Samsung Galaxy S4 to come with eye-tracking capabilities [Report]

The barrage of information regarding the Samsung Galaxy S4 doesn’t look to be in the mood to settle down anytime soon as we inch closer to the date of its official announcement, and now the latest report is that the Galaxy S4 will include eye-tracking capabilities to improve the user experience.

A source talking to The New York Times said that the eye-tracking technology will allow users to scroll without putting a finger on the screen. For example, when users read articles and their eyes reach the bottom of the page, the device will scroll down to the next paragraphs of text automatically. For those that aren’t aware, Samsung devices such as the Galaxy S3 already use eye-tracking to some extent by keeping the screen lit up as long as a user is looking at it, and now Samsung looks to be taking it to the next level.

While it may sound too good to be true, a trademark for “Eye Scroll” that was filed by Samsung in January in Europe, as well as one for “Eye Pause”, is a good indication that Samsung is taking eye-tracking pretty seriously for their future devices. With hardware specs no longer providing the oomph in the mobile race, software features like eye-tracking may be just what Samsung needs to stay ahead of the competition.

The source hasn’t mentioned what technology Samsung is using to make this happen, nor whether the company would demonstrate the feature at the upcoming press conference. We’ll just add this to the list of things we are looking for confirmation on regarding Samsung’s next big thing.

What do you guys thing? Useful or gimmick?