Cotton Candy - A USB stick that brings Android to PCs, TVs

Google really wishes to see its Android everywhere. The mobile operating system has now grown beyond smartphones and tablets. FXI Technologies, a Norwegian company has now invented a USB stick, codenamed Cotton Candy, which will help run Android on any screens including computers, TVs, stereos or any other devices with a display. It is the simplest way you can run Android on personal computers or television sets. A Windows/Linux/OS X-compatible virtualization client with Cotton Candy enables the wonderful feature. On just connecting the USB stick with a computer or other devices it will load Android and many apps including Google Search.

Cotton Candy

Many analysts have called Cotton Candy as the world’s tiniest personal computer. According to Sydney Morning Herald’s Glenda Kwek, the 21 gram Cotton Candy is a tiny PC. In fact, the small USB gadget is equipped with a 1.2GHz ARM Cortex (TM) A9 processor, Mali 400 MP ARM quad core GPU, HDMI output, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Android 2.3 Gingerbread. The gadget supports MPEG 4, H.264 and many other video formats. You can watch High Definition content on HDTV using the USB stick.

How it works

Cotton Candy comes with a USB 2.0 on one side and HDMI port on the other. You can connect the device with any electronic product that has USB port. Thus, you can run Android on devices like computers, stereo players and others. Thanks to the HDMI port, you can connect the gadget with TVs and other electronic products that support HDMI. On connecting the device, your computer or TV will show Android OS and relevant apps. There will appear a virtual window with many Android features, including a Google search bar, which you use to search the web.

Certainly, Cotton Candy increases the extent of Android supportability to many more devices. Apart from smartphones, tablets and music players, the Google operating system is now ready for TVs, refrigerators, car stereos and many others. The software, thanks to suitable apps for each product, is now to reign over the entire consumer electronic products industry. Maybe, FXI Technologies’ Cotton Candy will be just a start. We can expect more similar products from other companies in near future.

Benefits of Cotton Candy USB stick

Android anywhere: Android is an open source and highly simple operating system for portable devices. Google has now furnished the software with lots of capabilities. Being an open source software item, technology makers can use it in their devices. With the Android fueling UB stick, you can now enjoy Android on PCs, TVs, stereos and many other gadgets.

Portable: The USB stick is suitable named Cotton Candy, because it weighs just 21 grams like a bag of the confection. So, you can carry the USB stick anywhere and enjoy Android whenever you want on any devices.

Google search everywhere: Thanks to Android on PCs, TVs and other devices, we have Android on any devices. It means many Android features like Google search will appear on the devices. Users can search web from any device with a screen. Thus, more ads are served and Google’s revenue goes up.

With the Cotton Candy USB gadget, FXI intends to turn things down. The company aims to deliver the power of a personal computer to any devices with screens, says Borgar Ljosland, the founder and CEO of FXI Technologies. Customers can enjoy computing experience on many of their devices. They can surf web and check mails on TVs and other devices thanks to Cotton Candy USB stick.

As per Wired’s review, Cotton Candy is a perfect fit for car stereos and many other products that have USB ports. In fact, Google makes big advantage of such moves of running Android on many devices other than traditional computers. The company gets much more space to showcase its ads and thus boost its core business. People get more platforms to surf the web and keep updated with the latest pieces of information.

Via: Wired