Creeper2 has an all-aluminum custom chassis and uses dual processors to ensure smooth movements.

(Credit: Trossen Robotics)

If I wasn't so worried about traumatizing the kids in my neighborhood, dispensing trick or treat candy in this creepy spider bot pumpkin would be awesome.

It runs C on an Axon microcontroller. It uses all digital servos and can lift over twice its body weight. The software (soon to be given out open source) allows for six synchronous degrees of motion. Future additions will include foot sensors and a remote control option.

Based on that info, and other nuggets gleaned from the Trossen Robotics forums, you might be able to have a Creeper2 bot of your own ready for next year.

Or, better yet, put a Santa head on top of that thing and march it out in the living room on Christmas morning. Your kids are sure to have suppressed memories of it that will bubble up to the surface years and years from now causing a dramatic and crippling meltdown. Priceless.

This story originally appeared on Gizmodo.

MTI, Wilson, and Kenley as a Lt. Dangle/Karate Kid lovechild, a panda, and Sherlock Holmes, respectively.

They said it would never happen, but the day has finally come for Justin to get some much-needed tail....as he dons a skunk costume and becomes Justin Le Pieu for today's very unspooky Halloween episode of The 404! Be sure to check out today's video for all the details. Since Jeff is out today and this coming Monday for who-knows-what, the guys ask everyone's favorite Kenley and Alli to help co-host the show.

Unfortunately, with the Swine Flu hitting New York at full force, nobody in the office is feeling too hot for the holiday, but they do their best and don some shades as they recall last night's CNET's Client Halloween Party. Kenley chooses her top picks for the Best Costume Award and Alli tells everyone a horrifying story that happened on her way to work this morning...trust me folks, NOTHING is scarier than a mouthful of New York trash water.

(Credit: Last.FM/Fool's Gold)

As October slowly fades away, and with great reluctance and tears, we must say goodbye to Beck's Beer and the Semi-Weekly Audio Draft, but not before Wilson debuts our last pick. Continuing in our tradition of introducing new and different genres of music, Fool's Gold plays a unique blend of South African, Ethiopian, and Eritrean influenced music with a twist--lead vocalist Luke Top was born and raised in Israel and sings the majority of the lyrics (although many of the tracks, including our first pick, are instrumental) in Hebrew.

The two featured tracks on today's episode are called "Surprise Hotel" and "Ha Dvash." If you're into the band, you can even win a date with Alli and Kenley to go see the band perform on November 17 at the Bowery Ballroom here in New York! All interested parties should submit a photo, general interests, date ideas, and a brief cover letter to the404(at)cnet(dot)com.

Have a great Halloween folks, and be safe!

Orange you glad you read Crave?

(Credit: Sony)

With Halloween just a few days away, it doesn't hurt to get in the mood for the fall holiday with some pumpkin-colored gadgets. Here are five orange treats to go with your costume this weekend:

1. Sony Webbie HD MHS-PM1: If you either want to record your child's first trick-or-treating experience or all of the best moments at a Halloween party or parade, this attractive Sony Webbie is a frugal option. Far cheaper than competitors like the Flip UltraHD or the Kodak Zi8, the Webbie HD MHS-PM1 is typically available for less than $150.

While it hasn't been reviewed as highly as the other previously mentioned cameras, it does shoot HD footage at 720p and 1080p. Not to mention it also features a swiveling lens and a memory card expansion shot for more recording time.

2. Samsung DualView TL225: Attracting a lot of hype in the last few months for its dual-screen design, this 12.2-megapixel, orange and black pocket camera is innovative and perfect for any party or parade. On its touch-screen navigation menu, photographers can select between another of special preset functions, including night portrait, children, dawn, and "perfect self-portrait."

Read more of "Trick or treat: Five fun orange gadgets" at ZDNet's The ToyBox.

Awhile back, in preparation for Halloween, we asked CNET readers to send in their tales of tech terror--and we got some doozies. From creepy crawlies in the machine to large-scale backup disasters and close encounters with sharp objects, the submissions spooked us out more than (almost) any blood-drenched zombie ever could. Here are a handful of our favorites. And thanks, readers, for sharing the scare.

The PC and the poison pen
When I had an internship last summer, I received a brand new IBM ThinkPad laptop, along with an optical mouse, an LCD monitor, Ethernet cord, and laptop dock. My cubicle was located a floor below my immediate manager's cubicle.

Well, during the internship period while working on a project, I got a notification through e-mail that I had to come upstairs to have a progress report. I closed my laptop with the presentation file and everything, put it in the laptop bag, and headed to the meeting room. About 15 minutes past the meeting, I said I have the demonstration to show and took out my laptop to find out...my laptop's screen was completely broken!

