CBS' Social Viewing Rooms is one of the first signs of a major broadcaster learning how to use the Internet. Finally, I should add. You get a pile of prime time TV shows, such as CSI: Miami, and watch them at the same time as other people in a chat room. You get to make comments, answer regular quizzes, and toss about kisses, darts, tomatoes or other animations at the screen: fun the first time around but annoying if someone wants to bug other viewers.

The escape is to go into your own private viewing room. The video is astonishingly sharp, the colours vivid. Go to CBS.com and click on the 'Watch & Chat' link. You do not have to register to see the shows; just put in a user name. All you have to pay is watch an ad by Intel before the show begins.

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What is the economy doing to the tech sector? Well, for one, people are going to cut back on all those expensive gadgets they thought they needed. In a report released this week, the US Consumer Electronics Association (CES) says its annual pre-Christmas survey found that sales could be cut in half this season compared to last year.

The industry trade group projects that consumer spending video games, digital cameras, music players, laptops and other electronic goods would grow by 3.5 in the fourth quarter, half that of last year. After peace and happiness, adults who took the survey rated a computer as their second pick. Televisions, video game systems and cell phones also made the top ten in the collective wish list. Among teens computers, video game consoles, portable mp3 players and cell phones were rated high.

While people will on average spend less this year, the average budget being allocated for consumer electronics purchases is 28 percent, an increase of six percent over last year.

At the annual CES Industry conference in Las Vegas this week, the group also released its forecast of five technology trends that are transforming the way we live. One is the new ways being developed to help us interact more naturally with all the technologies we use. Companies are moving beyond keyboards, controllers, mice, joysticks, knobs, switches and buttons to incorporate touch, gesture, voice and even thought in a bid to breakdown the barriers to better human-machine interaction.

These command and control technologies are best typified by Nintendo's Wii, a gaming console that reacts to hand movements. The touch screen, as typified by the iPhone and others, is another evolution. From simple touch, the next step is into haptic contact. While force feedback on video game controllers is the best known haptic technology, advances are being made to the technology to simulate texture, shape, weight and dimension. CES points to Falcon, a game controller made by Novint. A pistol grip accessory simulates a gun's weight and recoil when fired. Haptic feedback is useful in such fields as undersea salvage and space exploration, and importantly is finding a use in medicine, helping surgeons use less evasive methods for complex procedures.

Another technology trend to watch is the increasing use of the Internet and consumer electronics in the kitchen, especially in the management of energy use. Since white goods account for about 40 percent of household electricity consumption (refrigerators account for about 14 percent), smart appliances that manage energy consumption will become more popular, the CES predicts.

Smart appliances are those that incorporate technology that respond efficiently to price signals from utility companies to lessen loads during peak times. New display technologies are also another trend that is well underway. Better picture quality, thinner displays, new forms and three-dimensional images are making their way into our living rooms, or soon will be.

The development of a thin display by E Ink for reading is a forerunner of the newspaper or magazine that can update itself with the latest news while at the newsstand. The fourth trend to watch is the demand for connections between devices. While about 30 percent of US households have a wireless home network, relatively few use those connections to move audio or video content around the home. This may change though, says the CES report. Manufacturers are moving toward eliminating much of the wiring currently needed to connect TVs, DVD players, gaming consoles, speakers and stereos to each other.

We've heard so much about Web 3.0, and still the concept of a more ubiquitous Internet remains elusive, if not slightly scary. These days Web 1.0 is described as the functional Web, the start of enabling the transmission of information instantly. Web 2.0 describes the explosion of social networking, along with the creation of information or content through community or collective effort (YouTube, MySpace, Facebook). Web 3.0 is the incorporation of Web-based applications with more personalised functionality. Using software applications over the Web rather than having individual copies stored on individual computers is an example of the trend. Read all about these trends in depth (including a great chapter on what Web 3.0 is all about) by downloading the report 'Five Tech Trends to Watch', at www.ce.org.

Send any comments to elamin.ahmed@gmail.com.