In a lab at Philips Electronics in the Netherlands, researchers are stalking the solution to one of the great problems of modern life: having to hunt through hundreds of television channels for something you'd like to watch. The lab's answer is a TV that recognizes you when you walk into the room, knows you like occult thrillers, finds one it recorded at three in the morning, and puts it up on the screen. Alongside will be smaller images of a British news report on the company you just invested in, the Web page carrying the eBay auction you bid in, and the high-resolution video scene you recorded on your cell phone earlier in the day. Ready to switch channels? Just speak up and tell the TV what you want.

Perhaps the best thing about this talented device is that you'll be able to buy it in about seven years for about what you'd pay for a dumb television today. Philips has already demonstrated these sorts of capabilities in its lab and recently rolled out a semi-intelligent prototype. "We can already produce a mostly digital television that allows you to add functions through software and that will cost in the ballpark of a conventional analog set," says Theo Claasen, chief technology officer for the company's semiconductor group.