Dish Network to unveil streaming video service Friday

Dish Network has invited media to an event called “A Stream Come True” in San Francisco on Friday where the company is expected to announce pricing and other details for a streaming video service. The new service will use technology acquired from their recent purchase of Blockbuster earlier this year.

Dish purchased the former video rental king for $228 million in cash (after adjustments) at a bankruptcy auction in April 2011. Blockbuster was once the world's largest video chain with a market cap of more than $5 billion at its peak in 2002. It started to fall apart after pressure from mail-order and digital competitors such as Netflix.

A Dish streaming service couldn’t come at a better time as competitor Netflix recently announced that they were moving forward with plans to split their business in two, by offering streaming services only at Netflix.com and renaming their DVD-by-mail service to Qwikster.

Netflix caught a lot of flak from unhappy customers a few months ago when the split was first announced. A 60% price hike accompanied the announcement for subscribers of both services, which resulted in nearly 1 million cancellations. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings acknowledged the communication mistake and publically apologized over the weekend.

Earlier this month it was reported that Netflix had lost their contract with Starz and content would be pulled from the streaming platform on February 28, 2012.

Dish could come out smelling like a rose if they are able to undercut the current Netflix streaming price of $7.99. The only concern is that the company has only had five months to amass a streaming catalog, although Dish promises to unveil “the most comprehensive home entertainment package ever.”

Apple's Tim Cook to unveil iPhone 5 on October 4

Apple is planning to host a press event on October 4 to unveil the next-generation iPhone. The media gathering will take place on a Tuesday and will be hosted by new CEO Tim Cook, according to All Things D. Sources close to the event suggest that the new iPhone will go on sale a few weeks after unveiling.

Apple has remained tight-lipped about any new hardware or event and generally doesn’t send out media invitations until a week or so before a scheduled event. In that case, we should expect to hear “official” word about an unveiling sometime early next week.

The presentation will be a first for Tim Cook after taking over the helm in August when Steve Jobs resigned as CEO due to declining health. Cook will likely have help from other Apple bigwigs during the presentation, including Phil Schiller, Scott Forstall and Eddy Cue as has been customary in the past.

It’s unknown as of yet if Jobs will make an appearance, which will likely be a decision made closer to the event based on his health at that time. If he does show, odds are he will play a small cameo role as to not steal the spotlight from Cook.

The iPhone 5 rumor mill has been building steam since the beginning of the year and things really started to heat up when there was no sign of new hardware at the annual WWDC in June. All current signs point to an October announcement and release which can’t come soon enough for Apple fans and media outlets sifting through daily rumors.