The PS4 is only a few days away now, and one of its most talked about features is remote play. It will allow you to use a PS Vita system and play any PS4 game on the handheld. That feature will becoming in a day one update on the PS4, and Sony will be introducing it to the Vita through an upcoming system update.

Sony announced today that PS Vita system update 3.00 will soon hit the system. The update brings with it the aforementioned PS4 remote play capabilities, but Sony isn’t leaving it at just that. Since this is a major update to a new version number, Sony will also be introducing a number of new features that have nothing to do with the PS4.

Starting with the new parental controls, Sony says that it will now have its own application on the start screen. From there, parents can manage how long kids can play on the system, what games and videos they can play and restrict their use of certain features, like the Internet browser and location data.

Using the PS Vita’s admittedly terrible camera, you can now also take panorama shots with it. Once the photo is saved in the system, you can look around in it using the system’s built-in motion sensor.

The Friends application has been updated to include four tabs new tabs – Find Player on PSN, Friends, Friend Requests and Players Blocked.

Another app seeing a change is the Group Messages application. It will now be simply titled Messages, and it will allow players to not only receive messages from PS Vita and PS3 players, but PS4 players and smartphones with the PlayStation App as well.

The Party app will get a new icon, and allow for voice/text chat between PS Vita and PS4 players.

The email app has been improved to allow users to sync contacts saved in your account in Gmail and Yahoo Mail. To sync contacts, you need only do the following – “select Contact List > Options > [CardDAV Settings] > [Add CardDAV Account], and then follow the screens.”

Another new features that is sure to delight Vita owners is that they can now transfer data between the PS3 and Vita through Wi-Fi. Previously, you had to connect via USB. it’s noted that the Vita and PS3 must be on the same network, and that PS3 must have system version 4.50 or later.

Finally, this will be last update that you have to download manually. With version 3.00, you can now set the Vita to download system updates automatically.

If you want to see all the above in action, check out the video tour below:

[Image: PlayStation/YouTube]