Fighting for Control Of New 'Smart' TVs

TV watching is more complex these days as a flood of new Internet content and mobile devices reaches the living room. One of the hottest topics at this week's Consumer Electronics Show is how to make sense of the entertainment chaos. The old methods—channel surfing and on-screen guides—no longer seem to cut it.

Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest TV maker by shipments, is using the conference to show off a television set that responds to voice commands and gestures without the need for a remote control. LG Electronics revealed a voice-and gesture-activated remote control, and speech-recognition specialist Novauris Technologies is working with Panasonic to bring voice-recognition technology to TVs and other devices. Meanwhile, Apple —whose voice-activated technology, called Siri, helps command its latest iPhone—is expected to apply the approach to TVs at some point. Besides the sheer quantity of content, finding programs is complicated by the fact that some powerful players—such as cable and satellite companies, as well as Apple and Amazon—are building vast repositories of video programming and aren't necessarily eager to let other companies search through it.