The launch of Samsung's upcoming flagship device is about a week away and we've seen multiple rumours and speculations surrounding the Galaxy S III successor. Adding to previous reports, here's a first.
Brian X. Chen of The New York Times reports, the Galaxy S IV will boast a feature that will track a user's eyes to scroll pages on the smartphone. Though little information is revealed about this particular feature, the report highlights the fact that Samsung has already filed trademarks for features called 'Eye Scroll' and 'Eye Pause' in the months of January and February for Europe and US respectively.
The information was given by a Samsung employee who mentioned the eye scrolling feature while asking to remain anonymous. The source also remained silent on the technology behind the feature and whether or not it will be demoed at the smartphone's upcoming press unveiling.
To briefly explain the functionality, the report says that when users read articles and their eyes reach the bottom of the page, the software will automatically scroll down to reveal the next paragraphs of text.
The report highlights that the patent filing for Eye Scroll reads as, "Computer application software having a feature of sensing eye movements and scrolling displays of mobile devices, namely, mobile phones, smartphones and tablet computers according to eye movements; digital cameras; mobile telephones; smartphones; tablet computers."
However, there was no description available for the Eye Pause feature.
The Korean company will be focusing more on new software features, instead of flaunting hardware advancements according to the company official. This doesn't come as a surprise considering HTC recently unveiled its latest One flagship smartphone that showed off it's Sense 5.0 UI apart from its ultra pixel camera.
The Samsung Galaxy S III has Smart Stay, a feature that uses its front-facing camera to keep the screen alive or lit up when a person is looking at it and automatically dimming it when one looks away. If the Eye Scroll and Eye Pause features indeed turn out to be a reality, they will need nothing less than perfect execution to be able to impress users and create a differentiating factor for the Galaxy S IV.