What happened was I mistakenly put a pen between the keyboard and the screen and closed it and put the laptop inside the bag. The result was a laptop with black, cracked screen. Fortunately, my manager was kind enough to give me a desktop, though lower in performance, for me to continue to work on my project while the laptop was sent to the repair shop. To get the laptop fixed, I had to wait about one week and kept talking back and forward with the help desk. I later received the laptop back like new, but I definitely learned my lesson.

--Ji Son, Austin, Texas

Oh, rats!
I got a call from a friend asking if I could come take a look at their computer, as it wasn't powering up. They said they had a burning smell and all of a sudden the machine turned off and wouldn't power back up. I assumed it was a power supply issue and headed over. Once I got there, I pulled out the tower to find a fried/dead rat that had chewed through the power cord running to the power supply. An easy fix, but definitely gross!

--CNET reader "idlehand326"

Funny smell coming from your PC? You might want to check for geckos.

(Credit: CNET)

Gecko in the machine
My boss brought in his home PC because it was booting up with a strange crackling sound and apparently there was a funny smell coming from it. OK, let's take a look at it. I plugged it in turned it on..."BANG!"--a flash and all the lights and power in our section of the office went down. Smoke and noxious fumes were emitting from the PSU. It was safe to turn off the machine--the fuse had tripped.

Unplugged the unit, took out the PSU, a nice expensive Antec, hmmm now why would one of those blow? Peered inside, the smell was revolting, putrid even. Lo and behold, one severely fried and dead gecko inside!!!

--CNET reader "Mikeybabes"

Curse of the black cat
Our vehicle has automatic safety door locks that engage at about 20 mph. As I was driving home, a black cat crossed my path about four car lengths ahead of me...I got a good look at it, all black. I heard the automatic door locks engage at that very instant that I saw the cat. The rear passenger door has not opened since. It refuses to unlock.

I've tried everything, hip-checking the door, disassembling the handle mechanism etc., all to no avail. The dealership wants over $400 to repair it. This would not have happened if that black cat had not crossed my path. It worked perfectly for years until that very moment.

--CNET reader "digipixx"

A real cutup
Back in the day when I owned a computer storefront, a client came in and bought a brand new desktop from me. I offered to install it for free (how things change) but she informed me that she knew how to do it and had owned a computer for years. She paid in full and was on her way.

About three days passed and I get a phone call from her. Her old system used 5.25-inch floppy disks and her new system only had 1.44MB 3.5-inch disks. She told me she had a book she had been working on for 25 years backed up on floppy and that the reason she got a new computer is that her hard drive had died. I told her it was not a problem, that I had an old 5.25 floppy drive I could install and would even be happy to transfer the data to the 3.5-inch disk free of charge (again, how things change). She thanked me and stated that she would be at my office shortly.

Taking scissors to floppy disks...probably not a good idea.

(Credit: George Chernilevsky/Wikimedia Commons)

About 30 minutes later she walks in carrying a large box. My first thought was, "Oh man...what the heck did I just get myself into? That's going to take me days to read if that box is full of disks."

She sits the box on my desk and thanks me once again for my help, explaining that it was her life's work and that she was almost finished with it. I opened the box to find a huge pile of cut-up floppies. In horror, I asked her what happened. She stated that she figured she could just trim the edges of the disks off so they would fit into the smaller drive and it would work fine. I asked her if she still had the old computer but she had trashed it more than a week before.

About two hours later I was able to get her husband on the phone to come pick her up from my office. She was so shaken she was not able to drive herself home and so stunned she could not even tell me how to get to her house (now we have GPS...more evidence of how things change).

--CNET reader "Nyteblade"

Not only is this Super Mario costume homemade and hilarious, the guy sure can boogie.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET)

Really, America? Can we talk?

You see, I received this press release from Experian Hitwise in my in-box about the most-searched-for Halloween costumes in the U.S., based on searches in the month ending October 24 that ended in "costume." And the ranking was led by "Michael Jackson costume" and "Balloon Boy costume." OK, so those are timely, albeit a little bit more than unimaginative.

But it doesn't stop there. Following that were "Tinkerbell," "Catwoman," and "Poison Ivy," indicating that most costume searches are either on behalf of women or men who really want to make a fool of themselves. Among the top costume searches beginning with the word "sexy" were "sexy sailor costume," "sexy nurse costume," "sexy witch costume," and "sexy Queen of Hearts costume." (What would Lewis Carroll think?) And high-ranking costume searches beginning with "adult" include "adult cat costume," "adult Snow White costume," and "adult Care Bear costume."

I don't care what you dress up as for Halloween. Have fun with it. But just think about it. Adult Care Bear costume. Really. It's a costume that's probably itchy and uncomfortable, unflattering, and will embarrass the heck out of your kids if you have any. Not to mention that there's no obvious relevance to current events or pop culture that would negate the creepiness factor, considering the last time I checked the Care Bears have been around since 1981. Whatever happened to cowboys and pirates and disgraced politicians? Hitwise stats have officially weirded me out.

