Galaxy S Iv to Scroll Pages via Eye Tracking?

(Image source: Gizmodo) BY NICHOLE CARTMELL ANCHOR LAUREN ZIMA Unveiled yesterday, Samsung’s teaser video for the Galaxy S4 was a top secret package with no real details about the top secret phone. But rumors are speculating the new release will include a special feature... eye scrolling. And the new feature seems to be catching the eye of the media, no pun intended. ARS Technica headlined, “Who needs thumbs? Samsung Galaxy S IV may scroll using eye-tracking.” And NBC News writes, “Look, no hands! Galaxy S4 may track your eyes.” You might be wondering what “eye scrolling” actually means. Recent patent requests could lend some clarification. Earlier this year, Samsung filed for a trademark in both Europe and the United States that described the feature 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...” The current Galaxy S3 phone already has a feature that watches you, as creepy as that sounds -- known as Smart Stay. When enabled, this function uses the phone’s front-facing camera to track the user’s eyes to see if they are actively looking at the screen. If this is the case, the phone won’t dim. But different from this function, eye scrolling could essentially help you read content more easily by detecting when you are at the end of a page. The feature would figure out when you want more, leaving your hands free. And according to NBC News, while eye scrolling might encourage laziness, it could actually help those who have difficulty using the phones already on the market. “...  eye-tracking is very useful for the millions worldwide who are disabled, missing limbs, or otherwise unable to operate a phone normally. So while it may be just a neat trick for the tech-savvy among us, it could be of huge value to more than a few people.” Samsung is said to unveil its next smartphone sometime this month.