Technology

‘Tesla Takedown’ protesters planning ‘biggest day of action’

Published

10 months ago

March 20, 2025

‘Tesla Takedown’ protesters planning ‘biggest day of action’

Tesla protesters are planning their “biggest day of action” yet, aiming for 500 demonstrations at Tesla showrooms across the world on March 29th, organizers said during a mobilizing call Wednesday.

The protests started at a handful of Tesla locations in early February, and has grown to hundreds of locations across the world, as more people have come out to demonstrate against CEO Elon Musk’s dismantling of the federal government. Waving signs and chanting slogans, the so-called Tesla Takedown protesters have become a flashpoint for opposition to Musk’s actions to eliminate federal aid programs and fire tens of thousands of government employees as the head of DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency.

There have also been an uptick in incidents of arson, vandalism, and violence against Tesla showrooms that, while unrelated to the protests, have led to Musk and President Donald Trump labeling them “domestic terrorism.” Other members of the Trump administration have signaled the protesters could come under scrutiny as well. Attorney General Pam Bondi promised “severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes.”

People participate in a “TeslaTakedown” protest against Elon Musk outside of a Tesla dealership in New York, March 1, 2025. (Photo by Leonardo Munoz / AFP) (Photo by LEONARDO MUNOZ/AFP via Getty Images)

AFP via Getty Images

The hour-long call, which included actors, filmmakers, members of Congress, federal workers, academics, and journalists, tried to steer clear of Trump’s talk of “terrorism,” keeping the focus on Musk and the effort to tank the company’s stock price. Tesla’s stock has lost nearly 40 percent of its value since the beginning of the year, as poor sales and rising competition in the US and overseas have fueled growing pessimism about the company’s future.

“There is no conspiracy, there is no well-funded cabal,” said actor and filmmaker Alex Winter, who helped promote the protests early on on BlueSky. “It’s just Elon Musk who has taken Tesla down.”

Alice Hu, executive director of Planet Over Profit, said that protesters were aiming for 500 events across the world on March 29th, with demonstrations at all 277 Tesla showrooms in the US, as well as hundreds more overseas. Protesters should even feel free to demonstrate at Supercharger stations, she said.

“There is no conspiracy, there is no well-funded cabal.”

“We need to show Elon that he can throw a tantrum online because his stocks are tainting,” Hu said. “He can get Trump to put on a humiliating used car show in front of the White House. These wannabe authoritarians can try to intimidate us from exercising our First Amendment rights, but they can’t stop us from fighting back.”

Organizers were adamant that their movement was peaceful, often going out of their way to stress the nonviolent nature of the demonstrations.

“The things that we’re fighting for, we are fighting for our country,” Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Tex.) said. “We’re fighting for democracy. We’re fighting for our freedoms. And when I say fighting, I’m saying that figuratively. Obviously, everything that I am promoting is nonviolent.”

With Trump promising domestic terrorism charges for violence against Tesla, organizers advised that protesters consult attorneys to better understand the laws in their states. Some states have statutes that could be used to intimidate protesters, so its worthwhile to know what you’re up against, said Lauren Regan, executive director and senior staff attorney at the Civil Liberties Defense Center. She said in her experience, states are often hesitant to prosecute activists because there’s a strong likelihood those statutes will be found unconstitutional.

“Their goal is to just pluck a few individuals out and scare the rest of us into submission and apathy,” Regan said. “There are going to be some areas of the country that are very conservative and are gonna be hard on dissidents or activists, no matter what the timing.”

The sharp decrease in Tesla’s stock in recent weeks has clearly invigorated the protests. Several speakers spoke of Tesla’s collapse as not only possible, but likely. Micah Lee, an investigative journalist who was among a group of Twitter users to have their accounts banned by Musk shortly after his acquisition of the social platform, said that going after Tesla’s value was a “solid strategy.”

“If we kill the Tesla brand, if we drive down the stock price low enough, we can force him to sell his stock to pay back the billions of dollars of debt that he took on to buy Twitter,” Lee said. “This will drive Tesla’s stock into a death spiral.”

Musk’s status as the richest man in the world is largely thanks to Tesla’s stock price. He owns 13 percent of the company, making him the single largest shareholder. As of today, the company is worth $739 billion — down from 1.08 trillion earlier this year, meaning Musk’s stake is worth about $96 billion. And Tesla’s board of directors is composed of close friends and relatives, raising concerns about its independence from the controversial CEO. Several board members, including chair Robyn Denholm and James Murdoch, have sold over $100 million in Tesla stock in recent weeks.

“This will drive Tesla’s stock into a death spiral.”

