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The presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have signed the “Washington Accord” peace deal aimed at stabilising their region and attracting Western mining investment. Both leaders praised US President Donald Trump for his role in reaching the agreement.
Ireland, Spain and The Netherlands will boycott next year’s Eurovision Song Contest, after Israel was allowed to compete.
They were among a number of countries who had called for Israel to be excluded over the humanitarian toll of the war in Gaza, and accusations of unfair voting practices.
Despite calls for a vote on Israel’s participation, members instead approved a new set of rules intended to protect the integrity of the contest.
In a statement, Dutch broadcaster Avrotros said that “participation under the current circumstances is incompatible with the public values that are essential to us”.
Spanish broadcaster RTVE added: “The board of directors of RTVE agreed last September that Spain would withdraw from Eurovision if Israel was part of it.”
“This withdrawal also means that RTVE will not broadcast the Eurovision 2026 final… nor the preliminary semi-finals.”
RTVE had led the calls for Israel’s dismissal, and requested a secret ballot on its participation.
According to the broadcaster, organisers “denied RTVE’s request”, adding: “This decision increases RTVE’s distrust of the festival’s organisation and confirms the political pressure surrounding it.”
Other broadcasters, including Slovenia and Iceland are also expected to withdraw from the competition.
Welcome to Eye on AI, with AI reporter Sharon Goldman. In this edition, a new startup is tackling AI impersonation…legal AI startup Harvey raised $160 million at an $8 billion valuation…VC ‘kingmaking’ is happening earlier than ever with AI startups…Why AI writes like that…Microsoft lowers sales staff’s growth targets for newer AI software.
A year ago, I spoke to several cybersecurity leaders at companies like SoftBank and Mastercard who were already sounding alarms about AI-powered impersonation threats, including deepfakes and voice clones. They warned that fraud would evolve quickly: The first wave of scams were about scammers using deepfakes to pretended to be someone you know. But attackers would soon begin using AI-generated video and audio to impersonate strangers from trusted sources, such as a help-desk rep from your bank or an IT administrator at work.
A year later, this is exactly what’s happening: The Identity Theft Resource Center reported a 148% surge in impersonation scams between April 2024 and March 2025, driven by scammers spinning up fake business websites, deploying lifelike AI chatbots, and generating voice agents that sound indistinguishable from real company representatives. In 2024 alone, the Federal Trade Commission recorded $2.95 billion in losses tied to impersonation scams.
Now, a new startup is stepping directly into the breach. imper.ai aims to stop AI impersonation attacks in real time, and today announced its public launch and $28 million in new funding. Redpoint Ventures and Battery Ventures led the investment round, with participation from Maple VC, Vessy VC, and Cerca Partners.
Instead of trying to spot visual or audio anomalies—an approach that is rapidly becoming almost impossible—imper.ai says it analyzes the digital breadcrumbs attackers can’t fake. These include device telemetry (the background data your device gives off, like location, operating system, hardware details, and network behavior), network diagnostics, and environmental signals. Its platform runs silently across systems including Zoom, Teams, Slack, WhatsApp, Google Workspace, and IT help-desk environments, flagging risky sessions before a human ever gets deceived.
CEO Noam Awadish, a veteran of autonomous-driving pioneer Mobileye and a longtime member of Israel’s 8200 cyberwarfare unit, said AI has supercharged classic social-engineering tactics—the kind of attacks that manipulate people into giving up sensitive information or approving actions that compromise security. Whether through impersonation, fake urgency, or psychological pressure, attackers are increasingly using AI to trick victims into revealing passwords, financial details, or remote access.
A recent example is Jaguar Land Rover. Last month hackers used fake credentials to carry out coordinated phishing and “vishing” (voice-phishing) campaigns impersonating JLR’s IT support staff to harvest credentials and gain access. The attack forced the automaker to shut down critical IT systems and ultimately its production lines, resulting in estimated losses of $1.5 billion so far.
Imper.ai’s founding team of Awadish, along with other 8200 veterans Anatoly Blighovsky and Rom Dudkiewicz, believes their background as both cyber attackers and defenders gives them an edge. “I think that people don’t understand that most of the major breaches start with social engineering,” Awadish told me, adding that AI is a game changer because emails, videos, and voice clones have become almost perfect.
In addition, he pointed out that collaboration tools have multiplied far beyond email and phone calls. Now attackers have dozens of communication tools, and AI lets them generate “spear-phishing” messages (personalized phishing emails) at scale, as well as cloned voices, and deepfake videos at massive speed.
That’s why imper.ai avoids trying to out-detect AI impersonation directly from the AI-generated content itself. “We don’t want to get into an AI arms race,” Awadish said. Instead, the startup focuses on what attackers cannot fake—mostly metadata.
As the company’s traction has accelerated, so has investor interest. “We want to build a platform that safeguards the entire communication space,” Awadish said. “ It’s not something small, it’s not like a plugin that one of the giants is going to build.” With the new funding, he said that the company can double its R&D headcount and triple its go-to-market organization in the US.
“At the moment, there is really high traction, so we need to keep up with the pace, so we need to grow,” he said.
Note: I am super-excited to be headed to San Francisco for Fortune Brainstorm AI on Monday and Tuesday! I’ll be interviewing Prakhar Mehrotra, SVP and global head of AI at PayPal, and Marc Hamilton, VP of solutions architecture and engineering at Nvidia, on the main stage. I’ll also be moderating a spicy roundtable session all about AI data centers. Plus, I’m looking forward to seeing some of the other speakers, including actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap, and Ali Ghodsi, CEO of Databricks.
Legal AI startup Harvey raises $160 million at an $8 billion valuation. Harvey, one of the fastest-rising startups in the AI legal-tech boom, just raised $160 million at an $8 billion valuation, according to the New York Times. This more than doubles its valuation since February and brings its total funding this year to roughly $760 million. The four-year-old company, already used by about half of the Am Law 100, builds AI assistants that help lawyers draft and review documents, answer case-law questions, and automate routine workflows. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from T. Rowe Price, WndrCo, Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, and others, and signals that investor enthusiasm for AI tools built for white-collar professionals remains intense even as broader tech markets wobble.
VC ‘kingmaking’ is happening earlier than ever with AI startups. AI ERP startup DualEntry raised a $90 million Series A at a $415 million valuation—despite being just a year old—as Lightspeed and Khosla Ventures bet that a next-generation replacement for legacy systems like Oracle NetSuite can scale fast. But according to TechCrunch, the size of the round has revived questions about “kingmaking,” the increasingly common VC tactic of pouring huge sums into a single early-stage company to manufacture category dominance. While one investor told TechCrunch that DualEntry had only around $400,000 in ARR last summer—a figure the company disputes—the aggressive funding mirrors a broader shift: venture firms are picking winners earlier than ever.
Why does AI write like that? I definitely wanted to shout out this (long) essay in the New York Times that is well worth a read. It argues that AI-generated writing has quietly become the dominant voice of the internet—shaping everything from student essays to political statements—with its now-familiar mix of em dashes, ghostly metaphors, triplets, and overpolished sincerity. What’s unsettling, the author writes, isn’t just that AI prose is everywhere, but that humans are starting to unconsciously imitate it, creating a feedback loop where machine-bred language becomes the default cultural tone. Personally, I had heard about how AI chatbots love the word “delve,” but not that they love ghostly words and all things “quiet”: “Everything is a shadow, or a memory, or a whisper. They also love quietness. For no obvious reason, and often against the logic of a narrative, they will describe things as being quiet, or softly humming.”
Microsoft lowers sales staff’s growth targets for newer AI software. Like every other Big Tech company, Microsoft spent much of 2025 loudly touting AI agents as the next big leap in enterprise automation, but as the year ends the company is quietly dialing back expectations, according to new reporting from The Information. After multiple sales teams missed aggressive growth targets, Microsoft has relaxed quotas for certain AI products—an unusually public acknowledgment that traditional enterprises are still hesitant to pay for advanced automation. Customers say the ROI remains hard to measure and the tech too error-prone for high-stakes workflows like finance and cybersecurity. While AI has been a major boon to Microsoft’s cloud business—thanks largely to massive spending from OpenAI and strong demand for tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot—getting mainstream companies to significantly increase their AI budgets is proving far tougher than selling to AI labs.
AI CALENDAR
Dec. 2-7: NeurIPS, San Diego.
