Smartphones are shifting our perceptions of time and place, of community and relationships. The only time is now. The only place is here. 

Indeed, smartphones are disrupting existing means of information and entertainment, media, news, distribution of money, content and knowledge. They are de-constructing barriers to global markets, access to capital, building new business models and launching new forms of commerce, shopping, learning and experience.

At once, we are hyperglobal and hyperlocal, fully, effortlessly traversing physical space and cyberspace. Thanks to the smartphone.

Yet my kid wont stop downloading apps on my iPhone! Which is really starting to piss me off.

A new survey from Nielsen suggests this is so for many parents:

Even though mobile phones tend to be thought of as personal, it is not unheard of to have other people download apps onto your phone. In fact, 13 percent of the U.S. app downloaders recently surveyed by The Nielsen Company indicated that their spouse or partner had downloaded apps onto their phone, while eight percent indicated their children had installed apps on their phone.

A closer look at the responses of those whose children had downloaded apps onto their (the parent’s) phone, reveals that the average age at which their youngest child started downloading apps was nine. When asked what percentage of the apps on their phone were downloaded by their children, these parents reported that 30 percent of the apps on their phones were installed by their kids.

From the iPhone Mom:

My First Phone turns your iPhone into a toy phone and it’s one of my favorite types of toddler apps. Cute animated graphics, nothing too complicated, plenty of buttons to tap, and fun sounds to hear. It has three different key pads – phone, animals and transportation.

The phone key pad has colorful numbered buttons and when your child taps on them they’ll hear realistic key pad sounds.

The pound symbol will cue up a ringtone as if they’re really making a call.

I realize I shouldn't complain. I understand that iTunes cards seem to be available everywhere, from Walgreens to my neighborhood grocery store. But, I promised my daughter a $20 iTunes card. Then forgot about it.

Before any blow-ups, I just went into my iTunes account. I can send her iTunes money electronically. No problems.

Only, and maybe I'm getting old and blind, it took several minutes to actually find a way to do this! Way too hard, Mr Jobs! And I only did it accidentally. I hit REDEEM by mistake and was asked to redeem any certificates I had. There, in tiny letters was a link to actually send iTunes money.

A small thing, yes, but ours is one of those houses that spend enough to send iTunes staff to Bora Bora for the holidays so I think I'm justified in complaining.

The Mobigo, a toy for toddlers, will cost you $50. An iPod Touch can be yours (or your pre-school child's) for $230. I say if you can afford the iPod Touch, get it. Odds are, your child will learn how to use it sooner than this Mobigo, there will be more (and cheaper) games and apps and music and video.

Since the iPod Touch is the entry way into the larger Apple world, I'm surprised Apple doesn't just cut the cost of them in half right now. Imagine how many grandparents, even, would buy their baby grandchildren an iPod Touch if it was say $99.

For those of you just finding out you're pregnant, now you know what you can get your little boy or girl when they're three.

I don't wish to get involved in that whole 'will the web disrupt television' debate that's been going on. However, I wil say that if I were to get my cable bill today, I'd probably cancel it. Because lately I've been spending all my down time on Moxie.

It's a pretty cool game (iPhone) that sort of combines solitaire and scrabble and sudoku.

Naheed Nenshi, 38, is a professor at Mount Royal University. He graduated from the University of Calgary, where he was president of the students' union, and holds a master's in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. He's also Islamic; his parents immigrated to Canada from Tanzania.

Last week's big water cooler story was about a recent female graduate of Duke University, one of America's top universities for those who are well-to-do but can't get in to an Ivy League school on merit, who published and distributed a detailed powerpoint presentation on her sex life.

In a shockingly classless move she posted the names of her lovers and their physical and emotional attributes. In a non-shocking move, commentators, all women mind you, remarked how this was validation of women's "empowerment" and "sexuality" and "sexual empowerment".

Yada yada.

This week, these same women are in an uproar because a woman running for US Congress, yes, her name is actually Krystal Ball, has had pictures of her, essentially sucking on a phallus, posted on the world wide web. Stupid is as stupid does as they say. As I try and tell my daughter and her friends, yes, standards are different. They are changing. But that is no excuse for dumb. It is no excuse to complain if you've allowed someone to take a picture of you that you don't want the public to be seen. It is no excuse if you post on Facebook words that will never go away but will always shock and titilate. Girls are smart. Except for when they do stupid things. And when they do stupid things they should not blame men, or the Internet, or Mark Zuckerberg, or double standards.

That said, what about your teen daughter, underage, doing something stupid? Now, at least, there's a bit of help. Apple has filed a patent that would alert the user -- or the owner of the device, such as mom! -- if there's any sexting going on. Oh, thank you, Steve Jobs. Here's more about this patent, though it's not available just yet.

The new patent takes that a step further. If this tech ever makes it way to your smartphone, it could theoretically alert a user, admin, or other designated individual whenever objectionable content appears in a text message. In practice, that could mean a parent gets a text when their teenage son writes something racy, or that your boss gets a notice whenever you swear in an outbound communication.

According to the patent, the iPhone could also offer suggestions with which to replace the offending text, or just delete it outright as soon as you’re done typing so that it never gets sent in the first place. In effect, that means it could actually change what you’re going to say.