There’ve been a number of articles over the years pointing out that videogames can help hone skills that are useful in real-world situations – from The Maritime Accident Casebook, there’s a new one. Research shows that spatial awareness, a trait that’s useful in ship handling, is more developed in men than in women – but playing video games like Halo can eliminate this gender difference. (Spatial Attention is improved in both men and women, but the effect is actually more pronounced in women.) Halo 3: leveling the playing field since 2007. (Louis Wu 15:37:52 UTC)

MTV’s Stephen Totilo thinks that the video game industry in general could learn from the example set by Halo 3 (among other recent games) – sharing is good. Hey – if they learn that lesson, they’ll be right up there with kindergarten classes across the land!(Louis Wu 15:36:00 UTC)

Over at Bungie.net, Achronos explained what’s up with gamertag linking on Xbox Live; apparently, the recent problems have led to some gamertags getting unlinked to their B.net counterparts, but don’t worry, it’s only temporary, and no data is actually lost. Here’s hoping the problems clear up soon! (Louis Wu 15:35:23 UTC)

According to the Comic Book Bin, the 2007 Ford MLG Canadian Open will be shown on The Score, a Canadian sports network, this coming Thursday, January 10, at 6:30pm EST. It will be rebroadcast a week after that, and G4TechTV Canada will be airing it at 7pm on Saturday. Nice to hear about Halo pro play on TV!(Louis Wu 15:34:01 UTC)

QuickTactical stopped by with links to his new movie, Sandwar – it’s got some nice Halo 3 action scenes in it. It’s pretty long – two YouTube links, or a 150 mb Mythica download.(Louis Wu 15:32:45 UTC)

A new concept Hummer was unveiled ahead of its appearance at the Detroit Auto Show this weekend – it seems to have a lot in common with Bungie’s Warthog. Hawty McBloggy was the first to us with this news, but there’s a discussion thread on our forum, started by Koholint, if you want to toss in your two cents.(Louis Wu 15:31:32 UTC)

NPR did a segment today on the intersction of video games and story, focusing on Halo and story maven (and voice of Grunts everywhere) Joe Staten. You can read the blurb and check the audio here. I heard it myself in the car, but thanks to both prometheus (via email) and pillar of awesome (via the forum). Too bad the interviewer went for the tired, obvious, “dumb gamers” angle.(mnemesis 22:50:56 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy found a Master Chief Transformer on eBay – there aren’t any pictures of it in vehicle form, but it’s pretty awesome anyway. Go look.(Louis Wu 18:34:00 UTC)

Ross Mills let us know about “Arby ‘n’ the Chief“, a new video from DigitalPh33r and a sequel to the ‘Master Chief Sucks at Halo’ series. (Note to Ross: links r gud.) It’s pretty funny, even if a large chunk of it is just a discussion of the value of the Heroic Map Pack. (At least it’s an entertaining discussion.) Go watch!(Louis Wu 18:11:02 UTC)

Trigger119 sent word that GamingTV has opened a special forum, devoted to the Online Machinima Rating Association (OMRA). Hopefully, this will increase the usage of this tool, and provide users with a decent filter for released machinima!(Louis Wu 17:52:20 UTC)

Integrated Media Measurement Inc. has published a study which shows that Halo 3 has NOT eaten into television or movie viewing as was feared a couple of months ago. The number of hours of television watched by Halo 3 players did not change significantly when comparing patterns before and after Halo’s launch (though the fact that these folks are watching an average of almost 4 hours of television a night, EVERY night, and STILL playing video games, makes me wonder when they have time to do other stuff… like eat, sleep, use the bathroom, go to school/job, etc). Additionally, a graph of Halo 3 usage plotted over the course of the day shows significant drops after 7 pm, prime movie/TV watching hours. There’s more data at IMMI’s website. All of these findings conflict strongly with my personal experience – does this mean I’m out of touch… or that the survey group is? (Check the info on how they determine what you’re doing, too – it’s scary stuff.)(Louis Wu 17:32:15 UTC)

Rockslider has written up a guide to serious hog destruction; there’s a spot on Tsavo Highway where if you’re patient you can have at least 64 Warthogs to play with at one time. Of course, you’re gonna have to kill a lot of marines… but you know what they say about eggs and omlettes.(Louis Wu 16:59:32 UTC)

ZZoMBiE13 shows you where humans might be behind the curve in the Halo universe in today’s installment of Another Halo Comic Strip.(Louis Wu 16:11:55 UTC)

Elnea stopped by to share Halo Action Figure Theater episodes 108 and 109. If you feel like you might have stumbled into a room with trace hallucinogens in the air after reading them… you’re not alone. Love the dinosaur, though.(Louis Wu 15:33:54 UTC)

Bungie.net has a news post about a token-based rewards system set up by Clantacular.com – play custom games, win tokens, use the tokens for stuff on the site. I don’t know WHAT stuff, really; there’s nothing ON the site except a member login. (There are no links to information, no link for a forum, nothing I can find without actually signing up.) That said – if you’re interested, swing by and investigate!(Louis Wu 15:12:20 UTC)