The Trump Administration just took OpenAI’s side in the artificial intelligence company’s legal battle with the New York Times.

The media juggernaut sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, alleging that the companies had violated copyright law by training their AI tools on its articles without permission. Now, the government has stepped in, arguing that OpenAI’s actions were within bounds.

On Tuesday, the federal government submitted a letter to the court stating that the United States has a “strong interest” in whether AI training on copyright works is considered “fair use,” because it connects to whether the country’s AI industry can “retain global leadership in artificial intelligence.” (The “fair use” rule shields certain uses of copyrighted materials.)

The letter argued that the Times’ definition of fair use is “inconsistent” with current copyright law, and that a win for the paper could have disastrous consequences. “Constraining LLM development under a misunderstanding of fair use doctrine would thwart such creative and scientific progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility,” lawyers for the government wrote.

While the letter focuses on the New York Times and OpenAI, the government noted that its arguments apply to all of the parties in this case and related cases, including other publishers and authors.

Training LLMs on copyrighted works is considered “extraordinarily transformative,” meaning that these systems meaningfully change their inputs, the administration argued. The administration also wrote that OpenAI’s LLMs do not significantly compete with The New York Times’ articles. Courts consider both of these conditions, as well as others, when deciding if the fair use doctrine is met.

Conflating AI training with what artificial intelligence tools produce would lead to “problematic implications for copyright law generally” by implying that it would be similarly illegal for human writers to practice their craft by training on the words of others, per the letter. (The lawyers compared it to how a teenage Joan Didion typed out Ernest Hemingway’s stories to figure out how to write.)

Evan Brown, an intellectual property lawyer with the firm Neal & McDevitt, tells WIRED that the US district judge overseeing this case, Sidney H. Stein, is not obliged to let this letter influence his ultimate decision. However, Brown says that Stein and other judges overseeing cases like this will almost certainly “take it quite seriously because it comes from the Department of Justice, and inherently carries a lot of weight.”

Pamela Samuelson, a copyright lawyer who codirects the Berkeley Center For Law & Technology, tells WIRED that the government’s brief is a “significant development,” and one which is consistent with AI copyright rulings thus far.

“The Administration is siding with a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies at the expense of the countless American creators whose work they stole,” New York Times spokesperson Graham James tells WIRED. “Both AI and creators can thrive–AI companies simply need to pay fairly for the content that makes their products possible, as copyright law requires.”

OpenAI and Microsoft did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

Other plaintiffs are unhappy at the government’s incursion. Mary Rasenberger, the chief executive of the Author’s Guild—which filed its own lawsuit against OpenAI in 2023—tells WIRED that the nonprofit is “extremely disappointed” about the letter, which she calls ”replete with faulty arguments and a gross misunderstanding of the fair use doctrine and copyright law.”

There are dozens of ongoing, high-profile lawsuits over the legality of AI companies training their tools on copyrighted work. The two biggest decisions so far took place last year. Meta technically won its copyright case, Kadrey v. Meta, although the judge noted that the plaintiffs did not produce enough evidence that the training caused them harm while stressing that in other circumstances, training on copyrighted materials without permission might indeed be illegal.

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani just announced a one-year ban of generative AI tools in public schools for students up to eighth grade. The legislation takes effect during the 2026-2027 school year and will impact around 600,000 students.

“This moratorium is a commitment to getting the future right,” Mayor Mamdani said. “We will embrace new technology, but only when it serves our students.” New York Governor Kathy Hochul added that the state “has been leading the way in our efforts to keep kids focused on learning and growing — not clicking and scrolling.”

Mayor Mamdani said this move was made to protect “human connection” in classrooms, suggesting that kids should develop problem-solving and social skills via teachers and peers instead of chatbots.

Throughout the one-year ban, studies will be conducted to analyze the technology’s impact on children. This coalition of educators, parents and elected officials will recommend next steps after that.

