Major Nelson just posted on his blog (the site is slow as hell, maybe the Major hosts his blog on his Workstation on the MS campus or all Xbox live members are visiting right now) that the Xbox Live service is back online again as of 2:49am PCT Oct. 18th.

It took a bit longer than expected. The scheduled maintenance was for yesterday October 17th. Microsoft is still working on xbox.com, which is still down as of now. Update: xbox.com is also back online now with a face-lift. Could not find any major new features. Major Nelson posts that there are still some issues that the engineers are working on.
A new Arcade game is available today. Xbox Live members can now download 'Lumines Live!' from the Xbox Live Arcade. The full version of this game is 1200 points. More Xbox 360 News.