Samsung Galaxy S5 Features Rumors: More Gesture Controls to Allow for Winks and Nods

Now that 2013 is behind us, more and more details about Samsung's upcoming 2014 flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S5, have been trickling into the technosphere. The latest tidbit about the smartphone involves some advanced gesture controls.

Gesture controls aren't new to Samsung devices. The latest TouchWiz interface version running on devices such as the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 features many gesture controls such as Smart Stay and Smart Pause, but a new Samsung patent shows the company is looking to really expand in that area.

The new patent, filed July 2013 with a publication date of Jan. 8, 2014, contains tactics for recognizing even smaller, subtler gestures. According to the new patent, the technology would allow for a device to recognize gestures like winks and nods. A nod to the left could translate to the "last page" option in a browser, while a nod to the right would do just the opposite. The new technology works by parsing up the visual image of the user received by the device into different sections that would then be interpreted for gestures.

It's not set in stone that this gesture technology will make their debut on the Galaxy S5, or even that Samsung intends to utilize them at all. Still, Samsung tends to add more gesture controls with new devices, so it's not a stretch.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Lee Young Hee, executive vice president of the company's mobile business, revealed that the Galaxy S5 could feature an eye scanner (instead of a fingerprint sensor), meaning the company is definitely exploring visual input as a form of communication with the handset. Lee also firmed up the Galaxy S5's release time frame: the phone will be coming in March or April 2014, around the same time as previous Galaxy S launches.

Check back with The Latino Post for more information on the Samsung Galaxy S5 as it becomes available.