All Hail our Lord Prosi... wait, he's not in charge here anymore. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

OK, serious response. You want to get a decent webcam first. I've always had good experiences with Logitech products, my friend has a Logitech webcam and says it's great, but it's about $80. That one comes with a built in mic too.

Next, there are a number of quick and dirty programs for videoconferencing. Xhole mentioned Skype, I have no experience with it so I can't say how user friendly it is. I also heard the MS Messenger program can do it relatively easy, that's what my friend uses, but he's also technically inclined. The one I used when I had a cam years ago was good ol' Netmeeting! It's free, prepacked with Windows (C:\Program Files\Netmeeting\), and I don't think it's too hard to figure out. Of course I am a veritable IT God as it were, so your mileage may vary. I believe the Logitech cam above also comes with it's own version of software that might be easy to use.

Please note every time I say "easy" above, it's all relative. I have no doubt that you can figure it out Lemur, but technophobic older folks are invariably going to need help with anything more complicated than switching a monitor on, and even then sometimes they still need help with that. If there's someone near them who could help, that would probably be your best bet, or perhaps the next time you visit them you could take el Laptop and set it all up then and show them how to use it.

Good luck!