Annoyed by long selfie sticks in public? An Australian technology company has a solution -- a "selfie drone". This lets you click selfie without stretching the hand and gives you a perfect photo too.
Built by Australian technology company IoT Group, the "ROAM-" drone opened for pre-sale on Thursday and will begin shipping internationally in June, Mashable website reported.

According to Ian Duffell, executive director of the IoT Group, the company's vision was to build "a selfie stick on steroids".

"The selfie stick's problem is it's confined by the length of the stick. The thought was, let's get the thing taking the picture flying with you," he was quoted as saying

After being tethered to a smartphone, the two rotor "ROAM-e" can be programmed using facial recognition technology to follow the user at a distance of up to 25 metres.

The device can take 360-degree panoramas and can even stream a live video for up to 20 minutes of flight time.

The $267 device has a 5-megapixel CMOS sensor camera and runs on Quadcore ARM Cortex A7 processor. Its rotors can be folded.

"We wanted it to be small enough to fit into a bag or pocket. We modelled it on not being bigger than a 600-millilitre water bottle," Duffell explained.

"We all know drones fly around and take pictures, but because we've tailored it to be portable and in your space, it fits into a different category," he said.

IoT Group said they will an extra capability that is the ability of the drone to drop a pin on a map application, instructing the ROAM-e to travel to that point and return.

Google Photos will be able to determine the start and end dates of a trip or event, which then helps the cloud service create the albums automatically.

 "There's a bunch of ways we can select the 'best' photos," product manager Francois de Halleux told Wired"We use a lot of machine learning to detect the elements in a photo that make it of better quality than other. We also eliminate duplicates," he added.

The company also uses a system that detects whether a photo taken has a famous landmark in it, which is another factor in determining the user's best shots.

Halleux also stated that they also double-check the landmark in the photo through geotagging. In addition, the feature will still work even when users turn off location services on the Google Photos app.

When the Google Photos app suggests a new album, users will be able to add text captions. In addition, users can enable collaboration so that their friends can add their own photos, and they can also share the album with other users.

The feature has also been extended to existing albums the user has created. They can add maps, location pins and text manually.However, users can still create their own albums the usual way and customize it for themselves.

The new smart album feature for Google Photos began rolling out on Tuesday and is now available for the Android and iOS apps and on the web.

OnePlus came out of nowhere last year and made a pretty big impression with the OnePlus One. Whether the long-term impression was positive or negative depends largely on who you ask, but the company has certainly continued to ramp up its ambitions in 2015.

So far OnePlus has launched the OnePlus 2, and is just starting to offer up its new OnePlus X. And now they are also getting into the app game with Reflexion, a new photography app that is extremely simple to use and basically is designed to capture two shots, one from the front cam and one from the rear, and stitch them together into a unique reflected pattern. As you’d expect, there is a social sharing option that makes it easy to share your “creations” with others.

I’ll be honest, this is kind of cool but feels like something that should be part of a full-fledged camera as an option – not a stand-alone app. That said, the OnePlus Reflexion app is still extremely interesting for two other reasons: first, it’s cross-platform, with both an iOS and Android version being released, no need to own the OPO, OP2, or OPX. The second reason, you can actually get it without an invite!

Okay, invite jokes aside, you can try out the app for yourself right from Google Play. You can also head over to OnePlus’ blog for the rest of the details.

Both new apps -- Photoshop Fix and Capture CC -- are free, but they initially will be available only to users of Apple's mobile devices.

Photoshop Fix includes some commonly used Photoshop features -- exposure, contrast and saturation control, as well as object and blemish removal. It also has a tool for altering parts of a face. For example, you can widen eyes, suggest a smile, or perform a virtual rhinoplasty on a visage.

Image editors ought to be careful when working with the face feature, cautioned David D. Busch, creative director of David Busch Photography Guides, who has worked with similar programs for Photoshop.

"Whenever I've done it, the faces look a little creepy," he told TechNewsWorld.

The other mobile app, Capture CC, combines capabilities found in Adobe Brush, Adobe Shape, Adobe Color and Adobe Hue into a single app. Assets captured and created with the app can be used as a brush, shape or color theme for professional work.

"More work is going mobile," said Ross Rubin, principal analyst with Reticle Research. "Providing these tools not only creates more opportunities for collaboration on-the-go but for inspiration from things around you at a particular time."

By offering the apps free of charge, Adobe can build good will with both existing and potential users.

"The mobile apps are complementary to Adobe's desktop software packages, so they're a value-add to those customers, as well as a way to introduce new customers to the brands and the capabilities," Rubin told TechNewsWorld.

In addition to the new mobile apps, Adobe announced expansion of touch capabilities across desktop apps like Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC and Premiere Pro CC.

Adding more touch support may be a tip-off of where Adobe sees the tablet market going.

"There was a trend where tablets were going to replace computers, and then it went away," Busch explained. "Now it's coming back with Apple's iPad Pro. It's starting to become more practical to retouch on a tablet with a stylus."

Touch expansion is a positive step for Adobe, said Rubin.

"Gaining more experience with mobile interfaces is helpful, because they're bubbling up to more powerful creation platforms like the iPad Pro and Microsoft Surface," he said. "Touch is just a more natural way for artists to work."

A number of new features were announced for products across Adobe's Creative Cloud line:

Adobe announced some additions to its video products, including the following: native format support for editing 4K-to-8K video footage; support for High Dynamic Range workflows in Premiere Pro CC; improved color fidelity in After Effects CC; and Remix, a new audio feature in Audition CC.

Adobe also gave Premiere Pro CC the touch treatment, and it optimized After Effects CC and Character Animator for Surface Pro, Windows tablets and Apple track pad devices.

Looking ahead, the company announced it will add stock video to its stock photo service. Also in the works is Portfolio, a new way to create online portfolio websites.

The new features for Adobe's Creative Cloud service will come without any change in its US$9.95 monthly fee.

The company's transition to a cloud service provider seems to be a success.

"The subscription model seems to be working pretty well, which has allowed them to move to it exclusively," Rubin said. "It's worked so well that Microsoft is moving to the same model."