scary

As someone who likes any excuse to tinker and build stuff, Halloween is my favorite time of the year.

Last year I had some fun creating a custom spooky sound effects board, and showed you how to add some cheap portable speakers to your decorations. This year I'm stepping things up with a basic tutorial on "keybanging."

Don't worry, keybanging isn't as gross or violent as it sounds. The term was introduced to me in volume 30 of Make Magazine. A "keybanger" is a rudimentary prop controller that can be used to automatically … Read more

Halloween is just around the corner and adding a little festive flavor to your Android can be fun.

A spooky wallpaper, some ghostly ringtones or background noises, and even some scary games are easy to get and use on Android. Here's how to add all these things to your device for free this weekend:

First you'll want to set the scene. What better to use for this than a live wallpaper that has a Halloween theme?

Halloween Live Wallpaper is a great one to start with. This LWP has a small wrought-iron fence with skulls … Read more

It's that time of the year again. A time to turn off the lights and snuggle up with a game that's guaranteed to scare you silly. We've compiled a list of titles that are sure to keep you awake at night and a few that will be haunting you early next year.

But consider yourself warned; these games are not for trick-or-treaters.

Have a favorite scary game you'd like to share? Be sure to comment below. You can also check out which games made last year's list or watch our CNET TV feature that covers what we think are the seven scariest video games of all time!… Read more

It's one thing if your lover offers sonorous snores that make your nerve-endings vibrate like a schizoid rattler.

It's quite another if you're being kept awake by a humming noise that isn't coming from your bed, nor from that of any other bed in the neighborhood.

The residents of Woodland, County Durham--far up in the north of England, where beer remains a food group-- are being driven entirely bonkers by a low humming noise that has rattled through their neighborhoods and lives for the past two months.

The way the Telegraph tells it, residents of the … Read more

Like film, the horror genre is a staple in video games. With Halloween just a few short days away, we've handpicked 10 just-released or soon-to-be-available titles guaranteed to make you jump out of your seat.

It seems developers have cranked up the gore this year with a follow-up to last year's underrated Saw game, a reboot of the Splatterhouse franchise, and one of the scariest games for PC and Mac we've ever played.

So turn off the lights, keep the flashlight handy, and dive right into our ghastly Halloween gaming roundup.

Still feeling brave after checking out … Read more

Do you lie awake at night and see large, hairy beings, their eyes the size of the moon, leaping out of the wardrobe and looming over you?

Do you walk into dark spaces and feel the presence of ghostly apparitions ready to make deep-throated noises before they turn your epiglottis into carpaccio?

Do I sound like I am talking to a 6-year-old? This is because many children endure such fears. However, perhaps you too, still suffer from such traumas.

Might I offer you the potential of a remedy? Please begin by clutching your iPhone and availing yourself of a Monster Meter.… Read more

Yes, there was a certain something about that haunting soundtrack that really freaked out me--and the rest of the United States--watching the movie "Jaws" the first time. (It wasn't happenstance that beaches across the United States also reported lighter-than-usual traffic that summer of 1975.)

Turns out that a film score like the one Steven Spielberg incorporated for his blockbuster movie actually mimic animal cries, or what scientists term "nonlinear vocalizations," according to a study just published in the journal Biology Letters.

"By their very nature, vocalizations containing nonlinearities may sound harsh and are somewhat … Read more

I like Japanese artist Mio Lizawa because he's the kind of guy who sits around and thinks, "My, wouldn't it be great if my PC had some sort of pulsating, frightening, brain-like thing hanging out of the side of it?" and then goes out and builds just such a thing.

"Mechanical Tumor" is art. At least I think it is. And it's functional: the more CPU usage his computer is experiencing, the larger the, uh, thing gets. Write a letter to grandma and it sits there rather quietly. Start playing Warcraft and it … Read more

After going off on a rant in the preshow, we settle down for a hilarious episode, inspired by the near-extinct Snow Leopard. Jeff opens it up with a complete horror story about his experience trying to buy the new Mac OS upgrade from a local big box retailer. We won't name names, but clearly this company is hiring all kind of unqualified employees, and Jeff's had about enough.

Everyone's favorite cell phone for the elderly, the Jitterbug, is now available on Verizon Wireless for senior citizens who want to switch over to nationwide coverage. Well, we certainly can't talk about such a story without busting out a few impressions, so this time around we try to combo them up...look out for Verbose Space Beer Old Vampire!

In other news, the God of War collection is coming to Blu-ray for PS3, but what seems like a great two-for-one deal is actually a slice of the larger PS3 ripoff: since the console doesn't support older games, owners of the new PS3 Slim are forced to pay for the new package if they want to play this series, instead of just popping in an old disc like you could with previous PlayStations. It's true that the HD upgrade adds a lot of value to this offering, but it still seems like a shady deal.

What do you think? Leave us a voice mail at 1-866-404-CNET and let us know your thoughts on the PS3 Slim or tell us about the worst job you've ever worked. We want to hear your horror stories!