Dec. 8-9: Fortune Brainstorm AI San Francisco. Apply to attend here.
Jan. 7-10: Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas.
March 12-18: SWSW, Austin.
March 16-19: Nvidia GTC, San Jose.
April 6-9: HumanX, San Francisco.
EYE ON AI NUMBERS
221 Million
That’s how many YouTube users subscribe to so-called “AI slop” channels, or those posting mostly AI-generated content, according to a new report from cloud-based video editing platform Kapwing.
The report analyzed 15,000 YouTube channels in 21 countries and identified which ones are posting AI-generated content. Then they examined their view counts, subscriber totals, and estimated earnings to find where “AI slop” channels are competing most aggressively with human creators.
The report found these channels have already amassed a combined 221 million subscribers, generated 63 billion views, and pull in more than $117 million each year.
Some notable findings from the report:
The U.S.-based “AI slop” channel Cuentos Facinates has the most subscribers globally (5.95M).
Spain has eight such channels in their top 100 trending channels with a combined 20.22M subscribers, the most of any country.
These channels get the most views in South Korea (8.45B views across 11 trending channels).
India is home to the most-viewed “AI slop” channel, Bandar Apna Dost, with 2.07B views and an estimated $4.25M in annual earnings.
The European Union has unveiled plans to use billions of euros in frozen Russian assets to help cover Ukraine’s war needs over the next two years. But Belgium is pushing back following the announcement on Wednesday, arguing that the plan carries legal and financial risks that it fears it could end up shouldering alone.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that Brussels would supply 90 billion euros ($105bn) of Ukraine’s budget requirements for 2026-27, estimated by the International Monetary Fund to be 137 billion euros ($159bn). She said that other “international partners” would cover the rest.
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“Today, we are sending a very strong message to the Ukrainian people. We are with them for the long haul,” von der Leyen said.
Frozen Russian funds held in Europe would be used as collateral for a “reparations loan” designed to sustain Ukraine’s war effort, and which Ukraine would ultimately pay back after it obtains compensation for the war from Russia.
Aid could also be funded through common EU borrowing, but, despite Belgian objections, most European officials have expressed a preference for using frozen Russian assets. The EU’s controversial plan comes as the latest round of United States-led peace talks between Russia and Ukraine shows little sign of progress.
Moscow has denounced the reparations loan plan as “theft”.
How is the EU proposing to finance Ukraine?
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European bloc has committed more than 170 billion euros ($197bn) to Ukraine, mainly in the form of military and humanitarian support. The European Commission is now pledging to provide more money for another two years in the form of loans.
On Wednesday, long-awaited details of the EU plan for a “reparations loan” were published. Under it, some 90 billion euros ($104bn) of frozen Russian assets will be used as collateral for a loan to Ukraine.
Under a loan arrangement, repayment to creditors – both government and private lenders – will be guaranteed by the present and future earnings of the frozen assets. Ukraine would then repay the loan once Moscow compensates Kyiv for the destruction caused by its invasion.
“It’s quite a clever tactic,” Gregoire Roos, director of the Europe and Russia and Eurasia Programmes at Chatham House, told Al Jazeera. “They’re not seizing the assets. Rather, they are keeping them frozen and monetising them.”
Roos added that “while assets have been frozen in previous conflicts … this is significant in Europe owing to the scale”.
“There is no precedent for this,” he said.
Von der Leyen said the funds would provide Ukraine with more leverage in peace talks and demonstrate to Moscow that “the prolongation of the war on their side comes with a high cost for them”. She added that Washington had been briefed on the plan.
If von der Leyen’s reparations-loan plan fails to win unanimous EU member-state support, she hinted that the EU could fall back on market borrowing. However, this would require unanimous agreement from the bloc, giving Hungary another opportunity to veto Ukraine aid.
Hungary has repeatedly vetoed EU assistance to Ukraine because Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government argues that arming Kyiv will prolong the war and increase the EU’s collective debt. Orban has also maintained unusually warm ties with Vladimir Putin compared to other EU leaders.
Why does Belgium object to this plan?
Belgium worries that Euroclear – the Brussels-based financial clearing house that holds the bulk of the frozen Russian assets – could end up entangled in damaging litigation if Russia challenges the EU decision, or if the action harms Euroclear’s reputation and business model.
