TV, NetChannel can turn a televisionset into an Internet terminal that enables users to send e-mail, interrogate the Web or share ideas with various interest groups around the world (eg, alt.nature.beehives).
The typical American couch spud already has a number of "boxes" attached to his televisionset: A VCR, a cable-TV decoder box and perhaps a videogame console like a Sony PlayStation.
The current boom may be a product of the changing economics of the television business, but reality TV is also the liveliest genre on the set right now.
In the future, we'll all be able to surf and shop on the Web via television-but where will the interactive technology reside: in the set-top box or in the TVset itself?
Meanwhile, the Apple TV set-top box and widescreen iPod Touch have begun nibbling at the edges of the television market, long dominated by Japanese brands.
Attempts to set up local stations in the past on analogue television - for instance the little-remembered Lanarkshire TV in the late 90s - ended in failure.