In honor of Election Day, Microsoft has released the results from an Xbox Live poll taken in October.

Microsoft's official Gamerscore Blog published its results from Halloween weekend, and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has extended his lead over Republican John McCain to 53% to 33%, with 14% answering "Undecided/Other."

Today's numbers update polls from September which showed Democratic candidate Barack Obama ahead of Republican candidate John McCain by a 12-point margin.

The numbers do not coincide with major national polls, which show Obama leading by no more than 11 percentage points.

The Shacknews editorial staff once more wishes to implore all eligible American voters to go out and vote.

Gamers may soon be a little shielded from voice chat stupidity on Xbox Live, as Microsoft has been granted a patent for real-time censoring in voice communications.

Microsoft applied for a patent on an "automatic censoring filter" in 2004, according to Ars Technica. In the technology, speech-recognition software scans what's being said in real-time and distorts the audio stream if it becomes probable that obscene language is about to be used.

The gaming corner of the internet is quick to speculate that the technology will come to the profanity-laden Xbox Live, but an application in greater demand of the trick is television. Once brought to market, the technology is expected to be sold to television networks, who could rest easy knowing they're automatically avoiding fines by the FCC for airing indecent content.

Ars speculates that what satiates an easily offended American television audience could also be used by governments easily offended by politically-motivated speech.

In short, stopping 12-year-olds from screaming racial epithets during Halo 3 matches is the tip of the iceberg--and probably not the main reason--for Microsoft's patent. The science behind the tech, reproduced from the patent application, follows... Read more

Xbox Live is experiencing intermittent outages in the wake of an all-day planned downtime back on Monday.

"Users will not be able to connect or log into Xbox LIVE," reads the official Xbox.com support page. "We are aware of the problem and working to resolve the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause," it continues.

Today's outage for Microsoft's online gaming service and marketplace adds to unexpected downtime that happened on Tuesday night.

The support page does not estimate how long the downtime will last.

Xbox Live will be going down for maintenance next Monday, September 29 at 2:00AM CDT, and the downtime could last up to 24 hours.

"As a result, Xbox LIVE and the 'My Xbox' section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode ... the remainder of Xbox.com will be available with limited interruptions," wrote Xbox Live director of programming Larry Hryb, better known as Major Nelson.

"This service maintenance is in preparation for the new Xbox experience which will be available later this fall," added Hryb, in reference to the Xbox 360 interface overhaul due later on.

He stressed that the avatar-spawning update will not arrive when the maintenance is completed, so gamers have nothing to look forward to other than the resumption of service as usual.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain in a poll of Xbox Live users performed by Microsoft.

Microsoft's official Gamerscore Blog reported nearly 100,000 participants in the poll, which was conducted through the Xbox 360's homepage for the Rock the Vote campaign. The results were as follows:

• Obama--Biden: 43%
• McCain--Palin: 31%
• Undecided: 13%
• Other: 13%

The results are not in line with major national polls, which show Obama and McCain running at a near statistical dead heat. Microsoft, however, touts the results as "[providing] insight into a unique subset of young engaged citizens."

The company also said that 55,000 voter registration forms have been requested in addition to 350,000 downloads of Rock the Vote-related content ranging from videos from party conventions to avatar Gamerpics supporting both candidates.

Microsoft Europe today announced a new program that will allow select members of the Xbox Live community to see upcoming films before their theatrical debut.

Known as the "Xbox Live Film Club," the initiative steams from a recent partnership with Paramount and will launch with a special sneak preview of Tropic Thunder, which hits the United Kingdom on September 19.

By following the entry guidelines on the official site, UK Xbox Live members can win the chance to see the film early. While Microsoft allows Xbox Live members to stream movies from the online Xbox Live Video Marketplace, winners will need to attend a real-life event instead of enjoying the unreleased flick from their living room.

Presently, the Film Club program is not available for Xbox Live members in North America, though Shacknews has contacted Microsoft for more details.

Despite Microsoft's past efforts to prevent Xbox Live account hijacking, the theft of Halo 3 multiplayer producer Joe Tung's account has pulled the issue back to the forefront.

The hijacking was not the result of sophisticated computer wizardry, but rather "social engineering," the act of creatively lying to customer service representatives to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. Xbox Live stores credit card information, and while hackers are unable to steal that information for their own use, they can make unauthorized purchases from a stolen account

Tung is far from alone, as account hijackings are not uncommon among players of Bungie's online behemoth Halo 3. He is not even the only Bungie employee to be a victim of such thieves. But his position makes his case the highest profile to date.

Microsoft claims it previously retrained customer service employees ... Read more

Rockstar's open world shooter Grand Theft Auto IV clocked in at number one on the charts in Xbox Live online activity, Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb's revealed on his blog.

For the week starting April 28, the title beat out Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Bungie's Halo 3, which clocked in at second and third, respectively. Rankings are based on the number of unique users playing online while connected to Xbox Live.

GTA 4's top ranking knocks Call of Duty 4 off of a solid three-month streak at number one in online activity. The last game to supplant Call of Duty 4 was Halo 3 back in early January, shortly after the holiday blitz of new users hit Microsoft's online gaming service.

Microsoft has corrected the Xbox Live Gamertags of confirmed cheaters, citing violations of the company's terms of use, Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb wrote on his blog today.

Accounts which Hyrb described as "the most serious offenders" were today stripped of their Gamerscore, resetting the total to zero. Moreover, those accounts will not be able to regain any previously obtained achievements—this does not, however, forbid the earning of future achievements in other games.

Violators have also been marked as cheaters on the Xbox.com community page, as evidenced in a sample provided by Hyrb. Infamous achievement hoarder StripClubDj, who was once lauded for being the first Xbox Live gamer to breach the 100,000 Gamerscore milestone, was among the marked accounts.

"Xbox Live remains committed to keeping the service free of cheating in order to maintain a fair and level playing field for everyone," Hyrb wrote.