The latest edition of The Hookup, an audio-video and gaming column at Penny Arcade, talks about the impact of High Definition on gaming in general and Xbox Live in particular. Halo, of course, gets mentioned:

Hack the web server that Microsoft makes, and win a Microsoft console-- that's the proposition of the HackIIS6.0 Challenge run by Roger Grimes. Check that site for details and read the HackIIS6.0 Challenge discussion at Slashdot. The catch? This time, they're going to install all the security patches.

According to BDGamer, Microsoft has announced that it has selected Limelight Networks as the Content Delivery Network for Xbox Live. Limelight currently powers Steam and is slated to perform the same duties for the Phantom gaming console, should it ever see the light of day.

Xbox365 says it thinks it has received a copy of the actual Xbox 360 logo. Kotaku thinks it's got a picture of an Xbox 360 memory card. (I think I feel dizzy. Comments saved for later... --Ed.)

VersionTracker recently noted the release of version 2.2r2b of OpenPlay, a cross platform networking library originally designed for multiplayer games.

Why is that of interest to Bungie fans? Because Bungie was actually the original user and co-developer of OpenPlay with Apple, which at the time was called Uber-- the foundation of the cross-platform networking used in the award-winning Myth RTS games.

Both Major Nelson in his blog and Frankie in the HBO forum have confirmed that despite what you may have heard, the reset of game statistics for Halo 2 will not affect your friends list. Many of you may have been receiving-- or even sending-- voice and text messages to your friends with instructions not to delete them, in order to preserve your lists post-reset. It isn't necessary.

The web is abuzz with news about more images from ourcolony.net that purport to be of the Xbox 360, as well as some that appear to come from other sources, and still others that were apparently debunked months ago but have come back to haunt us. If you haven't been following the action at ourcolony.net, here are a few links to other gaming sites that have the images:

Gamesindustry.biz has another story up speculating on exactly what the Xbox 360 is going to be when it finally launches. This one suggests two editions; a stripped-down, games-only edition without a hard drive, and a premium edition with a hard drive and Internet access. However, the point of interest to most owners of Halo and Halo 2 probably this:

Littlebigman pointed out GameSpot's latest Rumor Control column, that sports purported images of the Xbox 360's controllers that seem consistent with the partials seen at ourcolony.net. (Mini-editorial: For all the ribbing Microsoft took for the original "Duke" Xbox controllers, I grew to like them, not for their bulk, but for their button layout.

SPOnG has a story speculating that the on-again, off-again adventure game Kameo will be released finally on the Xbox 2 rather than the Xbox. More surprisingly, it claims that it was ported to the new console by Rare only six weeks after they received their first Xenon development kits, and that they could have done it even faster.

(Could this give credence to rumors of Halo 2.5 for Xbox 2 as a launch title? Only the Shadow knows --Ed.)

Xbox365 suggests that Microsoft's new Xbox power cable may have actually made the problem worse, linking to user accounts in their forum.

Xbox's Major Nelson asks Do You Skype and reveals his SkypeID, unsurprisingly, is majornelson. (You need your browser configured so that Skype handles callto:// URLs for that link to work --Ed.)

Louis Wu, courtesy of Dan Chosich's tipoff, points us to Gamasutra's freely-availably printer-friendly version of Handling Complexity in the Halo 2 AI, the GDC 2005 presentation by Bungie's Damian Isla. Lots of interesting diagrams.

Major Nelson, back from GDC, posted up a big guide to Xbox 2 coverage at Xbox.com. Includes screenshots, movies and info.

The Game Developers Conference has kicked off with J. Allard's keynote address, and the web is atwitter with news about Microsoft's next console, despite the machine itself not yet making an appearance. Here are a few links to items floating through the ethernet at the moment: