The Cotton Candy is a very small, fanless
single-board computer on a stick, putting the full functions of a
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
on a device the size of a
USB memory stick, manufactured by the
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
-based hardware and software for-profit
startup company
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend ...
FXI Technologies (also referred to as just "FXI Tech").
Overview
Cotton Candy is a low-power
ARM architecture CPU based computer which uses dual-core processors such as the dual-core 1.2
GHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
Exynos 4210 (45 nm
ARM Cortex-A9 with 1MB L2 cache)
SoC (System on a chip) by
Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
, featuring a quad-core 200
MHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
ARM
Mali-400 MP GPU
OpenGL ES
OpenGL for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES or GLES) is a subset of the OpenGL computer graphics rendering application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D computer graphics such as those used by video games, typically hardware-accele ...
2.0 capable 2D/3D
graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...
, an Audio and Video Decoder hardware engine, and
TrustZone (Security Extensions) Cryptographic Engine and Security Accelerator (CESA) co-processor. The platform is said to be able to stream and decode
H.264
Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...
1080p
1080p (1920×1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the screen ve ...
content, and be able to use desktop class interfaces such as
KDE
KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...
or
GNOME under Linux.
FXI Technologies claims it will run both
Android 4.0 (
Ice Cream Sandwich
An ice cream sandwich is a frozen dessert consisting of ice cream between two biscuits, skins, wafers, or cookies. The ingredients are different around the world, with Ireland and Israel using wafers, and North America using chocolate cookie ...
) and the latest
Ubuntu Desktop Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
s, leveraging
Linaro
Linaro is an engineering organization that works on free and open-source software such as the Linux kernel, the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), QEMU, power management, graphics and multimedia interfaces for the ARM family of instruction sets and i ...
builds and
Linux kernel optimizations.
As of 13 September 2012, FXI started to ship to those that pre-ordered devices. At the time of writing (November 2013), the Cotton Candy is generally available. FXI have also made a Beta android ICS image and Beta Linux image available for download.
On 16 of July 2014, FXI declared bankruptcy.
Reception
In January 2012 the Cotton Candy made it to the top-10 finalist at the "''Last Gadget Standing''" new technology competition at
CES 2012. Also at CES 2012, LaptopMag.com made Cotton Candy a top-10 finalist for its "''Readers’ Choice for Best of CES 2012''" award. EFYTimes News Network as well named FXI Technologies Cotton Candy a "''Top 10 Gadgets Launched @ CES 2012''".
See also
*
Exynos
Exynos, formerly Hummingbird (), is a series of ARM-based system-on-chips developed by Samsung Electronics' System LSI division and manufactured by Samsung Foundry. It is a continuation of Samsung's earlier S3C, S5L and S5P line of SoCs.
E ...
, System on a Chip by Samsung used in Cotton Candy
References
External links
*
{{Android other
Computer-related introductions in 2011
Linux-based devices
Computers and the environment
Embedded Linux
Single-board computers