New Samsung Galaxy phone might be controlled by your eyes

Samsung's next Galaxy smartphone might be controlled by nothing more than the user's eyes, according to a new report in advance of its March 14 unveiling.

"Eye scrolling" will do things like scroll down a page of text when the user's eyes have reached the bottom of the screen, according to a New York Times report.

Quoting an unnamed Samsung employee who has used the phone, the Times said the Samsung Galaxy S IV, the next generation in its popular Galaxy S line, will be more heavily geared toward new software than a physical reboot of the Android-based device.

The Korean company has for all practical purposes announced the Galaxy S IV will be unveiled at a New York City event on March 14.

The Samsung Galaxy S III has a "Smart Stay" feature that uses a camera to tell when the user is looking at it.

The Times interviewed Kevin Packingham, Samsung's chief product officer. While he declined to talk about software upgrades, he said hardware upgrades will be significant. "It's an amazing phone," he said.

Reports of an eye-control innovation make sense. Samsung has filed in Europe to trademark a technology called "Eye Scroll" and another named "Eye Pause."

Samsung described "Eye Scroll" 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 Samsung Galaxy S III already has a similar feature called "Smart Stay." It uses the phone's front-facing camera to register whether the user is looking at it and keeps the display screen from going into sleep mode until the user looks away.

Samsung's Galaxy S line has emerged as the strongest challenger to Apple's industry-leading iPhone.

The Galaxy S III shipped 18 million units worldwide from July to September, compared with 16.2 million for the iPhone 4S, according to research by Strategy Analytics.

With the release of the iPhone 5, Apple retook the lead in the final months of 2012, selling an estimated 27 million. But the S III hung in there with another 15 million units sold.

Source: CNN

Bigger, thicker, cheaper, plastic iPhone coming next year!!!

Holdouts expecting a larger version of the iPhone this year will have to keep on waiting, a new report says.

Citing sources, Japanese Apple-news site Macotakara says such a device is instead slated for next year, and will use plastic instead of aluminum for its body.

Apple's iPhone 5 makes use of aluminum and ceramics

Macotakara says the device will sport a polycarbonate plastic enclosure much like the one found on the MacBook and iBook before it. Other rumored details include a 4.5-inch screen, which would be half an inch larger than the one found on the iPhone 5 and iPod Touch; Apple's usual home button; and a $330 price tag that would be a little less than half of the average selling price of the iPhone 5 (without carrier subsidy).

As MacRumors notes, Macotakara has had a mixed rumor scorecard, but it had accurate information about Apple's latest batch of iPods, some two months before they were officially unveiled.

Wall Street analysts have, for months, opined about the possibilities of a larger-screened device, and the potential financial windfall it could provide Apple. In a note earlier this month, Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes said the firm believes Apple is cooking up a 5-inch model for later this year or the first quarter of next year, and that during the 2014 calendar year such a device could boost by about 5 percent the average amount Apple sells the iPhone for.

The rumor is separate from those pointing to another "S" iteration from Apple later this year. The company has released both the iPhone 3GS and 4S between major device generations, something that is expected to happen once again. Purported shots of the device's internal components surfaced in January alongside reports Apple was planning to double down with a second, cheaper model to gain ground in emerging markets.

(Source: Cnet News)