New leaked screenshots of the Samsung Galaxy S4 seem to confirm rumors of "eye-scrolling" technology, which Samsung calls Smart Scroll.
An inside source at Samsung says the leaked screenshots are actually from an Android 4.2.1 build for the Galaxy S III, but that the same features will appear in the S IV. That seems likely, since if the technology can be enabled on an older phone through a software update, there's no reason it wouldn't be available on newer, more powerful hardware from the same company.
According to the New York Times, "The phone will track a user's eyes to determine where to scroll, said a Samsung employee who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. 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."
In January, Samsung filed for a trademark in Europe called "Eye Scroll" (No. 011510674). In February, Samsung described a similar U.S. trademark 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."
The screenshots show a variety of options for the eye-scrolling technology. Users can determine the speed at which the text scrolls, as well as the acceleration, allowing a user to zip through sections of text without scrolling at a continuous pace the entire time.
Users can also select which applications utilize smart-scrolling. An additional technology, Smart Pause, automatically pauses videos when the phone detects that a user's head is no longer facing the screen.
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