More depressing figures: Compared with the same time period last year, Hitwise found a 97 percent jump in searches for "pet costumes" this year. Those poor dogs.

We know, Francesca, we know...

(Credit: MarthaStewart.com)

It's a dog. It's a porcupine. It's a dog dressed as a porcupine (Martha Stewart's dog Francesca, no less). Yes, it looks like Francesca will be dressing up as another animal species this Halloween, and she no doubt will suffer a serious identity crisis in the process.

The very creative Alison Lewis, editor of the technology life and style blog Switch, went on Martha's show Monday to demonstrate how to make the illuminated porcupine dog costume.

Required materials include fiber optic strands, electrical tape, a 5-millimeter LED light, AAA batteries, silver reflective paper, a craft knife, and a giant doggie toy to give the pooch as a reward for being mocked endlessly by all its canine friends.

On her blog, Lewis also explains how to make a light-up dandelion costume (pictured below) in case you and your pet would rather go the flora route this holiday. Some might call these costumes cute, but we're just worried about Francesca. Poor thing already has her own blog, and now this...

(Credit: Switch)

This week on the Digital City, we consider the PlayStation 3's awkward Netflix implementation; marvel over the super-thin Sony Vaio X laptop; debate the fate of FireWire in new MacBooks; and review some gamer-friendly Halloween costume ideas.

We also plug the first round of Windows 7 laptop and desktop reviews; mourn the death of Geocities; and find out why Julie and Dan have swapped seats for a week.

Plus -- take an early sneak peek at Dan's Halloween costume -- but it only makes sense if you're over, say, 30 and kind of a geek.

Related links:
>>Netflix streaming coming to PS3
>>Does anyone miss FireWire?
>>Windows 7: the first wave
>>Make your own Bayonetta Halloween costume

>>Watch the Digital City live every Monday at 3pm EST on CNET Live!
>>Subscribe to Digital City on iTunes
>>Join the Digital City Facebook fan page
>>Need more? Follow Dan on Twitter!

Oops, I did it again.

(Credit: Justin Yu/CNET)

(Credit: Justin Yu/CNET)

(Credit: Family of the Year)

Even though I definitely messed up the title format and everything else for that matter, today's show is still "Where the cheese stands alone," because you get to witness the pain as I try to record a solo podcast. That's right, Jeff is out and Wilson called in sick, so I'm left to fend for myself with the generous help of a few friends along the way.

Disclaimer: Today's show is atypical. If this is your first time listening to The 404, note that this is definitely not the norm. The show is usually very random and tangential, but today's episode is a ONE MAN SHOW. That man is me, and for that I beg your forgiveness in advance. If you're able to get through the entire show, well then I tip my hat to you.

It's the first time I've operated the engineering board and camera switching by myself, so the production value ain't up to par with Jeff's expert skills...just keep that in mind as you struggle through this episode of random musings, behind the scenes scoops, upcoming guests, meet-up ideas, Halloween costumes, and the future of The 404!

As hard as it is to listen to me wing my way through 45 minutes of streaming video, it would have been far worse if not for my dear friends Dan Ackerman, Scott Stein, and Julie Rivera who all came in to put me out of my lonely misery. They're all part of CNET's own Digital City Podcast, so be sure to check them out.

Here's some exciting news to look forward to: our guest on Monday will be the band Family of the Year. After hearing that we chose them for our Beck's Beer Draft Pick, they agreed to come in for a live in-studio acoustic performance!

Jeff will certainly be back for that, but no guarantees for Wilson G. Tang, who may or may not have contracted the Avian Swine Flu, a rare form of H1N1 that only occurs when pigs fly.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Going to tech support can lead to some very scary experiences.

(Credit: Derek Chatwood)

Sure, Halloween brings on the spook, but no slime-covered zombie or ghoul with an ax through its skull can compare to the horror of tech nightmares. Just ask those unfortunate enough to have suffered Sidekick data losses in recent days. If it makes them feel any better (and we know it probably doesn't), they're not alone. Maybe they can take a small measure of comfort in knowing others have endured tech scares, too.

With that in mind, and with All Hallows Eve just around the bend, we want to hear your worst tech nightmares, readers--in gory detail. Did a black cat cross your path and knock your new MacBook to the floor, shattering the screen? Suffer a blue screen of death? Ghosts in the machine? Syncing mishap? Supremely inopportune hard drive failure?

What about that time you IMed a co-worker about your annoying boss only to realize you'd accidentally messaged your gripes straight to the source? Or maybe you're like my colleague Dong Ngo, and you left a pack of chewing gum atop your new laptop in temperatures upward of 100 degrees. Oops!

Whatever the tech tale of terror, we'd love to include it in a Halloween feature we're piecing together. If you have photos, all the better. Send your pictures and stories (250 words or less, please), along with your full name and location, to readersubmissions at cbs dot com. The more the merrier--and scarier.