Borgar Ljosland, FXI Technologies: Cotton Candy USB Companion Adapter Enables Screens to Access the Cloud and Mobile Content

Borgar Ljosland, FXI Technologies: Cotton Candy USB Companion Adapter Enables Screens to Access the Cloud and Mobile Content

November 21, 2011

FXI Technologies, a hardware and software startup based in Trondheim Norway, demonstrated 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.

The vision for Cotton Candy is to allow 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, notebook PC and Macs, as well add smart capabilities to existing displays, TVs, set top boxes and game consoles.

“Today’s device functionality is often limited by the size of the screen it inhabits,” said Borgar Ljosland, founder and CEO of FXI Technologies. “We’ve turned things upside down, eliminating the screen and delivering the power of a PC and the web to any screen.”

Cotton Candy is a prototype USB stick equipped with an ARM Cortex-A9 (1.2GHz) CPU, an ARM Mali-400 MP (Quad-core) GPU, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, HDMI output and the Android operating system. It decodes MPEG-4, H.264 and other video formats and display HD graphics on any HDMI equipped screen. Content is then accessed through a secure FXI web portal and can be controlled via smartphones, keyboards, mice and other USB peripherals.

“By leveraging the strengths of ARM CPU and GPU cores, FXI has packed an amazing amount of computing horsepower into a completely new form factor,” said Pete Hutton, general manager of multimedia processor division, ARM. “Weighing only 21 grams and so energy-efficient that it can be powered from a USB port, the Cotton Candy offers a unique consumer experience, which will bring Cloud computing to almost any screen.”

FXI’s Cotton Candy plans to:

Provide consumer-friendly access to the Cloud.
Accelerate the adoption of “smart screens”.
Extend the life of consumer hardware like laptops, monitors, TVs, set top boxes, tablets and more by accessing the latest OS, software and apps.
Create a single point of content storage.
Consolidation and organization of personal digital content.
Share media from mobile devices on large screens and projectors – videos, movies, photos, games and more.
Drive down the cost of computing, allowing more people to have a personal, secure computer.

“With the broad acceptance of Cloud computing and the advancement in processor technologies, the concept of a “screenless PC” is a natural evolution in the form factor of computing devices,” said Jon Peddie, president of Jon Peddie and Associates. “The connectivity, flexibility and multi-screen compatibility of FXI’s Cotton Candy makes it like a computer built specifically for the Cloud.”