Mozilla recently published a demo of standards-based video chat in an experimental build of Firefox. The functionality is built with the Web Real Time Communication (WebRTC) standard, which aims to support streaming audio and video communication on the Web without relying on plugins.
The WebRTC standard is currently in the draft stage, but it has been endorsed by most of the major browser vendors. Some initial components are already available in several browsers. The underlying technology comes from Global IP Solutions, which Google acquired in 2010. Google opened the source code of the original implementation under a BSD license in order to facilitate its standardization.
from Ars Technica