http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A28060823

webslinky: art online
This week, drawing the line.

It didn take long for the web to become a place where the artistically inclined can flourish ?where those blessed in the ways of putting stylus to touchpad can share their achievements and find support. Long-running amateur art community DeviantART was doing social networking for teenagers with lternative?tastes long before MySpace Tom invented the concept of having friends, though no-one thought of it like that at the time. Like spiritual relation LiveJournal, though once sneered at in some quarters, it has matured into a supportive, creative institution that serves its passionate users very well.

These days budding illustrators have many more platforms to choose from for sharing their works, from general social networking sites to newcomer communities like Amateur Illustrator, which is likely to have broader appeal than DeviantART.

The web has also created new opportunities for more experienced up-and-coming artists like Jon Burgerman and Ian Stevenson who can now directly sell their work via their websites, while experimenting with interactivity and multimedia at relatively low cost.

But you don even need to have achieved underground notoriety to find an audience for your art, so long as it good enough. For instance you could submit a design to the increasingly popular Chicago-based tailers?Threadless - a cross between a shop, a gallery and a community. If the community votes for your design, it could be printed onto clothing which is sold on the site - and then modelled by people who bought it.

Meanwhile Britain Moo and Click For Art both offer comparatively low-cost printing and distribution services for budding artists, with Moo specialising in the very small (think cards and stickers) and Click For Art offering traditional prints for your wall.

As technologies and art converge online, so the possibilities for artistic expression increase in evermore unexpected ways. For instance, the dangerously compelling Flash oy?Line Rider, which allows the user to draw on the screen and then watch as a little man on a bike drives along the lines, has bizarrely become a YouTube phenomenon: users hand-draw intricate racks?and record the little man racing along them in time to music. Some of the tracks are really quite incredible.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthnecumbria/content/articles/2007/09/18/ln_grey_matters_feature.shtml

Brilliant design isn't it~

Greys Matter - new technology helps older people
Look North's Colin Briggs has been investigating a number of areas where technology and new thinking is either making, or about to make, a real difference to people's lives.
How many times have you heard it - sixty is the new forty; buzz words like Silver Surfers; and marketing catchphrases like Greys Matter?

The truth is that thanks to better diet and modern medicine, more of us are living longer, healthier lives. Sounds great doesn't it? But there's always a downside - some of us are going to need a little bit of help.

The Look North special report series Greys Matter is taking a look at how new ideas are either making, or are about to make, a real difference.

And because the market is growing, the cost of the technology needed is tumbling.

Scientists at Newcastle University have developed a test-bed kitchen which could tell us when we're out of something, or just running low. It could even display recipes using a screen.

Not only that, the same kitchen will tell us when we've left the tap running, the kettle on or, possibly, alert a carer should we need assistance.

Look North in the kitchen of the future >
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On the mobility front you'll be relieved to know there's a price war looming on stairlift technology which will enable more of us to stay at home without spending a fortune.

We also examine a "wheelchair in a pod" idea which would provide help for people who only need a wheelchair occasionally.

Look North's report on staying mobile in old age >
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And in a third piece we look at a new trend in housing - specialised apartment blocks for the over 55s only.

When the children leave home, increasing numbers of parents are selling up, downsizing and enjoying life with the money left over.

One couple who live in an over-55s development >
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Far from being forgotten these days, greys really do matter. And as more of us get older, greys will matter even more.