The drawing is now closed. Last month Roku announced the launch of their new Channel Store and while I got hands on with the offering, I didn't have time to write up a review since I was at the Streaming Media West show. Winner: Josh B. from New York, NY.

In celebration of the launch, the nice folks over at Roku are letting me give away one Roku HD-XR unit to a reader of my blog. All you have to do is leave one comment on this post on why you want the Roku unit. Make sure you use your real name and a valid e-mail address and I'll pick one lucky user at random at the end of the month. on December 14th. A big thanks to Roku for the gear and for making a really kick-ass player, one of my favorite devices on the market today.

Israeli based company Emblaze is suing Apple for allegedly infringing on patents related to the company's HTTP Live Streaming feature in QuickTime. For those that have been in the industry for a long time, the name Emblaze might ring a bell as the company spent many years, dating all the way back to 1999, trying to get their Java based video technology to get adopted, with no luck.

Fast forward to 2005 when Emblaze became a holding company for a group of technology companies, including Emblaze Mobile, who's technology seems to be at the center of this lawsuit. For the past two years, Emblaze has been building the First Else smart phone which will be released through Emblaze's subsidiary company Else.

What's not known is exactly what technology Emblaze feels Apple is infringing on. No one from Emblaze has yet to respond to my request for more patent details and some have speculated that the patent has to do with a recently approved iPhone app, called Knocking, which allows for live video streaming over 3G from one device to another.

I'll update the post with the patent number in question as soon as I track it down. Updated: Thanks to a reader for providing the patent number, which is 6389473, and filed in March of 1999. Reading the filing, the patent seems pretty broad in terms of what it covers. Emblaze has said Apple has until December 15th to respond to the suit and as of the updating of this post, still has no from Emblaze has responded to my request for more info.

It's been a few weeks since I've been able to blog due to the Streaming Media West show we had last month in San Jose. By all accounts, we had a great show with a record number of 2,768 registrants. FOX Business News spent an entire day broadcasting live from the show floor, we had packed session rooms, great speakers and we kicked off the launch of our sister event, the Online Video Platform Summit. Thanks to everyone; sponsors, exhibitors and speakers who helped make the show successful. Next year, we'll be moving the show to Los Angeles.

In the next two weeks, we'll have all of the sessions from the show available on-demand, all of the presentations are now available for download, and you can see a run down of all the news from the show here.

At the show, I had a chance to meet with a lot of content owners and as a result, I have a ton of stories and news items to write about. I also have a lot to get up regarding CDN pricing along with all of my pricing data. It's going to take me a little while to get all the content up as I have outlined over three dozen stories I need to follow up on from the show.  I also be giving away some left over gear from a show including a Roku unit and an Xbox 360, so keep an eye out for those in the next week.

Tonight, StreamingMedia.com celebrates the industry with the annual Streaming Media Readers’ Choice Awards. Finalists were selected by 5,136 readers in 18 categories and the winners will be revealed tonight at the San Jose Marriott, from 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. If you can’t make it to the event, check out the live webcast thanks to LiveStream.com

Mix it up—or should we say REmix it up—at our rocking party following
the award ceremony: open bar, video remixing legends Eclectic Method,
networking, and dancing galore thanks to our Diamond Sponsor, Kaltura and our Gold Sponsors, Digital Rapids and ViewCast.

If you can't make it to the Streaming Media West show this week, you can still check out a lot of the action on TV thanks to FOX Business News.  They will be broadcasting live from the show floor all day on Wednesday and will be bringing you interviews with executives from Xbox, FLO TV, Zappos.com, Microsoft, Intel, Roku, Vizio and others.

In addition to the live coverage on TV, they'll also be broadcasting a bunch of interviews online as well, so check out their website for the latest agenda.

Amanda Congdon is having a meetup at our Streaming Media West networking mixer on Tuesday and is giving away a free FLO TV Personal Television. The mixer starts at 7pm in the the San Jose Marriott Ballroom and you can RSVP for free here.

The Streaming Media West show kicks off tomorrow, but the networking events start tonight. Here’s a quick run down of the events if you’re in the area. If you want to find out about any last minute events as soon as I know, follow me on Twitter.

Monday Nov. 16th
Brightcove is throwing an exclusive executive networking event at the St. Claire Hotel in San Jose, CA from 7:00 – 10:00 pm PT. Brightcove says that attendance is limited and that registrations will not be taken at the door. You must be pre-registered to attend Brightcove’s networking event. http://brightcovewest.eventbrite.com/

Monday Nov. 16th
The Commonwealth Club of Silicon Valley is putting on a special event they call SMARTER TV.
Starting at 7pm, at the Silicon Valley Bank, speakers from CBS, Yahoo!
Connected TV, TiVo, Boxee, Roku,and ZillionTV will be discussing what’s
taking place in the connected living room. Full details can be found here.

Tuesday Nov. 17th
Streaming Media West opening reception and networking event in the exhibit hall from 5pm-7pm. If you don’t already have a pass, you can register in-person using the discount code of DRF1 and get a FREE exhibits pass which gets you in to the exhibit floor, all the networking events and the keynotes. www.streamingmedia.com/west/exhibitors.asp

Tuesday Nov. 17th
Special Streaming Media West Networking Mixer from 7:00pm – 8:30pm in the San Jose Marriott Ballroom. The event is FREE but you must RSVP at: www.streamingmedia.com/west/networking.asp

Wednesday Nov. 18th
Join us for the best Readers’ Choice Awards party ever! The RCA Awards Reception will be held in the San Jose Marriott, Wednesday, November 18 from 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

Mix it up—or should we say REmix it up—at our rocking party following the award ceremony: open bar, video remixing legends Eclectic Method, networking, and dancing galore. www.streamingmedia.com/west/readerschoice.asp

If you forget what’s taking place next week, or not sure on the location, call me at anytime on my cell at 917-523-4562 and I’ll give you the details.