In theory, Russia could challenge the asset-freeze decision in a court in Belgium, where Euroclear is incorporated.
Addressing an audience at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said: “We are not seeking to antagonise our partners or Ukraine. We are simply seeking to avoid potential disastrous consequences for a member state that is being asked to show solidarity without being offered the same solidarity in return.”
Prevot said Belgium views “the option of the reparations loan the worst of all, as it is risky” and “has never been done before”. Instead, he wants the EU to pursue ordinary market borrowing to fund a loan to Ukraine. “It is a well-known, a robust and a well-established option with predictable parameters,” he said.
He is strongly supported by Belgian officials who have doubled down on their opposition to the reparations loan in recent weeks, especially after a 28-point plan for a peace deal by the administration of US President Donald Trump was made public, and included plans to use the frozen assets.
To address Belgium’s concerns, the European Commission’s blueprint does include measures to shield EU governments from “possible retaliation from Russia”, and to establish an EU-level borrowing mechanism to “underpin a loan to Ukraine”. However, Prevot emphasised that “the reparation loans scheme entails consequential economic, financial and legal risks”, and argued that the commission’s safeguards do not go far enough, leaving Belgium exposed.
“It is not acceptable to use the money and leave us alone facing the risks,” he said.
How much money is at stake?
Some 290 billion euros ($337bn) of Russia’s sovereign wealth – principally in the form of foreign-exchange reserves held as cash and bonds – was frozen by Western powers following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago.
A large portion of those assets is held in Belgium, where roughly 194 billion euros ($225bn) was held as of June this year. Euroclear alone holds about 183 billion euros ($212bn) of these assets. Smaller amounts of assets are also held in the US, United Kingdom, and Japan.
Under a plan agreed by Group of Seven (G7) countries in 2024, Ukraine would be provided with loans to be repaid using the interest earned on Russia’s foreign frozen assets, effectively leaving the assets untouched but allowing Kyiv to benefit from the income they generate.
Yesterday’s announcement goes one step further by collateralising the frozen funds.
What do Belgium’s EU partners say?
On Wednesday, von der Leyen said she was considering Belgium’s objections. “We have listened very carefully to Belgium’s concerns, and we have taken almost all of them into account in our proposal. We will share the burden in a fair way, as it is the European way,” she said.
Other European officials echoed this. Johann Wadephul, Germany’s minister of foreign affairs, said: “We take Belgium’s concerns seriously. They are justified, but the issue can be resolved. It can be resolved if we are prepared to take responsibility together.”
Elsewhere, David van Weel, the Netherlands’ minister of foreign affairs, highlighted the stakes of Belgium’s recalcitrance. “These funds are really, really important. We need to support the Ukrainian economy; otherwise, they will have a very tough time next year.”
Van Weel emphasised that EU member states have listened to Belgium. “We understand the Belgian concerns, and we are willing to at least make sure that they are not alone in this,” he said.
Other EU countries have already signalled readiness to backstop potential losses for Belgium.
Belgium, meanwhile, has been collecting tax revenue from the immobilised Russian funds, and interest from the assets is already being directed into a G7-organised loan package for Ukraine.
Looking ahead, European leaders are set to revisit the issue as well as Ukraine’s broader financing requirements at their Brussels summit on December 18.
Atlantic Music Group has promoted Dave Rocco to the newly created position of Chief Creative Officer at the company.
According to Atlantic, in this new role, Rocco will guide the creative strategy for the label group globally.
He will continue to report to AMG Chairman and CEO Elliot Grainge.
Additionally, Rocco will continue to lead the team that collaborates with the label’s roster of artists on all visual creative elements, including creative strategy, video, artwork, advertising and more.
He was previously President of Creative.
Rocco joined Atlantic Music Group in 2024. Under his leadership, the team has collaborated closely on creative campaigns with artists such as Cardi B, FKA twigs, Don Toliver, Bailey Zimmerman, and ROSÉ.
Prior to Atlantic, he was Executive Vice President of Creative at Universal Music Group, where he worked across multiple verticals on “creative issues”.
Rocco also previously worked at Spotify, where he created Artist Marketing and later became Global Head of Label & Artist Relations and Marketing. In that role, he worked “with artists to develop creative campaigns to connect with audiences around the world”.