But it’s not clear that hurting Tesla will actually matter much to Musk. He remains in Trump’s good graces, and is wielding vast amounts of control within the federal government. Even if these protests can seriously affect Tesla, Musk has consolidated so much political power that, after a certain point, it’s not clear whether market forces still apply as strongly.

Musk’s love of memes — he recently quipped “I am become meme” at CPAC — is a sign that the world’s richest man is living in a different reality than most people, which could be an advantage, said Joan Donovan,
an assistant professor of journalism and emerging media studies at Boston University who studies media manipulation, disinformation, and online political movements.

“He thinks of himself as this black hat hacker that’s broken into the government and socially engineered his way into the Treasury and he’s gonna abscond with all the data, it’s an obvious data heist,” Donovan said. “But he believes he’s living in a meme, and so we need to be very clear about what our demands are, about what our bright lines are, and that we’re not gonna stop until Tesla is done with Musk.”

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Technology

Birdbuddy’s new smart feeders aim to make spotting birds easier, even for beginners

Published

2 hours ago

January 5, 2026

Press Room

Birdbuddy’s new smart feeders aim to make spotting birds easier, even for beginners

Birdbuddy is introducing two new smart bird feeders: the flagship Birdbuddy 2 and the more compact, cheaper Birdbuddy 2 Mini aimed at first-time users and smaller outdoor spaces. Both models are designed to be faster and easier to use than previous generations, with upgraded cameras that can shoot in portrait or landscape and wake instantly when a bird lands so you’re less likely to miss the good stuff.

The Birdbuddy 2 costs $199 and features a redesigned circular camera housing that delivers 2K HDR video, slow-motion recording, and a wider 135-degree field of view. The upgraded built-in mic should also better pick up birdsong, which could make identifying species easier using both sound and sight.

The feeder itself offers a larger seed capacity and an integrated perch extender, along with support for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi for more stable connectivity. The new model also adds dual integrated solar panels to help keep it powered throughout the day, while adding a night sleep mode to conserve power.

The Birdbuddy 2 Mini is designed to deliver the same core AI bird identification and camera experience, but in a smaller, more accessible package. At 6.95 inches tall with a smaller seed capacity, it’s geared toward first-time smart birders and smaller outdoor spaces like balconies, and it supports an optional solar panel.

Birdbuddy 2’s first batch of preorders has already sold out, with shipments expected in February 2026 and wider availability set for mid-2026. Meanwhile, the Birdbuddy 2 Mini will be available to preorder for $129 in mid-2026, with the company planning on shipping the smart bird feeder in late 2026.

Technology

Robots learn 1,000 tasks in one day from a single demo

Published

2 hours ago

January 5, 2026

Press Room

Robots learn 1,000 tasks in one day from a single demo

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Most robot headlines follow a familiar script: a machine masters one narrow trick in a controlled lab, then comes the bold promise that everything is about to change. I usually tune those stories out. We have heard about robots taking over since science fiction began, yet real-life robots still struggle with basic flexibility. This time felt different.

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ELON MUSK TEASES A FUTURE RUN BY ROBOTS

Researchers highlight the milestone that shows how a robot learned 1,000 real-world tasks in just one day. (Science Robotics)

How robots learned 1,000 physical tasks in one day

A new report published in Science Robotics caught our attention because the results feel genuinely meaningful, impressive and a little unsettling in the best way. The research comes from a team of academic scientists working in robotics and artificial intelligence, and it tackles one of the field’s biggest limitations.

The researchers taught a robot to learn 1,000 different physical tasks in a single day using just one demonstration per task. These were not small variations of the same movement. The tasks included placing, folding, inserting, gripping and manipulating everyday objects in the real world. For robotics, that is a big deal.

Why robots have always been slow learners

Until now, teaching robots physical tasks has been painfully inefficient. Even simple actions often require hundreds or thousands of demonstrations. Engineers must collect massive datasets and fine-tune systems behind the scenes. That is why most factory robots repeat one motion endlessly and fail as soon as conditions change. Humans learn differently. If someone shows you how to do something once or twice, you can usually figure it out. That gap between human learning and robot learning has held robotics back for decades. This research aims to close that gap.

THE NEW ROBOT THAT COULD MAKE CHORES A THING OF THE PAST

The research team behind the study focuses on teaching robots to learn physical tasks faster and with less data. (Science Robotics)

How the robot learned 1,000 tasks so fast

The breakthrough comes from a smarter way of teaching robots to learn from demonstrations. Instead of memorizing entire movements, the system breaks tasks into simpler phases. One phase focuses on aligning with the object, and the other handles the interaction itself. This method relies on artificial intelligence, specifically an AI technique called imitation learning that allows robots to learn physical tasks from human demonstrations.

