No stranger to the odd patent filing, Apple has once again delved into the dark waters of the unknown with an application for an Apple TV-like device with iChat-esque functionality, amongst others. In the patent, the company suggests a number of uses for widget overlays during video, including those triggered by content and timing, as well as widgets used for menus and navigation. The patent demonstrates how real-time widget updates may coincide with live broadcast television -- such as a scorecard overlay for a sporting event -- and also showcases a video chat function which can be used simultaneously during the playback or broadcast of content. Additionally, the filing shows a new remote which would have hot buttons for quick access to widgets, navigation, and the automatic milkshake mode (we might have wishfully made up that last one). Sure it looks good, but we'd happily take the latest Apple TV update until this comes along.

Just a few days after the zaniness that was PMA came to a close, yet another massive trade show is opening its doors, and Logitech is making sure its presence is made known. The peripheral company is kicking out a duo of new webcams aimed at notebook users, presumably feeding the flames of the video chatting bunch that we've become. Both the QuickCam and QuickCam Deluxe (pictured after the break) boast 1.3-megapixel sensors, offer up 24-bit VGA video at 15-frames per second, and a manual focus lens to boot. Both units also sport the company's proprietary RightSound technology, which purportedly throws in a dash of noise suppression, while the RightLight system supposedly allows you hold a video conversation in all but the dimmest situations. Additionally, the pair should play nice with Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and AIM, and of course, Vista users won't have any issues loading either of these up. As expected, these diminutive webcams seek to perch atop your laptop's display, and while the vanilla QuickCam will only run you $39.99 when it lands in US / Europe next month, the QuickCam Deluxe (and its "intelligent face tracking") will demand $59.99 when it launches alongside.

If you don't want your kid(s) to give up on music practice, then you better cross your fingers in the hope that this concept product from an industrial designer called Nicolas Gonzalez Garrido becomes commercially available. The Soundgate concept is a tablet PC-esque device that features a 10-inch touchscreen, a QWERTY keyboard, and a variety of inputs and outputs to plug in speakers, microphones, and all kinds of musical instruments. The idea is that the Soundgate should augment practice time for musicians: the device could display interactive sheet music, it could display lyrics for songs, and do a variety of other functions that could help musicians improve their playing. Also envisaged is a separate stand that includes a video camera and a slide-out, human height projected display: this could allow people to train with other players, or even set up a virtual band. Seriously, we totally wouldn't have given up on our Trombone practice if we could have blasted it out in over the interwebs at three other people, multi videochat stylee. Check out more of the concept images and a video demonstrating the idea in more depth after the break.

The majority of Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick's vision of the future from 2001: A Space Odyssey has not yet been realized: popping over to the moon to have a look at the most recently unearthed alien artifact is not a common practice in the late-noughties, although one technology demonstrated in a minor scene of this science fiction epic has caught on. Video calling, once the preserve of video phones owners with expensive ISDN lines, has now become a day-to-day activity thanks to cheap broadband and a multitude of platforms that have made video chatting easy and affordable. Unfortunately, due to a variety of limitations -- lack of bandwidth, slow computers, poor quality webcams -- the majority of video conferencing solutions are of the 320 x 240 / 15 fps ilk: not something we want to hear in the era of HD. For those that do have sufficient bandwidth, a fast enough computer, and a capable webcam, there's an experimental hack for Skype that allows you to increase the resolution from the ancient 320 x 240 standard up to a much more tolerable 640 x 480. The hack only works one way, so users on both ends will have to apply it in order to see each other's zits with increased clarity. If we had a way of routing live high definition video through our PC, we'd attempt to increase the resolution even further, although that would of course require the help of something we've always found it hard to acquire: friends.

[Via MAKE]

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Sure, the OLPC XO has had its built-in VGA webcam for a little while now, but with a mere 400Mhz processor, it took a bit of working to get the laptop up and running in a live video chat. However, those open source hax0rs aren't easily dissuaded when it comes to broadcasting their scurvy mugs across the internets, and have finally managed the first OLPC-to-OLPC transatlantic chat, with "extremely smooth" 15fps video and simultaneous audio. While the bad news here is that if you fire this thing up right now, you'll probably be looking at a dork on the other end, the eventual hope is that kids will be able to chat via the mesh network by just simply clicking on a buddy icon in the mesh view.

Get ready folks, there's two new Philips WiFi video VoIP handsets comin' down the pike. We just caught wind of this white hotness on the FCC site, and they do look mighty swanky. The VP 6500 and VP 6000 are similar in many ways, as they sport a 2.2-inch screen with 65,000 colors and a QCIF+ 176 x 220 display, and a rotating 240-degree VGA cam. From what we can tell, the VP 6500 also comes with a TV out mode, letting you connect your handset to a TV via a component cable (although we don't know how good of a picture quality you'll get when viewed on your sexy new flat-screen display). Further, your calls should go through those common encryption protocols WEP, WAP and WPA2 without a problem. One possible downside of this: if you thought that folks talking on their handsets in public was annoying, wait until they start making faces at their phones in public.