In a bid to overtake its rivals, including Facebook and Instagram, Snap looks like it could soon be developing a drone. Reports suggest that Snap, the firm that owns Snapchat, is in talks to buy Zero Zero Robotics, a Chinese drone maker. The rumours suggest that the deal is in the range of $150 million-$200 million (£113 million-£150 million), although neither Snap nor Zero Zero Robotics has commented on the news. In a bid to overtake its rivals, including Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat looks like it could soon be developing a drone. It tracks a user's face and body and electronic image stabilisation means the end of shaky and blurry footage.

Young Instagram users are now spending over half an hour on the photo sharing app every day. The Facebook owned app revealed users under 25 are on the app for 32 minutes on average daily, while older users spend 25 minutes each day using it. The firm released the latest stats a year after it launched Instagram Stories in its ongoing battle with Snapchat. The Facebook owned app revealed users under 25 are on the app for 32 minutes on average daily, while older users spend 25 minutes each day using it. They show that the younger users now spend three percent of their waking hours using the app.

Built with artificial intelligence, the Hover Camera Passport selfie drone detects and follows users. Source: Zero Zero Robotics At this year's CES, a little company named Zero Zero Robotics demonstrated a flying camera drone that hovers near you taking pictures and autonomously detects, follows and records your movements. That selfie drone, called Hover Camera Passport, is now available and just picked up a huge backer in the form of Apple Inc. The smartphone giant has started exclusively selling the drone online and in its Apple stores in five countries. The Hover Camera Passport is powered by internally-developed artificial intelligence that the company says allows consumers to operate the drone camera out of the box and works for both indoor and outdoor environments.

The term "selfie drones" may suggest an added level of convenience, but in reality, these machines still share one common pain point with conventional offerings: they need to be connected to a mobile device for initiation, mode selection and landing. The folks over at Zero Zero Robotics, however, are tackling this issue with a software update for their Hover Camera Passport. As we previewed back at CES, this foldable, fully-enclosed drone is finally getting an "Owner Mode," in which it can follow and record its owner without ever having to turn on the smartphone. Of course, in order to get the drone to recognize its owner, there is a one-time setup in the app for it to remember one's face. After that, it's simply a matter of booting up the device, let it fly in place, and once it spots its owner it'll automatically start recording video while following around.

My first drone flight experience was with the DJI Phantom 2 Vision, and as much as I appreciated its advanced capabilities at the time, I longed for something more compact -- a device so small that I wouldn't need to carry a separate bag or case for it, preferably without sacrificing performance. Eventually, a Chinese startup called Zero Zero Robotics released the $599 Hover Camera Passport, which comes in the unique form of a foldable cage while packing cool features like body tracking, face tracking and orbiting. I got to spend some time with the Passport over the past few weeks, and eventually it got to the point where I rarely leave home without it, lest I find time to take it for a quick spin. Compared to higher-end foldable drones like DJI's Mavic Pro and GoPro's Karma (assuming GoPro issues a fix for random power losses), the Passport's major advantages are its size, weight and caged propellers. At just 242 grams, or 0.53 pounds, the Passport is exempt from the FAA's mandatory registration and is also unlikely to hurt anyone should something go wrong, as its propellers are shielded by a carbon fiber enclosure.

If you love aerial photography and videography, here comes an artificial-intelligence (AI)-powered drone that can take 13MP photos and make 4K video. A Beijing-based startup Zero Zero Robotics has developed a protoype of "Hover Camera" with 32GB storage. SEE ALSO: 7 affordable gadgets to make your home the best party place! You just need to simply toss the 238-gram "Hover Camera" into the air and it starts flying. Using AI-face tracking, it automatically locks onto a face and body for a perfect selfie.

Selfie-addicts know photos taken from above are among the most flattering, so why not have a drone constantly flying above you capturing your every move? Called the Hover Camera, the drone is designed to take perfect pictures thanks to image stabilisation technology and a built-in 13MP camera. It's designed to capture hi-res photo portraits and 4K video, and is controlled by a user's smartphone via a Wi-Fi connection. The Hover Camera is designed to take perfect pictures thanks to image stabilisation technology and a built-in 13MP camera. It uses facial recognition to'lock on' to a user's face (shown above) The gadget is designed to capture hi-res photo portraits and 4K video, being controlled by a user's smartphone via a Wi-Fi connection.

Most popular consumer drones are affordable quadcopters robust enough to fly outdoors and snap photos or video. The startup Zero Zero Robotics is coming out of stealth mode to announce its first product, Hover Camera, a small drone specifically designed with no exposed propellers to safely shoot footage indoors. Hover does exactly what it sounds like: Turn it on and it hovers in midair wherever you leave it. Hover is more a flying camera than a joyriding drone, and the controls on its paired smartphone app are for delicately repositioning it, not zooming to atrial heights. But the real breakthrough feature is its sophisticated AI programming that not only keeps the platform exceedingly leve, it uses face and body recognition to lock on to a subject and slowly follow them around autonomously.