Cotton Candy Unifies And Extends Computers, Dumb Screens, And Smartphones

FXI Technologies, the Norwegian creator of the “any screen computer,” Cotton Candy, has announced a new partnership with Polkast and is accepting pre-orders on the device for developers. The mini computer is about the size of a USB stick and packs a lot of power for its size. The device is a complete computer platform that will allow users a single, secure point of access to all personal cloud services and apps through their favorite operating system installed on the device, while delivering a consistent experience on any screen through its USB and HDMI connections.

The device can serve as a portable, secure thin client on PCs, Macs and notebooks as well as a set top box, gaming system, cloud computer, and more. In some sense it unifies computers, dumb screens, and smartphones and looks like a useful device to have in your pocket.

The new partnership between Polkast and FXI offers a deeper integration between the device and smartphones. The technology demonstrated this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona allowed users to pick and choose photos, videos and other content remotely on an HDTV using Cotton Candy as the connected computing platform and a smartphone as the input device. For instance, when visiting family and friends, consumers can plug the USB-stick sized Cotton Candy into their TV and instantly access their complete suite of cloud and hardware devices, easily sharing their complete library of music, photos and videos.

Here’s the hardware specs of the device:

• 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 3^rd 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

A more detailed look at Cotton Candy can be found on their website, as well as on the product brief (PDF).