Indeed, technology can provide aesthetic prostheses for people who have lost parts of their faces

Now, a team of engineers has assembled a robot using artificial organs, limbs and other body parts that comes tantalizingly close to a true "bionic man." For real, this time.

The artificial "man" is the subject of a Smithsonian Channel documentary that airs Sunday, Oct. 20 at 9 p.m. Called "The Incredible Bionic Man," it chronicles engineers' attempt to assemble a functioning body using artificial parts that range from a working kidney and circulation system to cochlear and retina implants.

The parts hail from 17 manufacturers around the world. This is the first time they've been assembled together, says Richard Walker, managing director of Shadow Robot Co. and the lead roboticist on the project.

Walker says the robot has about 60 to 70 percent of the function of a human. It stands six-and-a-half feet tall and can step, sit and stand with the help of a Rex walking machine that's used by people who've lost the ability to walk due to a spinal injury. It also has a functioning heart that, using an electronic pump, beats and circulates artificial blood, which carries oxygen just like human blood. An artificial, implantable kidney, meanwhile, replaces the function of a modern-day dialysis unit.

Although the parts used in the robot work, many of them are a long way from being used in humans. The kidney, for example, is only a prototype. And there are some key parts missing: there's no digestive system, liver, or skin. And, of course, no brain.

The bionic man was modeled after Bertolt Meyer, a 36-year-old social psychologist at the University of Zurich who was born without his lower left arm and wears a bionic prosthesis. The man's face was created based on a 3D scan of Meyer's face.