Back in February of last year, I blogged about a visit to the Infolab at Northwestern University. To me, what made the visit blog-worthy was a demo of technology called Beyond Broadcast. Basically, the technology uses Program Guide and Closed Caption data to develop some level of understanding regarding what you are watching. When you click the search button on your remote, the system uses that understanding to determine who/what is on-screen at the time and perform an internet search based on that information.
Now, it seems that the technology has finally taken its first steps to market in a set-top box by Samsung. It will be interesting to see how this evolves. I assume it will eventually be built into the television itself and may actually be able to answer your significant other when they ask, "Wait... What just happened?"