This doesn’t impact high schools, and a number of those classrooms will be allowed to participate in various AI pilot programs, though they will be closely monitored. All high school students will receive twice-yearly lessons “designed to help them think critically about AI before they begin to rely on it.”

Teachers will be able to use gen AI for lesson planning and administrative work, as long as the tools comply with public school safety standards. Additionally, there will be exceptions made for assistive technology usage by kids with disabilities, multilingual learners and students participating in career readiness programs, including computer science. 

Today’s policy also introduces new screen time guidelines for children. This includes daily caps of 30 minutes for many elementary school students and 45 minutes for middle schoolers. It’s worth noting that these are just guidelines. Households can do whatever they want.

This crackdown comes as NYC parents grow increasingly concerned about the impact AI is having on their kids. Advocacy groups have pushed for this moratorium and more than half of City Council members signed a letter urging the Mayor and the Department of Education to stop expanded AI use in classrooms.

United Federation of Teachers (UFT) President Michael Mulgrew recently told ABC News that AI was a “dangerous thing” and that “parents are getting very, very upset with AI because all they hear are these horror stories” and “they’re rightfully protective of their children.”

To that end, NYC isn’t the only place instituting these kinds of bans. Norway did something similar and Italy passed legislation that requires parental consent in order for kids under 14 to use the tech. The American Senate and House have been discussing a bill that would require AI companies to implement an age-verification process and ban them from providing chatbots to minors. We’ll have to see what happens there, though the industry has spent a whopping $41.8 million on lobbying in just the first half of 2026 alone.

“The tech industry wants us to believe that AI-powered early education is not only inevitable, but necessary. We do not see it that way,” Mayor Mamdani said in a statement ahead of today’s announcement.

• Hackers exploited Lenovo’s flawed email verification to hijack ~5,000 Dropbox accounts
• Attackers created Lenovo IDs with victims’ emails, bypassing login; 2FA absence worsened impact
• Dropbox ended Lenovo ID logins, expired sessions, and urged password changes plus 2FA setup

Around 5,000 Dropbox user accounts were compromised when hackers found a vulnerability in the Lenovo ID verification process. What does a Lenovo flaw have to do with people’s Dropbox accounts, you might ask? Here is what happened:

Earlier this week, Dropbox started notifying affected individuals about the incident. In the data breach notification email, the company explains:

Facepalm: Security experts recently uncovered a malicious campaign that had been active for years. Unknown cybercriminals abused Chrome’s extension system to infect tens of thousands of systems, and many victims may still be vulnerable if they haven’t manually changed their browser’s configuration.

Socket Inc. researchers have identified 19 malicious extensions targeting Chrome and Edge users. The cybercriminal campaign primarily targeted Google’s browser, but one extension gained significant popularity on both Chrome and Edge. In any case, the analysts believe a single “mind” is behind the campaign – and it’s determined to keep going even after the extensions have been removed from both browsers’ stores.

All of the malicious add-ons employed a similar strategy, Socket said. A majority of the extensions (14) were developed directly by the cybercriminals, while five others were purchased from legitimate developers and companies. Initially, the add-ons simply provided their advertised functionality. Over the past six months, however, the hackers updated the extensions with malicious code designed to compromise systems or start harvesting users’ data.

The list of add-ons included a particularly popular extension named “Enable Right Click & Copy – Smart Unlock + OCR.” It was ultimately installed on 70,000 Chrome browsers and another 10,000 Edge browsers. A total of 80,000 users were eventually exposed to the malicious extension, which primarily targeted crypto wallets and other cryptocurrency-related data.

The cybercriminals used some code-based attack patterns that were first identified in February 2024, Socket said. They injected malicious payloads after accumulating a considerable number of potential victims, managing the crypto-stealing campaign remotely through a flexible command-and-control domain infrastructure.

The malicious extensions were eventually removed from the Chrome and Edge stores. However, users might still be part of the C2 infrastructure if they haven’t checked for and manually removed all 19 add-ons listed by researchers.

