You can change the speed of the slider by first adding the following javascript to your layout.html file, somewhere just below the {{ content_for_header }} tag, and then modifying the play speed. 4000 would be 1 second shorter, 6000 would be 1 second longer. 

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
$("#slides_custom").slides({
preload: true,
generatePagination: false,
play: 5000,
effect: 'fade',
fadeSpeed: 700,
crossfade: true,
pagination: true,
paginationClass: 'features_pagination'

});
});
</script>

Next, edit the Featured content sliders template and change

<div id="slides">

to

<div id="slides_custom">

Finally, add the following to the bottom of your theme.scss file:

#slides_custom {
overflow: hidden;
#features_headline {
position: absolute;
bottom: 0px;
background: #333;
width: 100%;
font-size: 20px;
color: #fff;
/* Fallback for web browsers that doesn't support RGBa */
background: rgb(0, 0, 0) transparent;
/* RGBa with 0.6 opacity */
background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6);
/* For IE 5.5 - 7*/
filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#99000000, endColorstr=#99000000);
/* For IE 8*/
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#99000000, endColorstr=#99000000)";
a {
padding: 15px;
display: block;
color: #fff; } }
.features_pagination {
height: 40px;
ul {
line-height: 40px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px; }
ul li {
float: left;
display: block;
color: black;
display: inline;
background-color: $theme_color_4;
margin-right: 5px;
@include border-radius-bottom-left(6px);
@include border-radius-bottom-right(6px);
padding: 0 15px;
&:hover {
background-color: darken($theme_color_4, 10); }
a {
color: black;
&:hover {
text-decoration: none; } } }
ul li.current a {
display: block;
color: black; }
.current {
background-color: darken($theme_color_4, 10);
color: black; } } }