The Samsung Galaxy S4 will build on its predecessor's Smart Stay technology to detect when a user reaches the bottom of a page they're reading on the device, according to reports.

The New York Times' Bits blog backs up predictions from IDC's Ramon Llamas who told T3 this week that the camera sensor technology will be the feature that wows observers when the Galaxy S4 is announced on March 14.

The NYT article claims to have been told by a Samsung employee that the new feature will be called "Eye Scroll" and will monitor a user's eyes as they scan a page. The idea is that when the phone senses that the reader has reached the foot of a webpage, it will automatically scroll to the next section.

Samsung actually filed for a patent for this technology, back in January, which it outlined 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."

Smart Stay was a popular feature on the S4's predecessor, the Samsung Galaxy S3. When activated it stops the display brightness from dimming and prevents the screen from timing out completely. 

The NYT report is in line with what Llamas, a senior researcher with IDC told us in a recent post-MWC interview.

He said: “The big thing for me is going to be the camera. It’s one of the most often used features on the phone, but I think it’s important in more ways than just taking pictures.

“What else can you do with that camera? Specifically the sensor. We’ve gone through this entire generation of ‘what different sensors can you have on your phone’ and been so gaga about having an accelerometer here and a gyrometer there. I think that’s great, but using the camera sensor to activate or deactivate has to be number one going forward.”

“Having a feature that can sense when I’m reading the screen [Smart Stay] is awesome, but let’s break it down to a larger use case.

Judging by Llamas' predictions there could be a lot more to come from the tech within that front-facing camera. We'll find out for sure on March 14 at the Samsung Unpacked event in New York City.

Via: NYT