Cable

If you were around during the launch of high-def TV, you may remember an interesting phenomenon: People with HDTVs became oddly knowledgeable about esoteric topics, such as the migratory patterns of North American birds or the concept of Dark Matter.

Technologies that distribute audio and video around a home are incredibly cool—if you can afford them, if you can tolerate complicated installation, and if you can figure out how to use them once they’re in.

If you're a Comcast subscriber and an iPad user, make sure you download the XFINITY TV app. While not the streaming app widely hoped for, it's at least partially there. The killer feature is that it lets Comcast subscribers stream TV to their iPad from anywhere there's a WiFi signal. No 3G streaming yet. Before you get too excited, there's some limitations.

It’s been more than a decade since the first TiVo digital video recorder (DVR) revolutionized the way many of us watch TV. While almost all cable companies now offer some degree of DVR capability, it’s really been the satellite and telco TV service providers — as well as TiVo itself — that have pushed DVR innovation, offering features like access to online content.