The quick answer is: no one knows. "We're a long way from "Wild Palms'," says Diana Hawkins, who runs an interactive-TV consulting firm in Portola Valley, Calif. But even if the techno-chaos of that futuristic fantasy mini-series is far off, some consumers may indeed notice that their personal relationships with their TVs, telephones and computers will be entering a new and deeper phase within a year or two. Instead of playing rented tapes on their VCRs , they may be able to call up a movie from a library of thousands through a menu displayed on the TV. Game fanatics may be able to do the same from another electronic library filled with realistic video versions of arcade shoot-'em-ups. In-stead of flipping through the pages of J. Crew of Victoria's Secret, at-home shoppers may watch video catalogs with models demonstrating front and rear views of the latest gear. Some cable companies are also testing other interactive models that allow viewers to choose their own news or select camera angles for sporting events.
可以毫不犹豫地回答：谁也不知道。"要达到《野棕榈》里描写的发展水平还有一个很长的过程，"在加利福尼亚波托拉谷开办着一家互相作用电视咨询公司的黛安娜o霍金斯这样说道。不过，就算这个未来主义的小小的科幻电视系列片中描写的技术发展混乱现象还很遥远，但有些消费者可能已经真切地感觉到在一两年的时间内他们与电视机、电话和电脑之间的关系会进入一个新的更高级的阶段。他们将不必再去租录像带在录像机上放映，而有可能从电视上显示的成千上万的影片目录上选取一部影片。对电视游戏感兴趣的人也可以这样来利用另外一种藏有大量逼真的枪战游戏的电子资料馆。想买衣服的人也不必去翻阅杰克鲁服饰公司或是维多利亚服饰公司印制的新款式服装介绍，坐在家里便可以从电视上看到模特儿全方位地展示最新款式服装。一些有线电视公司也在探索其他的相互作用模式，设法使观众能按自己的兴趣选看新闻或选择观看体育比赛的视角。
While these developments are clever, fun and even convenient, they're not quite revolutionary. Denise Caruso, editor of Digital Media, a San Francisco-based industry newsletter, calls this " fakeinteractive," just one step past passive viewing, pure couch-potato mode. In the most common version of this scheme, consumers will communicate with the TV through the combination of a control box and their remote control, or, perhaps, the telephone.
尽管这些发明创造很聪明，很有趣，甚至带来很多便利，但还不算什么大的改革。设在旧金山的工业通讯杂志《数字媒介》的编辑丹尼斯o卡鲁索把这称作"假冒的相互作用"，只比被动观看前进一步，纯粹是一种懒散的老式观看电视的风尚。这一方案最常见的一种说法就是消费者通过一个操纵箱、他们的遥控器--也许还有电话--结合在一起，与电视沟通。