Looks like chatting isn't what it used to be. Before all it took was a webcam, a face and things to say, but that's not good enough anymore. Hot on the heels of Logitech's hugely successful video cam effects, Chatfx presents visual effects for iChat using QuickTime, Quartz and Quartz Composer (provided by Apple to developers in Mac OS 10.4).

According to Chatfx "Normal teleconferences are plain. Talking and seeing people in offices and cubicles is ordinary." Why settle for "normal" and "plain" when you can get insane and creepy with special effects like those seen in movies and PhotoShop.

Included in its bluescreen lib are twirl, comic book, alien, interrogation, pencil, vortex, dent, bump, bodyart, facepaint, fisheye, gloom, mercury, on fire, ogre, sepia, sorbel, xray, thermal, and an infinite number of additional special video effects that can be created by using Quartz Composer.

Anyone can do it, according to the company. "Like the special effects in movies anything is now possible to add to iChat," they claim. For example you can make your normally filthy room look like it has been straigthened by the Queer guys. Or make your shoebox office look more Trump-esque.  Or you can make it look like you're on mars, the moon, inside a rainforest, or under the sea.

"Keep video conferences interesting by simulating TV news and weather reports." Weather reports are interesting? There is a practical side to this fun little program. Although Chatfx didn't name even one. Going back to the keeping conferences interesting using visual sfx... whatever happened to smart and witty conversations?