The Samsung Galaxy S4 hasn't even been on the market for that long (really), but the rumors are starting to pile up about the Samsung Galaxy S5. This one is a doozy.
According to AndroidSaS, via smartphone-tracking site GSM Arena, the Samsung Galaxy S5 is going to feature a privacy and security feature that out-futures the Apple iPhone 5s, with its fingerprint scanner.
While cellphone makers like HTC are playing catch-up, putting fingerprint scanners on their newest smartphones (the HTC One Max, to be precise), Samsung is reportedly putting an eye-scanning sensor on its newest iteration of the flagship Samsung Galaxy S.
While eye-scanning software will purportedly give users the ability to unlock their smartphones with their eyes, and Samsung is purportedly going full steam ahead with the idea, "sources" behind the rumor are sketchy on the details.
According to AndroidSAS, "there is no information on how this Eye-Scanning sensor will work" but the rumor supposedly shows that Samsung is leapfrogging HTC and Apple's fingerprint sensors.
How reliable is this rumor? Well, the idea that Samsung is trying something optically-based for security is not a big leap: the Samsung Galaxy S3 introduced the facial recognition unlocking mechanism, which, unfortunately for Samsung, was easily bypassed by holding up a picture of the user's face.
For the Eye-Scanning sensor to be worth introducing on a Samsung Galaxy S5, it would have to work a lot better than the facial-recognition lock, perhaps tracking small iris movements. If it's able to be bypassed by holding up a picture of the user's eye, it's not worth putting in the new Galaxy S5.
However, take all of this with a large grain of salt, as it's too early to really know anything about the Samsung Galaxy S5, other than the likelihood that it will use a 64-bit processor, which comes from the horse's mouth.