The robot then reuses knowledge from previous tasks and applies it to new ones. This retrieval-based approach allows the system to generalize rather than start from scratch each time. Using this method, called Multi-Task Trajectory Transfer, the researchers trained a real robot arm on 1,000 distinct everyday tasks in under 24 hours of human demonstration time.

Importantly, this was not done in a simulation. It happened in the real world, with real objects, real mistakes and real constraints. That detail matters.

Why this research feels different

Many robotics papers look impressive on paper but fall apart outside perfect lab conditions. This one stands out because it tested the system through thousands of real-world rollouts. The robot also showed it could handle new object instances it had never seen before. That ability to generalize is what robots have been missing. It is the difference between a machine that repeats and one that adapts.

AI VIDEO TECH FAST-TRACKS HUMANOID ROBOT TRAINING

The robot arm practices everyday movements like gripping, folding and placing objects using a single human demonstration. (Science Robotics)

A long-standing robotics problem may finally be cracking

This research addresses one of the biggest bottlenecks in robotics: inefficient learning from demonstrations. By decomposing tasks and reusing knowledge, the system achieved an order of magnitude improvement in data efficiency compared to traditional approaches. That kind of leap rarely happens overnight. It suggests that the robot-filled future we have talked about for years may be nearer than it looked even a few years ago.

What this means for you

Faster learning changes everything. If robots need less data and less programming, they become cheaper and more flexible. That opens the door to robots working outside tightly controlled environments.

In the long run, this could enable home robots to learn new tasks from simple demonstrations instead of specialist code. It also has major implications for healthcare, logistics and manufacturing.

More broadly, it signals a shift in artificial intelligence. We are moving away from flashy tricks and toward systems that learn in more human-like ways. Not smarter than people. Just closer to how we actually operate day to day.

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Kurt’s key takeaways

Robots learning 1,000 tasks in a day does not mean your house will have a humanoid helper tomorrow. Still, it represents real progress on a problem that has limited robotics for decades. When machines start learning more like humans, the conversation changes. The question shifts from what robots can repeat to what they can adapt to next. That shift is worth paying attention to.

If robots can now learn like us, what tasks would you actually trust one to handle in your own life? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com

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Kurt “CyberGuy” Knutsson is an award-winning tech journalist who has a deep love of technology, gear and gadgets that make life better with his contributions for Fox News & FOX Business beginning mornings on “FOX & Friends.” Got a tech question? Get Kurt’s free CyberGuy Newsletter, share your voice, a story idea or comment at CyberGuy.com.

Technology

Plaud updates the NotePin with a button

Published

14 hours ago

January 4, 2026

Press Room

Plaud has updated its compact NotePin AI recorder. The new NotePin S is almost identical to the original, except for one major difference: a button. It’s joined by a new Plaud Desktop app for recording audio in online meetings, which is free to owners of any Plaud Note or NotePin.

The NotePin S has the same FitBit-esque design as the 2024 original and ships with a lanyard, wristband, clip, and magnetic pin, so you can wear it just about any way you please — now all included in the box, whereas before the lanyard and wristband were sold separately.

It’s about the same size as the NotePin, comes in the same colors (black, purple, or silver), offers similar battery life, and still supports Apple Find My. Like the NotePin, it records audio and generates transcriptions and summaries, whether those are meeting notes, action points, or reminders.

But now it has a button. Whereas the first NotePin used haptic controls, relying on a long squeeze to start recording, with a short buzz to let you know it worked, the S switches to something simpler. A long press of the button starts recording, a short tap adds highlight markers. Plaud’s explanation for the change is simple: buttons are less ambiguous, so you’ll always know you’ve successfully pressed it and started recording, whereas original NotePin users complained they sometimes failed to record because they hadn’t squeezed just right.

AI recorders like this live or die by ease of use, so removing a little friction gives Plaud better odds of survival.

Alongside the NotePin S, Plaud is launching a new Mac and PC application for recording the audio from online meetings. Plaud Desktop runs in the background and activates whenever it detects calls from apps including Zoom, Meet, and Teams, recording both system audio and from your microphone. You can set it to either record meetings automatically or require manual activation, and unlike some alternatives it doesn’t create a bot that joins the call with you.

Recordings and notes are synced with those from Plaud’s line of hardware recorders, with the same models used for transcription and generation, creating a “seamless” library of audio from your meetings, both online and off.

Plaud Desktop is available now and is free to anyone who already owns a Plaud Note or NotePin device. The new NotePin S is also available today, for $179 — $20 more than the original, which Plaud says will now be phased out.