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Once a competitor of Skype, the video-streaming company Qik was acquired by the VOIP giant in January. But it appears this hasn't ended the development of Qik's live-streaming software, as Qik is launching a new iPhone app today.

Qik Video Connect offers video streaming and video calling - available for real-time viewing or recorded and sent as a video message. The app will also allow you to post live video links to Facebook and Twitter.

More signs today pointing to Skype's expansion: reports that the VOIP giant has acquired mobile video streaming company Qik for $100 million.

Update: Skype has confirmed the acquisition on its blog: "Through this acquisition, we'll also be able to take advantage of the engineering expertise that is behind Qik's Smart Streaming technology, which optimizes video transmission over wireless networks."

The tip comes from a reliable source, according to Business Insider, who broke the news of the acquisition this morning. Neither Skype nor Qik have confirmed this, and we'll update this story when we hear more. The two companies do share some of the same investors, notably Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

Mobile video is exploding. According to Cisco, mobile video will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 131% between 2009 to 2014 as people access more YouTube, Netflix and high-bandwidth material on their mobile devices.

But imagine what will happen to mobile streaming video as the next generation of high-speed wireless networks and devices become the norm.

Future, we are here. With today's launch of the Sprint HTC EVO 4G, the hotly anticipated smartphone running Google's Android OS, video chatting moves off the desktop and into the palm of your hand.

Using the popular Qik mobile application, EVO owners will be able to chat with other EVO owners and, eventually, with any smartphone user whose phone sports a forward-facing camera.

Are we on the precipice of a whole new form of communication? Or is mobile video chat going to be just for fun?

One of the first appearances of a mobile phone in a major Hollywood movie was in director Billy Wilder's 1954 Audrey Hepburn classic, "Sabrina". Today, millions of phone owners across the world could recreate "Sabrina" from start to finish from the comfort of their hand held devices. In fact, if we chose to, we could mobilize a global streaming event. But let's be honest, the last thing we want to do is sit inside story boarding a pre-existing movie. It's the summer! Get outside, grab your phone and capture some of the great moments happening around you. Below are some of our favorite mobile video services.

After publishing her book about social capital and the power of social networking,The Whuffie Factor, Tara Hunt is doing what any change agent does. She's changing. She's quit her job, purchased a winnebago and coerced five friends to karaoke across the country with her. Wuffaoke Or Bust is a cross-country road trip where six crooners and one pug will live stream their 13-city karaoke tour from San Francisco to Montreal. Think of it as a Rental Car Rally with a talent competition or Bullrun Rally with geeks instead of "petrolsexuals."

While lifecasting in mobile devices is not new, Nokia announced this morning that its S60 series phones will be shipping Qik. Starting with the Nokia N97, Qik will provide live video capture functionality for all Nokia's Symbian devices.

The application features a touch screen interface and supports 19 languages including Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Hebrew and British English. (Because in the story of your life, real honour deserves a "u") Qik also supports nHD video and allows for widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio and 642 x 358 video. A sample video is available here.

Today, streaming-video startup Qik announced a new global service called Qik Roam with Irish Deputy Prime Minister (or Tánaiste) Mary Coughlan and Irish telecom company Cubic Telecom CEO Pat Phelan on hand to kick it off. The service sounds pretty interesting - leveraging Cubic Telecom's mobile SIM technology MAXRoam to allow cell phone users to record Qik streaming video at local cell phone rates no matter where they are in the world. The only problem is, nobody outside of the room knew what was happening until the event was over.

We introduced you to 12seconds.tv in late July. 12seconds.tv provides a quick and fun way to send out a video message that's 12 seconds long. It's a great service for hosting mini video contests and we suggested our own tongue-twisting contest. Since then, 12seconds.tv has incorporated 12 second video challenges to further engage their users. They've also been integrated into other services. Today, you can add Qik and Flixwagon to their list of service integrations.