Samsung’s Next Big Thing to be eye catching, literally.

Image: Galaxy S4 concept

The follow up to hero Galaxy S III will have an eye scrolling feature – meaning you no longer have to tap or scroll the screen to move to the next paragraph – the page will automatically move down when your eye reaches the end.

That’s according to a Samsung exec who ‘leaked’ the nugget of information about the hugely anticipated Galaxy S IV, due to be unveiled on 14 March in the US, to The New York Times.

The Samsung staffer also told the Times “the software features of the new phone outweighed the importance of the hardware.”

Like the iPhone, there are plenty of wild and wonderful rumours flying around about Galaxy IV (including 6 models to be released) but there does appear to be legs to this story – Samsung has already applied to trademark “Eye Scroll” in European Office on January 23, 2013 – No 0115106749, and is currently under review.

The application was under the classification ‘software for smart phones and tablet computers; digital cameras; mobile telephones; smart phones; tablet computers. ‘

Samsung also appears to have filed a patent (No. 2013200965) with the Australian Patent Office called ‘Method and apparatus for scrolling a screen in a display apparatus’ on February 20th last, with inventors listed as ‘Jung, Yung-Keun, Lee, Jae-Myeon and Hong, Hyun-Su.’

The Times also points out Samsung has applied to patent its ‘eye scroll’ and ‘eye pause’ technology in the US – all of which may help avoid any pesky patents wars like the one currently being played out with Apple, costing the Galaxy maker millions.

Oh and in case you’re wondering, the list of possible specs the S 4 may sport (courtesy of Sammobile blog):

4.99″ SuperAMOLED Full HD Resolution Display,  8-Core CPU, 2GB of RAM, 13 Megapixel Rear facing Camera capable of shooting 1080p Full HD Videos at 30FPS, 2 Megapixel front facing camera capable of shooting 720p HD Videos and Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean out of the box.

Samsung’s hook up with Visa, announced last week, means Near Field Communications for touch ‘n tap payments is likely to be a sure thing on S4, turning it into a digital wallet.

We’ll just have to wait, and see.