Ars Technica turned me on to CoolIris several weeks ago, and since then I’ve stayed on top of the company’s news. CoolIris uses a 3D-like interface for browsing pictures and video on a range of websites including biggies like Google, YouTube and Flickr. There’s also a Discover feature for catching up on specific topics like news, sports, technology, etc. Very, very cool, but honestly more novelty than anything else. I don’t see the average Joe Shmoe bothering to download the plug-in.

On the other hand, the company’s new Shopping feature is a potential game changer. It’s even got Om Malik rethinking his position on plug-ins.

CoolIris replicates the window-shopping and catalog-flipping experience on the Web better than any other application to date.  Forget apps like Zinio (a magazine digitizer which our buddy Kevin Tofel loves, but I’ve never been able to get into), browsing with CoolIris is smooth and instantaneous.  Perfect for shopping.

Looking for a shirt at Macy’s? With CoolIris you can bring up a wall of photos showing everything available, scan it, and click on anything for a closer look. There are logical menus (apparel, kitchen, Jewelry, etc.), and there’s also a search function.  The interface is beautiful. Reminds me quite a bit of an Apple app. You get the feel of momentum moving along the CoolIris wall the same way you do when scanning along a screen on the iPhone.

There’s still a lack of content on several of the shopping sites CoolIris has listed, but that’s sure to change. If the retail partners have any sense, they’ll start promoting the application directly from their home sites.  It’s a nice online differentiator just in time for holiday shopping. And in this economy retailers will need everything they can get to draw in customers.

Slacker is having a good week. Fresh from announcing a deal with RIM to offer their software and experience on Blackberry devices, the company is announcing a new portable player. The second generation Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player goes on sale from the Slacker website today, and will land on Best Buy shelves in time for the holiday shopping season.

Most of the features in the new Slacker G2, revealed by the FCC last month, stay pretty much the same. The big difference is the size of the device. At 40% more compact than the initial player, the Slacker G2 addresses probably the biggest objection early critics had with their hardware. It is now smaller and sleeker, but VP Jonathan Sasse assures me the display is just as stunning as ever. There are two models available. The 25-station version will retail for $199.99.  The 40-station version will sell for $249.99

According to company materials, new features for the Slacker G2 include:

• Improved audio quality
• Custom EQ and volume normalization options
• 25% longer battery life
• New visual interface and intuitive navigation
• Improved bundled accessories.

I have a review unit coming, so look for hands-on detail soon. In the meantime, if you’re new to Slacker, check out earlier coverage of how the service works. Offline listening of your own custom radio stations is a killer application.

One final note. I asked Jonathan Sasse if Slacker will start offering more community sharing features for its software in the future a la Last.fm, and he confirmed that yes, the company will. Community features are slated for a software update due in a few months.

Karl Bode at Broadband Reports broke the news this morning (now confirmed) that Comcast will institute a 250GB bandwidth cap starting on October 1st. Nobody likes a cap, but as far as they go, this one’s pretty generous. It’s also far from unprecedented. Time Warner Cable made a lot of (negative) news when it started trialing a 40GB cap earlier in the year. But some of the smaller cable operators have been capping or metering for years. CableOne, for example, limits downloads and uploads during the time period between Noon and Midnight. The base plan allows for 1.3GB downstream and 131MB upstream in a day, and if you exceed those caps, the operator will slow down your connection. Meanwhile Sunflower Broadband appears to offer only 1GB downstream per month in its base plan. On the other hand, you can add extra gigabytes for only a dollar each in advance or the operator will charge you two dollars after the fact.

The one bit of good news around the fact that the big cablecos are getting into the capping game is that at least now we’re having a discussion about what’s reasonable. For example, should network management include caps, or slowed access for heavy users during peak times, or both? (I know “neither” is the ideal answer, but it’s also impractical.)

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Cablevision has emerged victorious from its latest day in court. If it chooses, Cablevision now has the green light to start introducing Network DVR services. A court of appeals ruled yesterday that Network DVR does not violate copyright law, overturning a decision from March 2007 that pronounced the technology illegal.

The ruling should not be surprising. Despite serious opposition from the content moguls, new services have been eroding the barrier that was originally built up against Network DVR technology. Time Warner Cable started the momentum with the introduction of Start Over and Look Back, Cox and ABC introduced a similar VOD service to make primetime programming available any time, and outside the US operators have launched full-service Network DVR. The increasing adoption of traditional digital video recording and video-on-demand have also made Network DVR virtually inevitable. After all, what’s the practical difference if content is stored at home or on a service provider’s network?

