Foxconn has become Microsoft's biggest single patent licensee. While that might not be surprising—the Taiwanese manufacturer produces an amazing 40 percent of the world's consumer electronic devices—the fact that the patents are over Android might be.

Apparently creating a company called "Qwikster" wasn't the only bad idea Reed Hastings had: in an internal motivational video uncovered by FastCompany, you get a look at the CEO's idea of humor. Let's make fun of overworked, unconscious Chinese workers.

Working conditions at Foxconn plants are well known to just about everyone at this point. And while executives have been paying lip service to improvements for years, it seems that things are finally looking up. But the improved conditions come at a cost.

So many things are made in China: DVD players, handbags, adorable shoes, kitchen gadgets, watches, t-shirts, laptops, and more. Some of them are made in happy, shiny factories. Some are born out of deplorable labor conditions that ruin and cost lives. We usually don't know which.

Earlier this week, Foxconn owned up to using underage workers in one of its factories. That's made Nintendo—whose Wii U is also assembled at Foxconn—suspicious, so it's launching its own investigation into the Chinese manufacturer's labor practices.

Apple touted the fit, finish, and technical wizardry required to produce the iPhone 5. Apparently that wasn't just marketing fluff. According to an unnamed Foxconn exec who spoke to the Wall Street Journal, it really is a pain in the ass to manufacture.

Just a week after riots broke out at Foxconn over working conditions at the Chinese plant that manufactures Apple's glorious new iPhone 5, the company is mixed up in another labor imbroglio. This time, it's over the admitted use of child labor. But sheath thy pichforks because Foxconn's not entirely to blame.

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple's iPhone 5 production is slowing, as it attempts to cut the number of devices shipped with nicks and scratches by improving aluminum quality control at Foxconn.

Yesterday, reports came in that around 4,000 over-worked and under-paid Foxconn employees began to strike, potentially hitching up iPhone 5 production, the stresses of which had pushed them to the breaking point. According Foxconn, however, everything at the plant in question is just peachy.

When you hold the iPhone 5 it feels, frankly, unreal. It's lighter than it has any business being, it's thinner, it's smoother. Regardless of how you feel about Apple, its latest phone seems too good to be true.