Apparently Essential doesn't feel like a full product catalogue are all that necessary to a sound business plan. Following a Bloomberg report that claimed the fledgling and flailing phone maker headed by Android creator Andy Rubin has slashed its workforce by 30 percent and was prepping the company for a sale, Essential has now stopped selling its namesake product, the PH-1, a titanium-and-ceramic beauty of a handset that never quite lived up to its own hype. In a statement to 9to5Google, Essential confirmed the phone was indeed sold out on its website, as indicated by a banner where a "Buy now" button should be. However, te spokesperson also added that it "won't be adding any new inventory," a sure sign that the once-hyped handset is officially discontinued. At the time of its launch, Essential Phone was the first handset with an "edge-to-edge" notched design and a complete lack of branding, but was missing premium features such as water resistance, wireless charging, and (at the time) a headphone jack. It was originally priced at $799, but was quickly discounted to $599.

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!): Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos. Boston Dynamics CEO Marc Raibert returns to TechCrunch Sessions Robotics and doesn't disappoint, talking about the Google acquisition, Masayoshi Son's 300-year technology investment plan, and SpotMini's "butt-cam." Playground founder and CEO Andy Rubin was also a guest at TC Sessions Robotics.

The Essential phone, designed to take on the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy, has gone into full production, according to its creator. Android inventor Andy Rubin took to Twitter to make the announcement, fuelling speculation about when it might be ready for release. New pictures appear to show the assembly lines, where the titanium body of the handset is being milled. An announcement on where and when fans can buy the firm's first model, the PH-1, is expected next week. A new handset designed to take on the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy has gone into full production, according to its creator. Startup firm Essential says it has raised raised over $300 million (£231 million) in new funding and signed up retailers to sell its first device.

A few weeks after the tech giant admitted that it is already running its own machine learning investment fund, it now announced to the public its hands-on Launchpad Studio program which aims to provide support and resources to hungry AI startups. In the company's Google Developers Blog post on Wednesday, Google claimed that the program's mission is to "enable startups from around the world to build great companies." "In the last 4 years, we've learned a lot while supporting early and late-stage founders. From working with dynamic startups--such as teams applying Artificial Intelligence technology to solving transportation problems in Israel, improving tele-medicine in Brazil, and optimizing online retail in India--we've learned that these startups require specialized services to help them scale," a part of the post read. The Launchpad Studio is another initiative from Google that shows the company's commitment to artificial intelligence and machine learning studies.

Here's some free advice: Don't try to break into Andy Rubin's house. As soon as your car turns into the driveway at his sprawling pad in the Silicon Valley hills, a camera will snap a photo of your vehicle, run it through computer-vision software to extract the plate number, and file it into a database. Rubin's system can be set to text him every time a certain car shows up or to let specific vehicles through the gate. Thirty-odd other cameras survey almost every corner of the property, and Rubin can pull them up in a web browser, watching the real-time grid like Lucius Fox surveying Gotham from the Batcave. If by some miracle you were to make it all the way to the front door, you'd never get past the retinal scanner. Rubin doesn't employ human security guards. He doesn't think he needs them. The 54-year-old tech visionary (who, among other things, coinvented Android) is pretty sure he has the world's smartest house. The homebrew security net is only the beginning: There's also a heating and ventilating system that takes excess heat from various rooms and automatically routes it into cooler areas. He has a wireless music system, a Crestron custom- install home automation system, and an automatic cleaner for his pool. Getting the whole place up and running took Rubin a decade. And don't even ask him what it cost.

A new handset designed to take on the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy could be launched in the UK before 2017 is out. Essential, founded by Android inventor Andy Rubin, hopes to take on the industry leaders and has secured £230 million ($300 million) to make it happen. The technology firm has held talks with major network operators to secure a launch date for the minimalist mobile in the UK, Japan and western Europe. Customers in the US who pre-ordered the handset, however, are still waiting for theirs to arrive and there have been rumours of trouble at the startup. A new handset designed to take on the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy could be launched in a number of major markets before 2017 is out. Dubbed the'Essential Phone PH-1', the phone is based on the Android operating system and will be shipped without any apps A new handset designed to take on the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy could be launched in a number of major markets before 2017 is out.

Essential, the consumer electronics startup from Google Android creator Andy Rubin, is undergoing some executive turnover. This seems to be even more confirmation that the Essential Phone release date is still murky. Brian Wallace, vice president of marketing at Essential, left the company last week, according to Business Insider. Wallace has taken on a role at i.am. Andy Fouché, an advisor who also worked as Essential's head of communications, left the company last month, according to Business Insider.

In Andy Rubin's past career stops, the former Android co-founder has generally managed to be either ahead of the curve or close to it. At Danger Inc., Rubin helped produce the T-Mobile Sidekick and with Android, he also nurtured the mobile operating system into Apple's biggest competitor in the smartphone marketplace. Essential, the new consumer electronics company from Rubin, doesn't necessarily fit the same mold. At last week's Code Conference, Rubin admitted a smartphone is more "technology evolution" than rocket science. But the upcoming Essential Phone is, at least against the current smartphone market, a similarly aggressive moonshot.

When Android co-founder Andy Rubin left Google in November of 2014, shortly after a major executive shake-up within the search giant, his next move wasn't particularly clear. All we knew back then was that he reportedly wanted to start something on his own, which turned out to be building a high-end phone with a company called Essential Products Inc. And after much speculation and multiple teases by Rubin himself, we now know that device is the Essential Phone, an Android handset with a gorgeous design and top-of-the-line specs. The Essential features a 5.7-inch edge-to-edge display (similar to the one on Samsung's Galaxy S8), the latest Snapdragon 835 processor, 128GB of built-in storage, 4GB RAM and near-vanilla version of Android Nougat. It's basically everything you'd want in an Android handset in 2017.

Based on a first look, it doesn't. We listened to Rubin speak and spent some time with the Essential phone at the Code conference here. We now have a better idea of what issues Rubin's new phone is trying to solve than the ones kind of buried on the new Essential website. Rubin says he wants to "solve consumer problems" with both his new phone, out in June starting at $699, and other products down the line, such as an Amazon Echo-like speaker. For the Essential phone, Rubin and staffers say you won't need to buy the accessory protection because it's not needed.