In addition, he’s credited with creating initiatives including Spotify’s Best New Artist Party, Fans First, and others.
Prior to Spotify, Rocco spent a decade in advertising at Deutsch LA as Executive Vice President, Creative Director, and prior to that at BBDO in New York.
Rocco began his career at age 14 as a producer at the Z100 radio station in New York, answering request lines and later worked as a talent scout at Epic Records and in A&R at Atlantic Records.
Over his career he has garnered multiple awards for his work including Cannes Lions, Cleo’s as well as served on the Board of Directors for GLAAD.
“His creative contributions to our organization and to our artists have been immeasurable.”
Elliot Grainge
“For the last year, Dave has played a crucial role in reenergizing and reimagining Atlantic Music Group,” said Grainge.
“His creative contributions to our organization and to our artists have been immeasurable. I’m happy to be able to promote him to this important new leadership role.”
“I’ve always believed that artists are their own creative directors and have unique and individual needs. Our job as creative executives is to help them realize their vision and support them however we can.”
Dave Rocco
Dave Rocco commented: “I’ve always believed that artists are their own creative directors and have unique and individual needs.
“Our job as creative executives is to help them realize their vision and support them however we can. I could not be more proud of the creative team. They love what they do and are true creative partners to our artists and their teams.”
Elsewhere at AMG, Jeremy Vuernick was recently named Executive Vice President, Atlantic Music Group (AMG), joining AMG’s global leadership team.
In this new post, reporting jointly to AMG CEO Elliot Grainge and Atlantic UK Co-Presidents EdHoward & Briony Turner, Vuernick will be based in London and work closely with the company’s UK and US teams to sign and develop artists with “global potential”.
Meanwhile, in August, Rayna Bass and Selim Bouab, Co-Presidents of 300 Entertainment, also took on broadened roles at Atlantic Music Group (AMG).
In addition to their 300 posts, the duo were appointed joint Co-Presidents of Hip-Hop, R&B, and Global Music at the Atlantic Records label.
At the same time, Lanre Gaba assumed a new advisory role at AMG as Executive Vice President, Artist Strategy & Development. Based in New York, Bass, Bouab, and Gaba will continue to report to AMG CEO Elliot Grainge.Music Business Worldwide
Terence Crawford has received plenty of plaudits for his victory over Canelo Alvarez this year and the Omaha-born sensation is brimming with confidence as a result. Now, his belief that he would have overcome a prime Manny Pacquiao has drawn a response from the latter.
Crawford made history when he dethroned Canelo in September, simultaneously becoming the first three-division undisputed champion of the four-belt era and boxing’s sixth five-division world champion, thus cementing his position amongst the greats of the sport.
Outraged, Crawford took to social media to share his thoughts on how a showdown between he and ‘Pac Man’ would have played out.
@OscarDeLaHoya said @MannyPacquiao would have beat me because he got stopped by him. Look… I would have fucked you Pacquiao and who ever you thought would have beat me the fuck up. Just because I’m responsible doesn’t mean shit.
@OscarDeLaHoya said @MannyPacquiao would have beat me because he got stopped by him. Look, I would have f***ed you, Pacquiao and whoever you thought would have beat me the f**k up. Just because I’m responsible doesn’t mean s**t.
Pacquiao was quick to respond and remained as classy as ever, refusing to be dragged into a war of words.
All love champ. God bless you and your family always. 🙏
Antigravity just dropped the A1 – the world’s first “all-in-one 8K 360 drone.” Totally sounds like marketing hype until you fly it and realize how revolutionary this drone really is. As Antigravity’s Michael Shabun put it, “A1 takes the freedom of 360 capture and gives it wings.”
Unlike every stick-driven quad before it, this thing was built headset-first. The Vision Goggles aren’t an accessory – they’re the cockpit. Paired with the Grip controller’s “FreeMotion Mode,” you literally steer by pointing which way you want to go. It’s so intuitive it feels like a gentle dance with the wind rather than pursed lips and sweaty fingers trying to thread needles.
Most drone bros would agree that a motion controller is for kids and amateurs … and while they’re not necessarily wrong, the pairing makes total sense with the Antigravity A1. With full 360 vision, leaning and twisting your wrist – and your head – not only feels natural, but it adds to the experience. It’s like carving the skies as a bald eagle rather than a drone.
