Samsung's unannounced Galaxy S IV rumored to feature eye-tracking technology
With the official unveiling of the Galaxy S IV just a week and a half away, a new report claims Samsung's next flagship handset will track users' eyes to automatically scroll content.
The purported new feature was described on Monday by The New York Times, which cited an unnamed Samsung employee who has tried the phone. The feature will reportedly track a user's eyes to determine where to scroll when viewing content such as a website.
When a user is reading a website and their eyes reach the bottom of the page, the Galaxy S IV will reportedly automatically scroll down the page, allowing the user to view more content without needing to touch the display.
Samsung has already filed for ownership of trademarked names "Eye Scroll" and "Eye Pause. It's also filed for patents that describe similar technology.
Samsung will officially unveil the Galaxy S IV at a media event scheduled for March 14 in New York City. The device is expected to be the company's response to Apple's iPhone 5, which took the top spot in smartphone sales when it launched late last year.
The Galaxy S IV is also rumored to feature an eight-core Exynox processor along with a separate eight-core graphics processor. The device is expected to feature a 4.99-inch SuperAMOLED display, 2 gigabytes of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel forward facing camera, and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.
Before rumors of eye scrolling functionality surfaced, Samsung has a history of adding user-tracking features to its premium smartphones. Last year's Galaxy S III featured "Smart Stay," which switches the front display on or off based on whether or not a person is looking at the screen.
The purported new feature was described on Monday by The New York Times, which cited an unnamed Samsung employee who has tried the phone. The feature will reportedly track a user's eyes to determine where to scroll when viewing content such as a website.
When a user is reading a website and their eyes reach the bottom of the page, the Galaxy S IV will reportedly automatically scroll down the page, allowing the user to view more content without needing to touch the display.
Samsung has already filed for ownership of trademarked names "Eye Scroll" and "Eye Pause. It's also filed for patents that describe similar technology.
Samsung will officially unveil the Galaxy S IV at a media event scheduled for March 14 in New York City. The device is expected to be the company's response to Apple's iPhone 5, which took the top spot in smartphone sales when it launched late last year.
The Galaxy S IV is also rumored to feature an eight-core Exynox processor along with a separate eight-core graphics processor. The device is expected to feature a 4.99-inch SuperAMOLED display, 2 gigabytes of RAM, a 13-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel forward facing camera, and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean.
Before rumors of eye scrolling functionality surfaced, Samsung has a history of adding user-tracking features to its premium smartphones. Last year's Galaxy S III featured "Smart Stay," which switches the front display on or off based on whether or not a person is looking at the screen.
Comments
two words: sun glasses
two more: lazy eye (scroll up, oops, scroll down... oops, leaning to the left... damnit FOCUS!)
And people thought Siri was a loopy interface.
Don't get me wrong...I think it will eventually happen... (I read Craig Thomas' "FireFox" and believed thought-controlled fighter jets (if you thought in Russian/Cyrillic) would be just around the corner), it's a little early to consider this a lock on an UI 'improvement'
Everything depends on how it's implemented, doesn't it. I've seen Samsung's smart TVs, and 'smart' is not the first word that comes to mind....
It will be interesting to see how this works out.
My expectations are low.
GSM arena are claiming the specs have been pretty much confirmed:
Quote:
The Samsung Galaxy S IV specifications are now all but officially confirmed thanks to a leaked AnTuTu benchmark test that the phone has undergone.
Samsung's upcoming flagship will sport an Exynos 5 Octa 5410 chipset with a CPU running at 1.8GHz, 2GB of RAM and a PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU. Previously the Galaxy S IV was rumored to sport the Exynos 5 Octa 5450 chipset rather than 5410. Still, the four Cortex-A15 cores combined with four Cortex-A7's are sure to be a pretty capable combo.
Interestingly, the scoresheet confirms that the Exynos Octa chip on the Galaxy S IV supports GSM, WCDMA as well as LTE networks.Additionally, the AnTuTu testing also confirms a 4.99" screen of Full HD resolution, providing a pixel density of 441 ppi. Android 4.2 is what the Galaxy S IV will run on out of box.
Looks like it uses ARMs Big Little tech with A15 and A7 cores. It will be interesting to see if that really does translate to decent battery life.
I am curious as to whether they managed the reported hexagonal pixels to achieve such a high density. The initial benchmarks put it at being somewhat quicker than the HTC One.
I just don't see how this could work. Even at 5 inches, I don't think the screen is big enough that my eyes would noticeably move while reading the screen. Whats next, will they add software that will read lips for people that read aloud and scroll automatically for you?????
I can think of only one useful case for this feature, and that is for someone who is perhaps quadriplegic. Being able to scroll without touching a screen would be brilliant in that case.
I doubt that the patents would be granted - Canon had similar eye tracking in their A2E camera in 1992.
1. While I am reading a page on this phone, some one calls me.. I look at them... then the page scrolls up.
2. Something will fall on my lap. I look down. Page scrolls down.
3. I just tried now... jumping my eye-balls up and down... it is paining and my colleague asked... are you NUTS?
4. I replied... new technology. Eye tracking.
5. He told... you are just moving your eye brows. Not your eye balls.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chandra69
1. While I am reading a page on this phone, some one calls me.. I look at them... then the page scrolls up.
2. Something will fall on my lap. I look down. Page scrolls down.
3. I just tried now... jumping my eye-balls up and down... it is paining and my colleague asked... are you NUTS?
4. I replied... new technology. Eye tracking.
5. He told... you are just moving your eye brows. Not your eye balls.
Have you used one yet?
Quote:
Originally Posted by e1618978
I doubt that the patents would be granted - Canon had similar eye tracking in their A2E camera in 1992.
Well, any patent wouldn't be for eye scrolling. It would be for a technique or method for eye scrolling.
So you may see a lot of different patents from different companies in this space.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cnocbui
Have you used one yet?
No! I am just mimicking the way people are going to "jump" their eyeballs and just I wrote predictions.
Why not? Google is tracking everything else.
Chrome will probably have it before Firefox.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jragosta
Why not? Google is tracking everything else.
I'm surprised Google hasn't worked this into Google OS/Android already to be honest. A way to really track ad impressions.