It's about to get a lot harder to turn off the TV.
A torrent of television-ready gadgets will hit the store shelves this year, including dozens of phones and tablet computers that will allow viewers to watch movies and TV shows from about anywhere.
The proliferation of viewing devices -- including a new generation of TV sets that connect to the Internet -- could raise the chances that viewers will do what cable and satellite companies fear most: cancel their $70-a-month subscriptions in favor of cheaper Web options.
"2010 was the year that people started wondering, questioning if (cable) cord-cutting is real," said Phil Wiser, co-founder and president of Sezmi, a service that allows users to watch TV from local stations and online sources. "In 2011, it's going to become obvious."
Many of the TVs will be presented at this week's Consumer Electronics Show, the annual conference in Las Vegas that attracts more than 100,000 people searching for technology's next big thing.
This year the buzz is centered on Internet-ready TVs that would let viewers surf the Web and watch online videos from, say, YouTube or Hulu, on a big screen alongside traditional TV shows and movies. Nearly every TV manufacturer at the electronics show is expected to introduce a Web-capable television. Most TVs require a separate box to access the Internet -- the new models have the capability built-in.
"It's going to be a fundamentally big transition," said Jason Kilar, chief executive of Hulu, the popular online video service. "You'll see unparalleled choice, from the standpoint of the consumer, when you open up the Web through that screen."
This year's CES will have lots of other hi-tech goodies.
Manufacturers such as Hewlett-Packard Inc. and BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion Ltd. are sure to debut tablets to rival Apple Inc.'s iPad. The new tablets will feature high-resolution screens that will encourage users to watch videos downloaded from the Internet.
The next generation of smart phones won't be left out of the spotlight. The 4G phones -- that's fourth generation -- are so fast they'll allow users to watch movies and TV shows via a cellular connection. It's presumed that Verizon Wireless Inc. will omtrpdice its first 4G phone to take advantage of the high-speed network the company is rolling out.
"People more and more want to take all the stuff they're doing on a computer or a TV and start putting it in their pocket," said Scott McGregor, chief executive of Broadcom Corp., which makes microchips for popular consumer devices including the iPhone and iPad as well as TVs and Blu-ray players.
Whether Web-TVs will be this year's holy grail of gadgetry is uncertain. At last year's CES, the "it" gadget was 3-D TV, which hasn't really caught on with consumers yet. The year before that, HD DVD got all the buzz but then rival format Blu-ray got most of the sales.
