When the US was upgrading to the DTV system a few years ago, there were a lot of conspiracy theories going around that the converter boxes had cameras and mics built into them. Some people mad fake videos where they simply glued in a camera and a mic but it wasn't actually connected to anything. I knew better but I still cracked open every converter box we bought just to be sure... didn't find anything.
My mom got a converter box for her bedroom and she noticed that it would turn itself on in the middle of the night. She thought for sure someone was spying on her despite everything I told her.
Of course the real reason was that the FCC was trying to free up some of the bandwidth for other applications. Since this type of "smart TV" has no real or practical application I don't see it catching on.
