Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim coming next November, first trailer released - Ars Technica

The 2010 Video Game Awards on Spike TV was filled with awkward celebrity guests, game reveals that were light on actual game play, and few surprises before the show. One game announcement caught everyone flatfooted, however, and that was the reveal of a new Elder Scrolls game.

Called Skyrim, the game was announced by Bethesda Softworks Executive Producer Todd Howard and teased with a short trailer that explained some of the game's story but showed none of the in-game graphics. A tweet from Bethesda's Nick Breckon dispelled the rumor that the game will run on the recently-acquired id Software's technology. "We can now confirm that the TES V: Skyrim engine is all-new," he wrote. "And it looks fantastic."

It won't be long until we get more details, but that's all there is to go on for now. The game's release date? November 11, 2011. That's right, 11-11-11. How many more ones can there be? None. None more ones.

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Australian Security Will Screen All Cargo Coming From Yemen, Gillard Says - Bloomberg

Australia will screen all cargo coming from Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha, the three transit points for passengers flying from Yemen, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said, after an attempt to send parcel bombs from Yemen to the U.S. was foiled.

Police in Yemen yesterday arrested a woman suspected of attempting to send two parcel bombs to synagogues in Chicago via air-cargo services, after authorities in Dubai and the U.K. intercepted the packages on Oct. 29. Authorities are investigating whether the shipments were staged as rehearsals for a future attacks, a U.S. official said.

“There are no direct flights from Yemen to Australia, so any cargo that originated in Yemen would come through one of those three locations and there will be 100 percent screening as a response,” Gillard said in Hanoi yesterday, according to a transcript of her comments e-mailed today.

Gillard said she will take any “further advice arising from this incident” when it becomes available.

The prime minister, who is in the Vietnamese capital for the East Asia Summit, said she has been pushing hard to formalize the participation of the U.S. and Russia in future gatherings.

The two nations, which will join the summit from 2011, attended as special guests this year.

Regional Forum

“Prior to this there was no regional forum that brought together the U.S., China, the countries of our region, working comprehensively across the economic, strategic, political and defense relationships,” Gillard said. Such a forum “is important for our future, for the future of China and its role in our world.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will visit Melbourne for the Austrialia- United States Ministerial meeting, a forum between the two nations, on Nov. 8.

Gillard said she plans to visit China next year after Premier Wen Jiabao invited her when they met in Hanoi yesterday.

The Australian prime minister, who also met with leaders of India, Laos and the Philippines, will travel to Indonesia and Malaysia from Hanoi, according to local media reports.

Stock Exchange Merger

Gillard, who also met with Singapore Prime Minister Hsien Loong Lee during her trip, said her counterpart had raised Singapore Exchange Ltd.’s bid for ASX Ltd.

“We both agreed there’s a clear process to be gone through,” Gillard told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview. “From the Australian point of view, from the Foreign Investment Review Board, and that process will be gone through.”

Singapore Exchange, part-owned by the city-state’s central bank, on Oct. 25 offered to buy the owner of Australia’s stock exchange for cash and shares in a deal worth A$8.1 billion ($8 billion), according to Bloomberg’s calculations based on Singapore Exchange’s closing price of S$8.80 on Oct. 29.

The transaction requires an amendment to Australia’s Corporations Act, approved by parliament, which prohibits anyone from owning more than 15 percent of ASX. Singapore Exchange needs the support of the minority Labor government, which hasn’t decided its stance on the deal, and at least four other legislators in the lower house of parliament to approve the bid.

Australian lawmakers including two Greens party members, opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey and two independents said they oppose Singapore Exchange’s bid, saying it’s unlikely to be in the best interests of Australians.

To contact the reporter on this story: Nichola Saminather in Sydney at nsaminather1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at ptighe@bloomberg.net

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Android This Week: Angry Birds, Opera Mobile Coming - GigaOm

Android phone owners got some game-loving news this week as the full version of Angry Birds was released. The release was unusual in that the app is free, as GetJar has a unique ad-supported distribution model in place. Rovio Mobile’s decision to give an exclusive deal for Angry Birds to GetJar was also out of the ordinary, as it means the hottest game in town will not be available from the Android Market. Google must be hoping this doesn’t start a trend, as it cuts out the 30 percent royalty Google normally takes from each app sale.

Opera Mobile will be coming to the Android platform in a few weeks, as announced by the company this week. Opera Mobile brings the desktop browsing experience to the smartphone better than previous versions of the browser. This new browser will take advantage of the hardware capabilities found in current smartphones, and implement a pinch/ zoom interface that rivals that in competing browsers.

The number of apps in the Android Market is growing rapidly, and the openness of the platform opens up the door for utility apps that improve the user experience. Keyboard apps fall in that category, and as many Android phones rely on onscreen keyboards developers have stepped up and produced quite a few of them. A keyboard app that may have more features than the others is Ultra Keyboard, as demonstrated in our video review. The app offers multiple keyboard layouts, multiple input methods and can translate text into a number of languages.

Kevin noted that handset makers are going to be offering Android-based smartphones in India soon, anticipating another half-billion new Android users as a result. In addition, some of the smartphones in India may be from brands unfamiliar to U.S. users; Indian companies Spice Mobility, Olive Telecom and Micromax are expected to be offering Android phones as well.

GigaOM had a cool infographic this week showing the steady progress of Android’s march toward market dominance that’s worth a look.

Gingerbread is next up on the Android dessert menu, and from the looks of it, most Android users have managed to upgrade to either Eclair or Froyo versions. Kevin took a look at Android Market data provided by Google’s dashboard service, and found that nearly three-quarters of Android users are using Android version 2.1 or above. Let’s hope more users are able to upgrade to Froyo before Gingerbread is out of the oven.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

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