In 2018, Google announced a major change to the extension technology used by the Chromium project. The Manifest V3 API was intended to improve the security architecture of add-ons across Chromium-based browsers, including Chrome and Microsoft Edge.

As the 19 malicious extensions retrofitted with malicious payloads clearly show, Google’s attempt to strengthen security might very well turn out to be wishful thinking. Cybercriminals are likely to continue targeting popular browser extensions even after Manifest V2 is gone.

Though AI has seeped into every step of the job hunt for both applicants and recruiters, it has taken time to catch on in interviews. Voice AI is infamously tricky to pull off, as agents get tripped up by accents or “ums.” Behavior that would be second nature to a human—like not interrupting a candidate—turns into a “very, very difficult engineering problem,” according to Ophir Samson, the head of voice AI at recruitment platform Greenhouse. But recruiters, overwhelmed with the glut of applications, have increasingly turned to voice AI tools to screen candidates, with 63 percent of job seekers reporting they’ve encountered an AI interview, according to Greenhouse.

As recruiters turned to AI, so did applicants. Candidates using AI in the interview process has become so common that AI recruitment startups like Ribbon promise to help identify “overly scripted, AI-assisted, or coached” responses—just like those in Christopher’s experiment.

Now there are rumblings that bot-on-bot interviews aren’t duplicitous but a preview of things to come. In many ways, it’s the “next logical stage,” Mark Monaghan, vice president of organizational development at call center company IQor, tells WIRED.

That doesn’t mean he’s entirely happy about it. In Christopher’s case, Monaghan believes, the use of AI was more than justified.

“If you’re going to send a bot to me,” he says, “I’ll send a bot to you.”

After his fifth interview with no follow-up, Christopher decided to apply for one more Everforth Apex job. Perhaps, Christopher thought, the problem wasn’t AI. Maybe it was him. Maybe if Riley were able to speak to the company’s dream candidate, things would go differently. So he created a fake candidate, whom he called Don Dickner, packing a résumé to the brim with qualifications pulled from an open job posting.

After Christopher submitted the application, Riley immediately reached out. This time, the virtual recruiter spoke with ChatGPT—posing as Dickner—for 23 minutes. They discussed “sustainable operational improvement,” protecting “customer experience under volume pressure,” and refusing to let “tribal knowledge drift.” ChatGPT had an answer for every question, and a personal anecdote for every qualification. As the interview wrapped up, ChatGPT said it had a “few more questions I’d like answered.”

“I appreciate it,” Riley responded. “Upon carefully reviewing your application, we will assess your qualifications for the position. Should you meet our criteria, a recruiter from Everforth Apex will reach out to schedule a brief conversation.”

Christopher never heard from Riley again.

from the this-is-why-we-can’t-have-nice-things dept

Back in June, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission that federal limits on coordinated expenditures by political parties violate the First Amendment, opening the floodgates to a much broader array of political ads funded via no limit of rich assholes and their preferred dark money groups.

In preparation for the ruling, Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr revised FCC “Lowest Unit Charge Requirement” rules to try and make it much cheaper for the GOP to pummel the midterm elections with less-expensive TV ads carried via the nation’s soggy assortment of right wing broadcasters (which are currently petitioning the Trump FCC to approve massive new mergers).

But it hasn’t all been easy going for the GOP, which believes its massive funding advantage ($125 million for the GOP versus a bunch of debt for the mismanaged DNC) would give them a real leg up during the midterms.

For one thing, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals recently sided 2-1 against the FCC, temporarily suspending the FCC’s attempt at discount TV agitprop, and ruling that neither political parties nor joint fundraising committees with non-candidate members are allowed the discounted rates.

But the GOP has already set the wheels in motion to get this all quickly overturned by the Trump-friendly Supreme Court:

“The committees submitted an emergency motion for a stay and asked the 4th Circuit to rule on that motion immediately so they can file a petition to the Supreme Court. “Intervenors respectfully request that the Court rule on this stay motion as soon as possible—whether by expediting or waiving response briefs—to permit Intervenors to seek emergency relief at the Supreme Court,” Republican committees told the court.

