The boob tube has come a long way.

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 Co., 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 Inc. revealed a voice-and gesture-activated remote control, and speech-recognition specialist Novauris Technologies Ltd is working with Panasonic Corp. to bring voice-recognition technology to TVs and other devices.

Meanwhile, Apple Inc. -- whose voice-activated technology, called Siri, helps command its latest iPhone -- is expected to apply the approach to TVs at some point. The Silicon Valley company has recently talked to media executives about new technology that could control television screens via voice and movement, according to people familiar with the matter. The company, which doesn't have an official presence at CES, hasn't confirmed such plans.

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.com Inc. -- are building vast repositories of video programming and aren't necessarily eager to let other companies search through it.

'The hurdles on content are less about technology than rights issues,' says John Batter, chief executive of MediaNavi, one of the companies trying to make it easier to search through a large array of video sources.

Cable and satellite services, which have controlled how consumers watch television for decades, are working hard to update their own interfaces and solve the discovery problem to fend off competitors. So far, most have focused on making their content easier to navigate via tablets.

Not that everyone is aware of the issues. About 25 million U.S. households now have what the industry calls Smart TVs, which have Internet connections built in, estimates market researcher Parks Associates. But only 55% of those users have actually connected the sets to the Internet, the firm estimates.

The very idea of viewing Web content on TVs, which emerged in the mid-1990s, ran into a backlash that persisted until viewing habits began changing. Consumers acquired a taste for online fare such as user-posted videos on Google Inc.'s YouTube service. Others have become accustomed to downloading programming from services like Apple's iTunes store and streaming shows from Netflix.

Smart TVs and set-top boxes have helped shift such content from PCs to TVs, but most consumers are using services that offer a selection of formatted content -- sometimes styled as apps -- rather than a browser to any website.

MediaNavi, a unit of France-based Technicolor, has seized on tablets like the iPad to help search through separate content repositories. The company this spring plans to release an app called M-GO, which Mr. Batter says can keep track of multiple users' viewing habits in the home and make personalized recommendations.

Though the app is free MediaNavi plans to make money by renting or selling movies from its own collection, Mr. Batter says.

While a large portion of video served up via the Internet now comes on an on-demand basis, some restrictions over live content are loosening. That opens opportunities to deliver complementary content to the iPads or laptops of users also watching live TV, notes Jef Graham, chief executive of RGB Networks, a Silicon Valley company that provides video-processing services to cable and telecom companies.

To do that, it helps to know what users are watching. Yahoo Inc. last year acquired IntoNow, a start-up that developed technology to identify programming by analyzing sounds on TV shows. That technology, the company says, can help serve up interactive experiences to users watching live events; people watching a wrestling match, for example, could be asked to participate in a poll about who is most likely to win, says Ron Jacoby, Yahoo's vice president of connected TV.

Gracenote, a start-up purchased by Sony Corp. that is known for a large database of information about music and videos, says it is going further. It combines computer-based analysis of sound clips with information it is compiling with human assistance about objects and people in movies and TV shows.

The technology it is announcing at CES, dubbed Entourage, could identify that a user is viewing a scene with a particular sports car, for example, and quickly serve up information about the car and how to buy it, says Stephen White, Gracenote's president.

Samsung is one of many TV makers adding new features to TVs in hopes of countering a steady drop in prices. It plans to add the voice-recognition capability in the first quarter to its Smart TVs. Boo-Keun Yoon, the president in charge of Samsung's TV business, wouldn't disclose pricing but estimated the new capability could add $300 to $500 to the cost of its TVs, depending on the model.

Don Clark / Jessica E. Vascellaro

• complex [´kɔmpleks] a.复杂的 n.综合企业 (初中英语单词)
• entertainment [,entə´teinmənt] n.招(款)待；联欢会 (初中英语单词)
• channel [´tʃænəl] n.海峡；航道；途径 (初中英语单词)
• conference [´kɔnfərəns] n.讨论(会)；会谈 (初中英语单词)
• remote [ri´məut] a.遥远的；偏僻的 (初中英语单词)
• working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
• valley [´væli] n.谷；河谷；流域 (初中英语单词)
• movement [´mu:vmənt] n.活动；运动；动作 (初中英语单词)
• complicated [´kɔmplikeitid] a.结构复杂的；难懂的 (初中英语单词)
• executive [ig´zekjutiv] a.行政的 n.行政官 (初中英语单词)
• everyone [´evriwʌn] pron.=everybody 每人 (初中英语单词)
• actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
• release [ri´li:s] vt&n.释放；放松；赦免 (初中英语单词)
• collection [kə´lekʃən] n.收集；征收；募捐 (初中英语单词)
• portion [´pɔ:ʃən] n.嫁妆；命运 vt.分配 (初中英语单词)
• identify [ai´dentifai] vt.认出；鉴定；验明 (初中英语单词)
• analysis [ə´næləsis] n.分解；分析(结果) (初中英语单词)
• assistance [ə´sistəns] n.协作；援助；帮助 (初中英语单词)
• charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
• consumer [kən´sju:mə] n.消费者；用户 (高中英语单词)
• finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
• necessarily [´nesisərili] ad.必定，必然地 (高中英语单词)
• batter [´bætə] v.乱轰；磨损(家具等) (高中英语单词)
• selection [si´lekʃən] n.选择；选拔；精选物 (高中英语单词)
• disclose [dis´kləuz] vt.揭露；透露；泄露 (高中英语单词)
• specialist [´speʃəlist] n.专家 (英语四级单词)
• trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
• graham [´greiəm] a.&n.用全麦粉做的 (英语四级单词)
• participate [pɑ:´tisipeit] v.参与；分享；带有 (英语四级单词)
• satellite [´sætəlait] n.(人造)卫星；随从 (英语六级单词)