The Cotton Candy: Dual-core computer on a USB stick !

This USB stick is a dual-core computer and you can carry it around in your pocket and it connect to any screen

(Image of Cotton candy prototype: http://www.fxitech.com/)

The Cotton Candy is a USB stick sized compute device allows users a single, secure point of access to all personal cloud services and apps through their favorite operating system, while delivering a consistent experience on any screen.  The device will serve as a companion to smartphones, tablets, and notebook PC and Macs, as well add smart capabilities to existing displays, TVs, set top boxes and other media that supports USB mass storage.

FXI Technologies, a hardware and software startup based in Trondheim Norway, demonstrated today the world’s first any screen, connected computing USB device.  Codenamed “Cotton Candy”, this sweet little device serves as a technology bridge between any display, the Cloud, and any input peripheral.

Technical Specifications-

• Quad Core ARM® Mali™-400MP Graphics Processing Unit
  – Quad-core ARM Mali-400MP 720p / 1080p OpenGL ES v2.0
  – 30M Polygons, 1.2 GPixels / s
• ARM® Cortex™-A9@1.2GHz
  – NEON extensions
  – TrustZone extensions
• Connectivity
  Wifi 802.11 b/g/n
  Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Memory
  1GB DRAM
  Up to 64GB memory local storage (microSD)
• Software
  – Android
  – Ubuntu
  – Virtualization client for Windows, Linux, Mac, embedded
• Video / Audio / Media Support
  – 480p/720p/1080p decode of MPEG4-SP/H.263/H.264 AVC/MPEG-2/VC1
  – MP3, AAC, AAC+, Real Audio
  – JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG
  – Additional video, audio and image formats can be supported through 3rd party codecs
• Connectors
  – USB 2.0 male form factor for power and connection to devices that supports USB mass storage
  – HDMI 2.1 with audio for connection to devices that does not support USB mass storage
• Weighing only 21 grams and so energy-efficient that it can be powered from a USB port
• Cost will be less than $200

(Image: Laptop mag)

So can we say the future version of Cotton Candy will run the ARM version of Windows 8?

Though the current prototype runs Android 2.3, Borgar told us that the ARM-based hardware can run Ubuntu Linux currently and future versions should be able to run the ARM version of Windows 8. Future versions of the device will have a USB 3 connector and faster processors.  (Check here for more details)

Also more details at FXI Technologies- http://www.fxitech.com/