That being said, it can’t fly backwards, and there’s no option for sticks. The yaw scroller makes it easy enough to spin it around if you overshoot a landing or objective, but a reverse trigger would be nice. Maybe a thumbstick near the emergency brake would make pinpoint manual landings easier. The A1’s low-slung rotors require an almost perfectly flat surface, which explains the folding landing pad that comes in the box – though even the landing pad atop well-kept grass isn’t always level enough for the props to clear.
The Grip controller makes flying the drone super easy and intuitive. All the buttons are well placed and each have a different tactile feel making it easy to remember which is which, since you can’t actually see them with the goggles on
Antigravity
Now that I’ve made every single complaint I have about the Insta360-incubated company’s first attempt at a drone:
Flying the A1 is the most fun I’ve ever had in the skies outside of flying actual planes – period (negative g in a plane is a hoot, lemme tell ya). I’ll often take it out just to fly for the sake of flying. I always hit record “just in case,” but if nothing crazy happens, I’ll delete the footage without ever even looking at it. It just feels alive being in the air with this little thing.
Here’s some raw footage I shot with the Antigravity A1:
Antigravity A1 360 Drone RAW Footage
The Vision Goggles have top-of-the-line pancake lenses with dual 1-inch Micro-OLED (2,560×2,560) displays. And if you’re like me and have four eyes, you don’t have to worry, as the goggles have built-in adjustable diopters. You can comfortably fly without your glasses. If you don’t wear glasses, well, consider yourself lucky.
Antigravity says it has a 6.2-mile (10-km) range in ideal conditions without interference, but I haven’t tested it out that far yet … which is pretty impressive considering the OmniLink 360 transmission gives you a live 2K resolution feed, though it has a ~150-ms-or-so latency. That’s a bit on the high side in terms of latency, but not enough to feel like you’re trying to chase the drone’s movements. You still feel totally in control.
That VR-like immersion kicks in the moment you put on the goggles. From the moment you’re about to lift off, looking up at yourself from the ground-level perspective of the drone, to a height that would cause substantial fall damage … if you look straight down, you’ll get the tummy tickles. At least I do, and I love it. The experience of simply flying the drone is worth the price of admission, in my opinion.
This is what it looks like through the goggles. And wherever you turn your head to look, that’s what you’re going to see
JS @ New Atlas
Yes, it records seamless 8K footage in literally every single direction all at once … and shoots 55-MP RAW still photos if that’s your thing. That, in itself, is amazing, but just the act of controlling the drone in the air as you look around and explore places you’ve probably been a million times, but have never seen from that vantage, is just downright awesome. I literally feel like I can’t stress that point enough – how damn fun it is to fly – even to the point of sounding repetitive and annoying.
At its core, the A1 packs a dual-lens 1/1.28-inch sensor setup that records 8K 30 fps, 5.2K 60 fps, or 4K 100 fps in a fully image-stabilized sphere at a 170-Mbps max bitrate. No gimbal, no missed angles – just “fly first, frame later.” You get cinematic pans, Tiny Planets, or clean tracking in post with zero reshoots. One pass, all the angles. Done. Nifty.
The Antigravity A1 package
Antigravity
As with Insta360 cameras, that wide FOV does have its downsides. Sure, you’ll never miss a thing, but that thing might appear so small and so far away that maybe it isn’t even worth the shot. To get good, clear shots of your subject, you’ll have to fly close to it, which can be risky sometimes. But the good news is you’ll only have to do it once! And since it’s like playing a VR game – and I personally have quite a bit of VR experience – it’s pretty easy to get it right with the point-and-shoot controls.
When the Antigravity arrived for me to test it out, I was shocked by how small it is. It weighs just 249 g – which slips it under the mostly global “sub-250-grams-limits,” so US users won’t need to get an FAA license just to tinker around with it. Equally shocking was the long 24-minute flight time for such a small drone. That increases to 39 mins with the big battery – though, the extended flight battery pops the little drone into FAA category at 291 grams … so have your papers in order. Not only that, but with the standard battery, max takeoff altitude is 13,123 ft (4,000 m). With the big boy in there, you lose a full ~3,281 (~1,000 m) max ceiling. If you’re a high-altitude pilot, that can affect where you launch from. Raise your hand if you’ve ever walked the Earth at over 10,000 ft (3,048 m).
