When iOS 6 is released in a few months, iPhone Facetime users will finally be able to place video calls without the need for a Wi-Fi connection. It's an improvement that was a long time coming, particularly when you consider that AT&T/Bell had offered a picturephone service over 40 years earlier.

Although journalists and bloggers continue to debate the utility, novelty, and ethicality of the new much-buzzed-about start-up Airtime, there's no denying that live video chatting has secured a place in the pantheon of internet fads.

For a paranoid section of the population, a giant face on a monitor can be an Orwellian nightmare come true. But, a giant face on a monitor that walks around town in a white jumpsuit is actually pretty cool. Still, he should definitely keep an eye out for a girl in red shorts wielding hammers.

Boy, if you ever want to know what Facebook's planning next, just take a peek in its code. That's what one chap did yesterday when Facebook released its Messenger app, and discovered that video-chat will be added soon.

FaceTime for Mac, which you can download right now, works pretty flawlessly so long as you have entries in your Address Book. Here's how it looks doing Mac to Mac and Mac to iPhone. There's even an iChat comparison.

Video chatting—the future is now! But it sure is expensive. Between Logitech's Revue ($300 for the box and $150 for the cam), and Cisco's $600 Roman emperor-priced offering, you might feel left out. But you have (affordable) options.

Cisco's rumored telepresence-at-home system is now official and it's called Umi. The set up comprises a set top box, a remote, and a 1080p camera that sits on top of your TV. It's the new way to visit grandma!

Are you ready for FaceTime video calls using a larger, slightly more pixelated than the iPhone 4 Retina Display version of yourself? Well even if you aren't, someone is, and they're testing it out at this very moment.

Skype's latest Windows-only 5.0 beta 2 doubles their five-way video calling to ten. TEN. How does ten-way video calling look? Like this. If you add two. We could only get eight, and four of them was me.