The court responded quickly, issuing an order today to deny the Republican committee’s motion and to immediately issue a mandate that can be appealed to the Supreme Court. Republicans will now seek swift action from the Supreme Court in an attempt to overturn the 4th Circuit ruling before the 60-day discount period starts on September 4.”

If the GOP wins, local broadcasters will be forced to offer dodgy dark money groups the same discounts previously reserved directly for candidates, something the FCC’s lone Democrat, Anna Gomez, states will be “unleashing a flood of coordinated campaign money into broadcast advertising, just as the Supreme Court has cleared the way for unlimited coordinated spending between parties and candidates.”

It’s another reminder (as if you needed one) that unless the U.S. Supreme court is radically expanded and reformed in the next few years, corruption is likely to strip the country down to parts and sell it for scrap off the back loading dock.

Filed Under: ads, appeal, brendan carr, fcc, midterms, propaganda, supreme court

Klipsch showed us quite a lot of hardware at CES 2026, but some of the most interesting products were sitting behind closed doors and came with the rather important disclaimer that we were looking at concepts.

The new Klipsch Reference Signature Series was one of them.

Eight months later, Klipsch is bringing Reference Signature to CEDIA Expo 2026 in Denver, and this time attendees will actually get to hear them. The company has also confirmed the six-model lineup, disclosed considerably more about the acoustic design, and provided an initial indication of what the speakers will cost when select models arrive this winter.

If Reference Signature sounds familiar, you have been paying attention.

We covered the early versions at CES in January, where Klipsch described Reference Signature as a more ambitious extension of its modern horn-loaded loudspeaker platform alongside the considerably more experimental Project Apollo.

What we did not see at Audio Advice Live 2026 was a Reference Signature launch. Klipsch used the Raleigh show in August for the global debut of its Reference Premiere III Series, including a rather substantial 7.4.4-channel home theater demonstration with Onkyo electronics.

Different speakers. Different series. There are already enough Klipsch model numbers in circulation without us helping create another family reunion nobody can follow.

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Six Reference Signature Speakers

The new Reference Signature lineup consists of two floorstanding speakers, two monitor models, one center channel and a multipurpose Dolby Atmos, height and surround speaker.

Klipsch Reference Signature Series

• RS-8301F: Three-way 8-inch floorstanding loudspeaker
• RS-6301F: Three-way 6.5-inch floorstanding loudspeaker
• RS-8301M: Three-way 8-inch monitor loudspeaker
• RS-6301M: Three-way 6.5-inch monitor loudspeaker
• RS-6301C: Three-way 6.5-inch center-channel loudspeaker
• RS-6101SA: Two-way 6.5-inch Dolby Atmos, height and surround loudspeaker

The biggest departure from Reference Premiere is not the cabinetry or another variation on Klipsch’s familiar copper-colored drivers.

It is the dedicated midrange driver.

The floorstanding, monitor and center-channel models are true three-way designs with separate high-frequency, midrange and bass drivers. Klipsch says this allows each driver to handle a narrower portion of the audible spectrum and moves the crossover regions away from the frequencies where human hearing is particularly sensitive.

Paul W. Klipsch famously argued that “the midrange is where we live,” and apparently somebody in Indianapolis has been reading the old man’s notes.

A Different Kind of Klipsch Horn

Reference Signature still relies on horn loading and Klipsch’s titanium-diaphragm Linear Travel Suspension tweeter, but the more interesting development is its new phase-aligned horn architecture.

Klipsch positions the midrange directly within the tweeter horn so that the midrange and high frequencies originate from the same acoustic center. The objective is better coherence through the crossover region and more consistent tonal balance across a wider listening area.

That could prove particularly important in a home theater, where the person who paid for the system is rarely the only person sitting in front of it.