It really is small. Smaller than seems possible for so much technology in it
Antigravity
The A1 has a suite of sensors on the front and belly that will help you keep it out of the trees, but should you inadvertently falcon yourself into a pole, the A1 does have replaceable lenses and props. Though, based on the feel of the drone, I think it would meet a grisly demise, far worse than a prop or lens, should it hit a tree, a branch, another branch, then the ground. Weight-saving measures usually mean thin, fragile-feeling bits. And I have zero desire to crash it just to test durability. It’s too fun to risk it.
The little A1 has Level-5 wind resistance, meaning in winds up to 24 mph (39 km/h), you won’t be fighting it to keep it in check. And if things really go sideways, the drone uses GPS, Galileo, and Beidou satellites to track its position. Not only does that mean you’ll be able to find it in the wilderness should it go AWOL, but it also has a super solid hover with almost zero drift.
The forward sensors can see up to about 60 ft (18 m) and will track obstacles up to about 28.6 mph (43.2 km/h), which isn’t bulletproof, but should help. The bottom sensors have a crazy wide FOV at 107 degrees front to back and 90 degrees left to right.
The Antigravity drone looking pretty majestic in the fall colors
Antigravity
The outer-facing screen on the left goggle is a really neat feature for showing people what your perspective through the drone looks like, but in practice, you’re constantly spinning around in place while you’re flying the drone. That means anyone trying to actually see what you’re seeing is running in circles around you and jumping and ducking just to keep the screen in sight. So while it’s theoretically really cool, I’d rather have the option to turn off the screen to conserve battery. I don’t know exactly how long the battery-on-a-lanyard for the goggles lasts, but it feels like it could be around an hour and a half or more.
The A1 is capable of running automated flight paths with Sky Path. It lets you plot and replay complex flight routes automatically, which is gold for matching transitions over time or even just sitting back and enjoying the “VR” ride – or passing off the goggles to someone to enjoy the ride as the drone does its thing without fear of them augering your expensive piece of aerial equipment. Sky Genie is another mode for quick-fire cinematic moves like orbit and spiral. Deep Track can lock onto subjects, keeping them in frame while you fly. There’s another mode too, which I found to be kind of silly, but others might appreciate it: Virtual Cockpit. As you fly, your POV gets skinned to look like you’re riding a dragon. Yeah, seriously. It made me chuckle, at least. I hear there are more skins coming too.
A snapshot from my first flight with the Antigravity with a spectator judging me
JS @ New Atlas
From a piloting perspective, full 360 vision is a game-changer. There are literally no blind spots. If you’re flying in one direction but looking away, a little picture-in-picture popup will show up on your screen so you can see where it’s going, even if you’re looking backwards. It’s the first drone made that can see 90 degrees straight up, too, which offers a very unique perspective when you’re flying under stuff, like bridges and lifted bro trucks. And like the damage indicator in a first-person shooter, your peripheral will flash yellow or red as you near danger. Sadly, it doesn’t do it directionally, like in Call of Duty, but it’s still really neat.
The drone has the usual modes on a toggle switch on the Grip motion controller: Cine, Normal, and Sport. The latter will get you flying to a 36-mph (58-km/h) top speed. It’ll even do 18 mph (29 km/h) straight up. That’s fast! The Grip has a big red button – not that color matters, as you can’t see it with the goggles on anyway – where your thumb rests naturally that serves as a panic brake to go full stop if you want to avoid seeing your health meter go to zero.
Antigravity also ships its own video editing software for mobile and desktop that does all the usual stuff: reframing, color correction, and even automatic edits where the app will pick the best bits and cobble them together for you in all the common aspect ratios from portrait to landscape.
You can buy one in three flavors. Best Buy already has them in stock, just in time for Xmas. The standard package has everything you’ll need to go “be a bird,” and the higher packages, of course, allow you to fly longer. The Infinity bundle is what I received, and it even came with a nice carrying bag for everything.
And just in case you either forgot to buy a memory card (it’ll support up to 1 TB) or simply couldn’t afford one after dropping all that cash, the A1 has 20 GB of built-in storage. They really thought of everything, didn’t they?