The continuing evolution of living-room TV is fascinating from a number of technology angles. For example, we’re seeing more and more of a load placed on operator networks. The operators love the revenue opportunities of advanced services, but they’re less thrilled about the network upgrades required to make those services sustainable. With Network DVR and VOD we’re also looking at a living-room analog to cloud computing. What if the cloud goes offline? What service expectations should consumers have? Should there be TV SLAs?

We’re going to see a lot play out in the living room in the next few years. DVR and VOD services will continue to blend. Network DVR is a start.

Silicon Alley Insider noted an interesting tidbit this morning in Disney’s earnings. Apparently Internet revenue helped offset lower broadcast ad revenues last quarter for ABC, lending credence to the reasons behind the writers’ strike last season.

From the SEC filing:

Broadcasting revenues increased $7 million reflecting higher internet revenues, partially offset by lower advertising revenues at the owned television stations. The increase in internet revenues included Club Penguin which was acquired in the fourth quarter of the prior year. Revenues at the ABC Television Network were comparable to the prior year as the impact of lower ratings was offset by higher advertising rates and digital media revenues.

The implications of Disney’s admission are huge. Think of the impact on the advertising business, traditional network TV, cable and telecom video services, and even, potentially, national broadband policy. If the entertainment industry can make money off video on the Internet, suddenly there’s a good reason to push greater broadband access and higher broadband speeds. Money is a powerful incentive for change.

There’s a post over on ReadWriteWeb speculating on how the new search engine Cuil managed to get so much publicity on Day 1. My question: how did the search engine wind up with so many users on Day 1? I followed the Cuil news with some interest yesterday morning, but was shocked to discover the Motorola blog I write was already getting link referrals from the new site. Cuil just launched. Who was over there yesterday morning searching for “OCAP” and “femtocell”?

As far as my own thoughts on Cuil, I like the interface quite a bit, but whether it can deliver the comprehensive results that Google does remains to be seen. I also noticed a quirk in the results it delivered for pages I recognized. Cuil seems to add in little thumbnail pics that have nothing to do with the results they sit next to. Odd.

The folks over at Unstrung got confirmation from Sprint VP Atish Gude that one of the payment options for the upcoming US WiMAX network will be day passes. (via Broadband Reports) In other words, if you don’t want to sign a contract, you can pay for a day of use just like with a Wi-Fi hotspot.

I’ve written before that the per-use mobile broadband model would be my ideal. I don’t need mobile access often, but when I do, it’s critical, and I’m willing to pay. That said, I had an interesting conversation on this topic with Arnie Berman, chief technology strategist at Cowen and Co., and he makes a good argument that the “by-the-drink” model has serious flaws.

Broadly speaking, as Arnie says, all-you-can-eat pricing drives adoption by bringing predictability to monthly billing levels. Fine. WiMAX isn’t doing away with that model as its main option. However, the big question is whether wireless carriers can maintain flat-fee day-pass payments (predictable per-use fees) or whether they’ll start charging by bandwidth used. Since bandwidth caps are now a serious part of the conversation in fixed broadband, why shouldn’t we expect the same to happen on the mobile side? And if that happens, how can we gauge our own usage and avoid unpleasant billing surprises?

Over on GigaOM last week, Arnie talked about this very dilemma with regard to cloud computing. He argued there that we need more than a usage monitoring tool; we need a tool that forecasts likely usage. Maybe the same is true for mobile broadband. I’m all for WiMAX day passes, but if service providers end up charging by the byte, I want a simple way to determine what payment plan makes the most sense for me. And more importantly, whether I can afford mobile broadband at all.

Todd Spangler at Multichannel broke the news this morning. Comcast is buying up to six million digital terminal adapters (DTAs) this year in an effort to migrate to all-digital broadcasts throughout 20% of its footprint in 2008. The DTAs are coming from Motorola (my employer), Pace and Thomson. DTAs work by converting QAM channels broadcast without encryption to analog signals. They don’t include any conditional access technology, a program guide, or support two-way services such as VOD.

[Note from Dave: I received a tip from Glenn (thanks!) last week referring to USA Today coverage of same. Wonder if Comcast may attempt to bypass SDV entirely by freeing up this bandwidth? Hmmm. Perhaps going all QAM will force them to standardize how they label and map these channels (verus the current Comcast clear QAM chaos in my region).]