Carl Pei’s ‘Nothing’ now owns the Essential brand, and I’m kinda hyped

Here’s one bit of surprising tech news: Essential, the smartphone company launched by Android co-creator Andy Rubin, is not dead quite yet. The brand has instead been acquired by Nothing, the upstart tech company created by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei. The news, via a report by 9to5Google, comes out of left field, considering Pei had so far only teased upcoming earbuds from his new company. While the idea that Nothing might be considering getting into smartphones isn’t surprising considering Pei’s pedigree, using the Essential brand for it would certainly be unexpected. Of course, we don’t actually know what Nothing plans…

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