In the case of scenario #1 you'll just be walking around looking at dark squares. The only images or videos you'll be able to see will be commercials! ;-)

Someday all computers, tablets, cameras and phones will come with a hardware chip that will detect whatever watermark they embed into the image/video and prevent you from doing anything with the image other than seeing it. Even your camera will detect it and just not record anything. It's already around to some extent in the form of Macrovision, HDCP and other similar technologies that are used to prevent you from snapping screenshots or recording stuff off of your screen. After all, Intel does make lots of those chip things...

I'm a pessimist, so I'll give it 5 years.

Or someone will come up with a way to encode the image so that it can only be viewed through human eyes, but creating some fancy brain-pattern thing, any alteration of the image, and the pattern is destroyed, leaving only gibberish behind... that would be cool. But also scary.

As far as I know, no Apple products support simultaneous online and offline searches...So whats the bug ruckus about? iOS search shows local results and a link to do a Google search (oh the irony) in Safari when you search for something.... Makes me so angry that Apple can block a feature that they don't even implement in their own OS. fah!

Please stop telling the OP to get a contract. Nowhere in the post is there a mention of legal issues or contracts or lack thereof. S/he is specifically asking for the "industry convention" on support terms for custom software - not how to enforce said terms. I too am very interested in the answer to the question. So unless you answer is 30 days, 60 days, 3.14 days, 5 bugs, 13.135 hours or anything else of relevance, please don't pollute the topic, I'd like to be able to see the actual answers.

Someone forgot to send out the memo about the "perks" of Freedom from Stalinist oppression; like poverty, unemployment, more corruption, crime, and more bullshit. Also, an interesting thought: back in the communist time, people knew who the enemy was - the man in the distinctly KGB-looking coat, and sometimes in a less subtle uniform.

The thing is; change for the better takes time, and Russians are not known for their patience or forward thinking. At least that's the opinion of this Russian... heh

Yes, the housing was truly top notch, I fondly recall visiting friends living in their lavish 5 room apartments.

But wait, what's this? 5 doorbells next to the door?

What is that you say? Five families have to share this 1 bedroom, 1 living room, 1 study and 2 kids rooms, as well as this one bathroom and kitchen?

Only 15 people in this one family 5 room apartment, you say? They should be happy they weren't living on the street!

Or perhaps we can remember fondly stories told by our grandparents, who in the 60's got to live in ultra-modern german-built single-family villas.

And share them with the same number of families as there were rooms in the house....

Or maybe how happy they were when the kind and all powerful Soviet government, in the 70's finally gave them the opportunity to move their family of 5 into a 2 room apartment, on the fifth floor, without an elevator... Carrying that stroller up those five flights of steps was a bitch, I recall my grandma saying.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with all the Soviet-defenders these days. That shit should never be allowed to happen again.

Oh wait, Putin is working on bringing it all back now! Yay!

Actually there is at least one good use for a privacy mode. When you are travelling or just out without access to the intertubes, you can go to a computer store (like an Apple store) and use it to check your mail. If the privacy mode is on, all you need to do is quit the browser (or close the tab, depending on the implementation) and all your cookies are gone. I've used safari's privacy mode on many occasions for this very reason.