‘This idea that every kid has to have one device per student is going to seem obscene in 20 years’ time when these devices aren’t sustainable anymore. The amount of rare minerals and just plastic products and power and everything associated with using technology use needs to be rethought,’ he says.

the more devastating impacts of pedal-to-the-metal digital capitalism fall on the environment and global poor. The manufacture of some of our computers and smartphones still uses networks of slave labor. These practices are so deeply entrenched that a company called Fairphone, founded from the ground up to make and market ethical phones, learned it was impossible. (The company’s founder now sadly refers to their products as “fairer” phones.)Meanwhile, the mining of rare earth metals and disposal of our highly digital technologies destroys human habitats, replacing them with toxic waste dumps, which are then picked over by peasant children and their families, who sell usable materials back to the manufacturers.

Mozilla's Firefox OS is just the latest in a long list of mobile operating systems that have struggled to get the attention of consumers, who have typically shied away from upstarts often characterized by a weak selection of apps available. That hard-luck list includes Microsoft's Windows Phone, Samsung's Tizen, Jolla's Sailfish OS, Canonical's Ubuntu, Hewlett-Packard's WebOS and BlackBerry's BlackBerry OS.

"We are definitely working with a good number of partners who desire a non-Android OS to power their mobile devices," Acadine founder and Chief Executive Li Gong told CNET. He declined to detail discussions but said, "We are now the frontrunner in terms of choice in this space."

Mobile users have a constant low-level awareness of their device; the possibility that communication may arrive at any instant inhabits their awareness. It’s like you’re expecting a visitor sometime or have a pot slowly boiling in the other room, your attention is split.