I’ve been a fan of Peter McKinnon – who’s not really a drone guy – for a long time, so enjoy his video about the Antigravity A1 (and making coffee).
Drones, REINVENTED. The world’s first, Antigravity 360 Drone
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The presidents of DR Congo (left) and Rwanda are to sign the deal in Washington
The leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda are set to sign a peace deal aimed at ending the long-running conflict in the region at a summit hosted by US President Donald Trump in Washington.
Ahead of the summit, there has been an escalation in fighting in resource-rich eastern DR Congo between government forces and rebels believed to be backed by Rwanda.
DR Congo’s army accused its rivals of attempting to “sabotage” the peace process, but the M23 rebels said the army had launched an offensive in breach of a ceasefire.
At the start of the year, the M23 seized large parts of eastern DR Congo in an offensive that saw thousands killed and many more forced from their homes.
DR Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame have frequently exchanged insults in recent years, each accusing the other of starting the conflict.
Trump got the two countries’ foreign ministers to sign a peace accord in June, hailing it as a “glorious triumph”.
Tshisekedi and Kagame will now endorse it, with several other African and Arab leaders – including those of Burundi and Qatar – expected to attend the signing ceremony.
The M23 will not be present – it is in talks with DR Congo’s government in a parallel peace process led by Qatar.
The Trump administration has spearheaded talks between DR Congo and Rwanda, hoping that resolving the differences between the two neighbours will pave the way for the US to increase investments in the resource-rich region.
Despite the fanfare and the presence of the two leaders in Washington, some analysts are sceptical about whether the deal will lead to lasting peace.
A DR Congo researcher with the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies think-tank, Bram Verelst, told the BBC that there was “currently no ceasefire in place, and the M23 rebellion continues to expand and consolidate its control”.
“The signing ceremony is unlikely to alter this situation, though there is some small hope it could increase accountability on Congolese and Rwandan leaders to honour their commitments,” he said.
The M23 seized key cities in eastern DR Congo earlier this year, including Goma and Bukavu.
In a statement, DR Congo army spokesman Gen Sylvain Ekenge said the rebels had launched a fresh offensive on Tuesday on villages in the South Kivu province.
The villages are about 75km (47 miles) from Uvira city, which lies on the border with Burundi, and has been the headquarters of the South Kivu regional government since the rebels seized Bukavu.
For its part, the M23 said the DR Congo army had launched an air and ground assault against its positions, and this was done in cahoots with Burundian forces.
Burundi has not commented on the allegation. It has several thousand troops in eastern DR Congo to support the embattled army.
AFP via Getty Images
The main trading hub in eastern DR Congo, Goma, has been under rebel control since January
Rwanda says it has adopted “defensive measures” in eastern DR Congo because of the threat posed by the FDLR militia group, which includes fighters who carried out the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Kagame insists that the FDLR must be disarmed, while DR Congo demands the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from its territory.
Both of these conditions are included in the peace deal to be signed in Washington.
However, several deals going back to the 1990s have failed after Rwanda accused previous Congolese government of failing to disarm the FDLR, and this remains one of the main stumbling blocks in current efforts to end the conflict.
DR Congo’s government has also demanded that the M23 gives up the territory it has seized, something it has so far refused to do in the Qatar-brokered talks.
Qatar and the US are co-ordinating their mediation efforts. Qatar has strong ties with Rwanda, while the US is seen to be closer to DR Congo.
The US State Department said in 2023 that DR Congo had an estimated $25trn (£21.2trn) in mineral reserves.
This includes cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese and tantalum – key ingredients needed to make the electronic components used in computers, electric vehicles, mobile phones, wind turbines and military hardware.
“We’re getting, for the United States, a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo as part of it,” Trump said, ahead of the deal signed in June.
Prof Jason Stearns, a Canada-based political scientist who specialises in the region, told the BBC that the US has been pushing for an economic agreement that could see DR Congo and Rwanda co-operate on hydro-electric power, mining and infrastructure development.
“The logic is that it will provide the peace dividend,” he said.
However, DR Congo has made it clear that while it would sign the agreement, it would not “advance on that deal until Rwandan troops have withdrawn from eastern DR Congo”, Prof Stearns added.
Reuters / BBC
AFP via Getty Images
Getty Images/BBC