Cotton Candy – any screen connected device can run Android or Ubuntu

This post adds another scope to the types of content available on this website. It belongs in the Hardware Profiles category, and coverage will be about computing devices, sans smart phones, that runs or can run any Linux distribution, including Android and webOS.

The device that made the first post in this category is Cotton Candy, a USB stick-sized computing device being developed by FXI Technologies, a technology startup based in Trondheim, Norway. It is being marketed as an any screen companion device designed to give consumers a consistent digital experience “from screen to screen.”

For a device of its size, the hardware specs are pretty impressive. It is powered by the ARM Cortex™-A9 processor humming at 1.2 GHz, and a Quad Core ARM® Mali™-400MP Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), with a 1 GB DRAM. It also features wireless (b/g/n) and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR connectivity.

It sports a USB 2.0, HDMI 2.1 connectors and a microSD slot, and can handle a wide range of audio, image and video formats. To top it off, it can run Android or Ubuntu.

The device has several potential uses, but the draw for me is the ability to run Android without a tablet. Run Android without a tablet! Now, that would be cool. It is available to developers in limited quantities, and slated to hit the market in Q3 2012. For more information, visit fxitech.com.