Have you experienced that the first software updates make the device better, but after some year it starts to get more and more sluggish and drains the battery? It has started to assume newer hardware exist and need to emulate it with software instead and that can be very inefficient.
Turning your device to waste is not what the app developer want, and is not good for the environment either. If the hardware chips inside the device were re-configurable instead of frozen to an old design, it would not get outdated as fast. Alternatively, if the complete device was manufactured with very low environmental impact and using decomposable parts, it would not matter as much when it does get outdated. But it would still need to be small, cheap, fast and power efficient – otherwise the product won’t sell. With latest nanoelectronics and material technologies this is finally becoming feasible! Examples of new research to consider in technology roadmaps:
- Nanowire LEDs – photonics with 3D elements (http://www.glo.se/Vid/index.html).
- Graphene transistors – electronics with 2D elements (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7313/full/nature09405.html).
- NanoPLAs – connectivity with 1D elements (http://ic.ese.upenn.edu/pdf/inanopla_fpga2005.pdf).
Joakim Pettersson, the founder of Quflow, was doing early nanoelectronics research 15 years ago and are working with experts on nanodevices that are industrialized now. Quflow can help companies analyze and industrialize in this new era of extremely power efficient, sustainable and small devices.
Quflow & Perfeco 
One reply on “Technologies for sustainable devices”
Regarding the design of sustainable devices in general, see for example http://www.slideshare.net/jmkorhonen/sustainable-design-lecture-to-idbm-class-0809-291008-helsinki-presentation.