Samsung Galaxy S4 to feature automatic eye scrolling

Samsung's Galaxy S4 smartphone will feature eye tracking technology for automatic scrolling.

An anonymous Samsung employee has told The New York Times that the Galaxy S4 will offer 'Eye Scrolling'. A user's eyes will be tracked so the smartphone knows when to scroll up or down saving the need to touch the screen.

"For example, 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." said the NYT.

It seems the feature is the next step from Smart Stay which was brought in with the Galaxy S3. This used the front facing camera to make sure the screen remained switched on as long as the user was looking at it.

The Samsung employee didn't know whether the eye scrolling would be demonstrated at the Galaxy S4 launch next week on 14 March in New York (15 March NZT). However, they did confirm that software features will outweigh the handset's hardware.

We assume that cool and innovative features like this will be shown off at the launch event much like they were at the Galaxy S3 launch. Samsung tends to go all out on software features to make its devices stand out from other Android rivals and the Apple iPhone 5.

Hardware specifications have mostly been confirmed over the last few months. Yesterday we reported that results from a benchmarking app had revealed the Galaxy S4's core specifications.

Further suggestions at the feature come from Samsung applying for trademarks in the US and Europe for 'Samsung Eye Scroll' and 'Eye Scroll' in February and January respectively.

The former is described 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."

Samsung has also applied for a trademark for the name 'Eye Pause' but with no explanation as to what is it or what it does.