FXI brings Cotton Candy Android to USB devices

by Steven Mostyn - Nov 21 2011, 09:52

What you’re looking at here is a USB stick. However, it’s no ordinary USB stick. No, because rather than being just a portable platform designed for data storage, the Cotton Candy stick is actually a fully functioning mini computer.

Created by the boffins at FXI Technologies, the Cotton Candy enables users to run Google’s Android operating system in a secure virtual environment from any USB-compatible computer.

When sticking the stick into a tower or notebook (Windows or Mac), the device is recognized as a regular USB drive before promptly firing up Android via the host computer’s desktop thanks to the inclusion of a Windows/OSX/Linux virtualization client.

Belying its modest size, the Cotton Candy also boasts a 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor, an ARM quad-core Mali-400 GPU, 1GB or RAM, Android 2.3 as standard, Bluetooth, microSD, and even HDMI-out for pushing Android onto compatible TVs.

Likely to provide a tantalizing glimpse of what Android will feel like when it finally evolves beyond mobile devices, the Cotton Candy should arrive by the close of 2012’s second quarter attached to a price of around $200 USD.

It’s worth noting that access to the Android Market is sadly not supported as the device has not been officially recognized and rubber-stamped by Google. Still… woof.

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