The larger Reference Signature models combine 8-inch Cerametallic bass drivers with a 6.5-inch midrange, while the smaller models pair 6.5-inch bass drivers with a 5.25-inch midrange. The floorstanding speakers use dual woofers, while the monitors use a single bass driver.

Klipsch’s spun-copper Cerametallic cones remain part of the recipe, maintaining some visual and technological continuity with Reference Premiere.

The Center Channel Might Be the Most Important Speaker Here

The RS-6301C deserves additional attention because Klipsch has moved away from the conventional horizontal MTM arrangement commonly used in center-channel loudspeakers.

Instead, Reference Signature uses a vertical driver array designed to reduce the horizontal lobing and comb-filtering issues that can make dialogue and tonal balance change as listeners move away from the center seat.

For a serious multichannel system, that is more than an engineering footnote.

The center channel carries an enormous percentage of movie dialogue and front-stage information, yet it is frequently the loudspeaker most compromised by furniture, screen placement and seating position. Klipsch’s approach is intended to provide clearer dialogue and more consistent timbre across multiple seats while maintaining a closer tonal match with the Reference Signature towers.

We want to hear this one from well off-axis before reaching any conclusions.

Atmos Without Locking Yourself Into Atmos

Klipsch has also avoided making the RS-6101SA a one-trick Dolby Atmos module.

The two-way speaker can sit on top of a Reference Signature tower or monitor and fire upward toward the ceiling, but it can also be wall-mounted for use as a direct-radiating height or rear surround channel.

A rear-panel switch changes the crossover configuration between Atmos and Surround operation.

That flexibility matters if somebody changes rooms, moves from reflected Atmos to direct-mounted height channels, or eventually realizes that drilling holes in drywall is less frightening than explaining another speaker upgrade to their spouse.

Klipsch Dresses Up

Reference Signature also represents a noticeable industrial-design upgrade over Reference Premiere.

Klipsch is using a one-piece BMC front baffle designed to provide a denser and more rigid mounting surface while reducing unwanted cabinet resonance. Rounded cabinet edges are intended to reduce diffraction and improve off-axis performance.

Ebony and Walnut finishes feature horizontal grain running along the curved cabinet profile, and Klipsch has added a decorative leather top panel along with metal carpet spikes and rubber feet.

All models will also provide adjustable tweeter output at +1 dB, 0 dB or -1 dB, giving owners a small degree of room or preference-based tonal adjustment without reaching for DSP.

Dual binding posts for bi-wiring and bi-amping will also be available on select models. None of that transforms loudspeaker performance by itself, but Reference Signature clearly needs to look and feel more expensive if Klipsch expects buyers to move beyond Reference Premiere.

The Bottom Line

Reference Signature should not be confused with the Reference Premiere III Series introduced at Audio Advice Live.

Reference Premiere III remains Klipsch’s broad modern passive loudspeaker platform for both two-channel and home theater systems. Reference Signature pushes further with dedicated three-way designs, more elaborate horn geometry, upgraded cabinetry and a considerably more premium presentation.

It is also not Project Apollo.

Klipsch previewed Apollo alongside Reference Signature at CES as a separate, more ambitious exploration of high-performance two-channel audio. Reference Signature is the more recognizable Klipsch proposition: a complete modern speaker family capable of supporting both serious stereo listening and immersive home theater.

That distinction makes the new series potentially more important commercially.

Klipsch does not need another loudspeaker that exists primarily to prove what its engineers can build when cost and living-room diplomacy are removed from the equation. It already has Heritage products capable of occupying that territory rather convincingly.

Reference Signature has to work in actual homes.

Price & Availability

Klipsch is targeting $1,600 to $3,000 per pair, with final pricing and complete specifications to be announced at launch. Select Reference Signature models are expected to arrive in winter 2026.

With CEDIA now underway, we’ll have a chance to hear the new three-way horn architecture for ourselves in Denver and find out whether Reference Signature delivers on the promise of what Klipsch first showed us at CES.

For more information: Klipsch Reference Signature

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